The Hollywoodisation of war: The media handling of the Iraq conflict

Abstract

The media war over Iraq began with an ominous warning. US President, George W. Bush told journalists to leave Baghdad, because he could not guarantee their safety. 1 Events in Iraq had reached the "final days of decision", he said. Saddam Hussein and his sons, like a gang of Hollywood rustlers, were given forty eight hours to get out of town. Three days later the invasion of Iraq began. This article considers the propaganda techniques deployed by both sides in the 2003 Iraq war as they sought to manipulate global coverage of events. It draws extensively on internet sources, in part because the fragmented reports from the field became in the end less important than the globalised whole which consisted of text, audio and television converging on the world wide web