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- Herausgeber: GRIN Verlag
- Sprache: Englisch
- Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2011
Diploma Thesis from the year 2008 in the subject Communications - Media and Politics, Politic Communications, grade: 1,0, University of Applied Sciences Osnabrück, course: Kommunikationsmanagement, language: English, abstract: The ongoing war in Iraq was precipitated by a flurry of spin and propaganda originating from the White House. In September 2002, the U.S. administration kicked off a communication campaign almost unprecedented in its dimensions, in order to convince Congress and the public of a military strike in Iraq; a campaign so skillfully woven that a huge part of the U.S. media industry seemed to forget its ‘watchdog’-role and went out of its way to surpass the others in patriotism, critical coverage be damned. In early 2003, however, many of Washington’s claims and assertions were slowly beginning to get publicly questioned or downright proven wrong by experts and the media, especially when no weapons of mass destruction were found in Iraq after extensive searches. A question surfaced that had not been explicitly asked in the months before the war: the question whether the administration might have misled the American people into war by exaggerating the threat Saddam Hussein posed to the world and, in order to do so, might even have manipulated evidence. However, a question just as important is, whether the American media lost sight of its obligations in the run-up to war, and by temporarily neglecting its standards of objectivity and neutrality gave the U.S. administration the platform it needed to actually convince the public of the necessity of military action. This paper’s primary hypothesis will be that not even a critically acclaimed newspaper like The New York Times was able to evade the White House’s spin and propaganda, but that the coverage got more critical as time went by, even though there was little public self-reflection on behalf of the journalists and editors. To analyze a possible shift in attitude and reporting, editorials and front page articles about Iraq that included references to the White House’s communication campaign and were published between August 2002 and July 2003 were quantitatively and qualitatively examined.
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We got around to the subject of war again and I said that, contrary to his
attitude, I did not think that the common people are very thankful for
leaders who bring them war and destruction.
"Why, of course, the people don't want war," Goering shrugged. "Why
would some poor slob on a farm want to risk his life in a war when the
best that he can get out of it is to come back to his farm in one piece.
Naturally, the common people don't want war; neither in Russia nor in
England nor in America, nor for that matter in Germany. That is
understood. But, after all, it is the leaders of the country who determine
the policy and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along,
whether it is a democracy or a fascist dictatorship or a Parliament or a
Communist dictatorship."
"There is one difference," I pointed out. "In a democracy the people have
some say in the matter through their elected representatives, and in the
United States only Congress can declare wars."
"Oh, that is all well and good, but, voice or no voice, the people can
always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you
have to do is tell them they are being attacked and denounce the
pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It
works the same way in any country."
---HermannGoering talking to psychiatrist G.M Gilbert in his prison cell
during the Nuremberg Trials [Gilbert (1947), pp. 278/279]
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“Thoreau reminds us that in order for there to be truth in our lives there
must be someone to speak it first. We as a society assume those truths
will be freely distributed by those who run our country and those who
keep us informed - those we are supposed to be able to depend on and
trust. In a time of war, free speech comes under fire by our government in
the forms of censorship, false reporting and untruths and unbalanced
news. The truth needed for a vibrant democracy has dissipated, leaving
behind an antiseptic and sanitized version of the war in Iraq, brought to
us by media corporations - often referred to as ‘mouthpieces for the US
government’.”
---
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PREFACE
The ongoing war in Iraq was precipitated by a flurry of spin and propaganda originating from the White House. In September 2002, the U.S. administration kicked off a communication campaign almost unprecedented in its dimensions, in order to convince Congress and the public of a military strike in Iraq; a campaign so skillfully woven that a huge part of the U.S. media industry seemed to forget its ‘watchdog’-role and went out of its way to surpass the others in patriotism, critical coverage be damned.
The administration’s three main arguments for war were Saddam Hussein’s alleged weapons of mass destruction (WMD), his ambitions to acquire a nuclear weapon, and1Iraq’s supposed ties to the terrorist network al Qaeda , all of which were embedded into
an elaborate and still on-going campaign of half-truths, lies and deceit. Over months, White House officials used a plethora of spin and propaganda techniques to make the public believe the only option to retain peace was, in fact, war − and they were exceptionally successful with it.
In early 2003, however, many of Washington’s claims and assertions were slowly beginning to get publicly questioned or downright proven wrong by experts and the media, especially when no weapons of mass destruction were found in Iraq after extensive searches. A question surfaced that had not been explicitly asked in the months before the war: the question whether the administration might have misled the American people into war by exaggerating the threat Saddam Hussein posed to the world and, in order to do so, might even have manipulated evidence.
