Televising War: From Vietnam to Iraq

(Paperback)

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Our relationship with the past-whether judgment, celebration, commemoration or denialhas become an important part of public culture. This book explores the relationship between televisual communication and memoryfocusing on the conflicts that have disrupted and changed our world over the past 50 yearswith particular reference to the current war in Iraq. Case studies cover the Holocaust, Vietnam, both Gulf Wars and Kosovo. Though the Vietnam War was extensively televised, it was framed within a domestic U.S. context. By the time of the latest Gulf War and Kosovo the coverage of warfare was both more immediate and more global. Hoskins illustrates this with a comparative critique of individual countries' national media framing of war (including Middle Eastern perspectives) in contrast to the so-called "global" viewpoint of satellite news networks such as CNN. Televising War examines the intertwining of self, society and media that influences our understanding of both past and present.

Reviews

"British intellectual Andrew Hoskins' new book Televising War is a must read. Hoskins' study of television's dependence on the image as its bread and butter provides a nuanced analysis of the recent shift in public opinion regarding Iraq. Televising War provides a considered, measured dissection as a rebuke to T.V.'s sensationalism" - New York Press, 6/21/04 - 6/27/04
"Hoskins' take on televised war is not pretty for the very reason that Western television's pictures of war are usually all too pretty....Hoskins convincingly argues that the significance of news decreases as the demand for immediacy increases.'... Essential." -- A.R. Cannella, Choice, 2/15/05 * Choice *

Author Bio

Andrew Hoskins is Associate Professor in Sociology at the University of Warwick, UK