Television, War And Truth
...free speech. The recent television coverage of the two Gulf Wars and the resulting Iraq social and political crisis has raised questions about truth and reality in television ideas central to a democratic process. The Arabic television broadcaster Al Jazeera has played a significant role in challenging many held social and cultural assumptions about global television broadcasting, by providing a counterpoint view to events in the Middle East. Using both media and text examples, explain your intellectual position in this current debate around television, war and truth.
Democracy, free speech and public information has been associated with television, but after the truth about the Iraq War was revealed by the Arabic television broadcaster Al Jazeera, and documentaries such as Fahrenheit 9/11 and Uncovered: The truth about the Iraq War, the public in general began to question the truth in television. The consequence of screening the Vietnam War on television has taught the US and Australian governments a valuable lesson: censorship is an imperative method to restrain public knowledge and judgement about war, and this was accordingly implemented during the two Gulf Wars. Reasons as to why images are held back from the public and thus conceal the truth include: sustaining high television ratings and to gain and maintain public support. Such methods seem quite deceitful, but such a technique has its advantages and disadvantages.
The outcome of publicising the Vietnam War was Moratorium marches where the public demonstrated their condemnation of their country's involvement in the war and therefore their disapproval of their respective Governments. Andreas Zumach said in his article "From Vietnam to Kosovo: Media and Propaganda in Times of War" (2000), that by publicising the Vietnam War it ultimately indirectly ended it: "Images of incredible suffering of both the...
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