However, a question just as important is, whether the American media lost sight of its obligations in the run-up to war, and by temporarily neglecting its standards of objectivity and neutrality gave the U.S. administration the platform it needed to actually convince the public of the necessity of military action.
In the United States, a special role as opinion leaders in the newspaper sector adheres to a handful of critically acclaimed publications with a high nationwide circulation.The New York Times(short:Times)is America’s third largest newspaper, and, therefore, has a special obligation to well-researched and unbiased coverage. As the acknowledged agenda-setter in its medium, it has the potential to influence a broad public, as well as other media, and for that reason was chosen as the subject of the following analysis.
This paper’s primary hypothesis will be that not even a critically acclaimed newspaper like theTimeswas able to evade the White House’s spin and propaganda, but that the coverage got more critical as time went by, even though there was little public selfreflection on behalf of the journalists and editors.
1There appears to be widespread disagreement on the correct spelling of ‘al Qaeda’. The author of this paper
will use the spelling as seen above; spelling deviating in any way will be considered and marked as incorrect.
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To analyze a possible shift in attitude and reporting, editorials and front page articles about Iraq that included references to the White House’s communication campaign and were published between August 2002 (the beginning of the communication campaign) and July 2003 (when most of the administration’s claims had already been questioned or had fallen apart), were quantitatively and qualitatively examined.
The first part of the paper will give a short overview of spin and propaganda, and any other terms needing clarification and definition. Since analyzing the whole campaign would go way beyond what this thesis can achieve, the paper’s second part will concentrate on the three major claims the White House based its case for war on. By means of speeches and public appearances made by senior U.S. administration officials between August 2002 and March 2003, an overview will be given about the different arguments used to substantiate the claims.
In a second step, opposing voices and opinions to the administration’s claims will be looked at, as well as the White House’s reaction to its assertions being contested. In an additional chapter, the major spin and propaganda techniques used by the administration will be highlighted. Lastly, the three claims will be put into a broader perspective by giving examples of additional strategies and tactics employed in the overall communication campaign.
Research question, hypotheses and methodology will be outlined in Chapter 3, while in the fourth part the results of the quantitative and qualitative analysis of front page articles and editorials will be discussed and compared. In a last step, it will be determined whether the assumptions made beforehand applied to the paper’s coverage.
Since the analysis of a single newspaper can only provide a glimpse into the media system, though, the subsequent study should not be seen as a representative analysis of the U.S. print media as a whole. However, it can offer an insight into how a respected and influential publication, that without a doubt affects other media, handled the U.S. administration’s communication campaign and the overall spirit of war in the country.
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1. DEFINITIONS
The communication campaign initiated by the White House before the war in Iraq was given multiple different labels. Journalists called it a public relations, sometimes even a marketing campaign, but through independent authors and experts the terms propaganda and spin soon found their way into the descriptions. However, in a startling lot of cases all those terms were used virtually interchangeably. But while some aspects of the fields might be related or might even be used in concert, they all essentially convey very different concepts of communication.
Since this paper will deal mostly with the spin and propaganda aspects of the U.S. administration’s campaign, the next chapters will define those fields more closely. In order to fully grasp the above mentioned differences in the understanding of communication, though, a short definition of public relations and marketing will be given first.
1.1 MARKETINGANDPUBLIC RELATIONS (PR)
Although the boundaries between marketing and public relations often overlap − both deal with an organization’s relationships and employ similar tools to reach their publics −, they actually serve two different purposes.
American marketing-coach Brian Norris probably summarized the essence of the various definitions of marketing best when he said “if it doesn't facilitate a ‘sale’ then it's2In other words, through marketing, an organization communicates with not marketing."
its consumer markets. Its major purpose is to increase the organization’s profit by increasing demand in its goods or services, for instance through advertising or promotion.
The goal of public relations, on the other hand, is to build long-lasting relationships with any public − including, but not limited to, consumers, employees, stockholders, and suppliers − that could constrain or enhance an organization’s ability to meet its mission. Though it can ultimately have an influence on sales, public relations is not about selling products, but about influencing the public’s images and opinions of a company. In its ideal form it is more than persuasion, that is to say a reciprocal process involving compromise, mutual understanding and a win-win situation for both the organization and its publics (meaning that both sides are willing to change their attitudes and behaviors in order to achieve the best result possible for both parties).
While spin and propaganda are often associated with public relations, their objectives vastly differ, as will be shown in the following chapters. Since both terms encompass a
2http://www.briannorris.com/whatismarketing.html, accessed on April 25, 2007
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multitude of descriptions and applications, the subsequent definitions will concentrate on the political implementations of both propaganda and spin.
1.2 SPIN
3The American HeritageAs “a distinctive point of view, emphasis or interpretation,”
Dictionarydescribes spin in very neutral terms. However, neutral is the last thing spin usually is. Commonly used in the field of politics, it is still tightly connected to public relations and defines a “sometimes pejorative term signifying a heavily biased portrayal in one’s own favor of an event or situation. While traditional public relations may also rely on creative presentation of the facts, spin often, though not always, implies disingenuous,4deceptive and/or highly manipulative tactics.”
While in the early days spin was merely referring to “unethical and misleading activities of5(often called spin doctors), nowadays it is used to political campaign consultants”
describe virtually all attempts to influence public opinion by putting a favorable bias on information. However, the negative connotation the term carries remains, causing many public relations professionals to distance themselves from it.
In spin, facts are often selectively presented to support one’s position, or statements are phrased in a way that assumes unproven truths. Another technique includes the rejection of the validity of hypotheticals, which the U.S. administration employed, for instance, by never accepting the common opinion that American soldiers might not be6greeted as liberators in Iraq and a civil war could be the result of military intervention.
1.3 PROPAGANDA
“Propaganda is neutrally defined as a systematic form of purposeful persuasion that attempts to influence the emotions, attitudes, opinions, and actions of specified target audiences for ideological, political or commercial purposes through the controlled transmission of one-sided messages (which may or may not be factual) via mass and7Richard Alan Nelson describes propaganda in his bookAdirect media channels,”
Chronology and Glossary of Propaganda in the United States.However, just like spin, there is nothing neutral about propaganda.Merriam-Webster’s Online Dictionarygets more specific, defining propaganda as “ideas, facts or allegations spread deliberately to8further one’s cause or to damage an opposing cause.”
In the course of history, one such cause has often been promoting military action against a perceived enemy. In fact, propaganda has been used by countless
3The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language: Fourth Edition (2000)
4Wikipedia (2007c)
5Wilcox & Cameron (2006), p. 15
6see Wikipedia (2007c)
7Nelson (1996), as quoted in Wikipedia (2007b)
8Merriam-Webster’s Online Dictionary (2007)
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governments in the past to gain support for wars by employing a multitude of tactics.9played an important part in indoctrinating the Joseph Goebbels’Propagandaministerium
German people in the run-up to World War II, rightfully bequeathing the term propaganda with an extremely negative connotation. Still, it has been a tool used repeatedly by
10even though governments all over the world to further their agenda since World War II,11it conveys a concept at odds with today’s understanding of communication.
The differences begin with the very way that communication itself is defined. Propagandists view communication as a set of techniques for indoctrinating a “target audience”, whereas the democratic concept of communication defines it as an ongoing process of dialogue among diverse voices. […] Propagandists also tend to have a low regard for the rationality and intelligence of their audience. […] Since propaganda is often aimed at persuading people to do things that are not in their own best interests, it frequently seeks to bypass the rational brain altogether and manipulate us on a more primitive level, appealing
12to emotional symbolism.
In other words, political propagandists try to appeal to people’s fears, beliefs, morality, or value system in general to gain support for their cause, instead of simply providing facts and outlining policy options. Complex problems are often overly simplified, and information is kept vague or misleading, while concepts like patriotism, freedom, and13Dialogue is not the goal − democracy are praised and put above everything else. unquestioning belief in the propagandists and their promoted cause is.
1.4 COMPARISON
After defining spin and propaganda, it becomes obvious that even though both terms are connected to public relations, they actually convey different concepts of communication. This is stressed by a number of public relations professionals, who do not want their profession to be associated with the negatively colored term ‘spin’.
“I think the time has come for public relations professionals to condemn ‘spin’ and label ‘spin doctors’ for what they are,” demands Robert Dilenschneider, former chief executive and president of American public relations firm Hill & Knowlton, “purveyors of deception, manipulation, and misinformation. Spin is antiethical [sic!] to legitimate public relations, which aims to enhance the image of companies and individuals to generate public14approval for the programs and policies they advance.”
9Though the ministry’s official title wasReichsministerium für Volksaufklärung und Propaganda,it was
commonly referred to asPropagandaministerium.
10Both the United States and the Soviet Union used propaganda during the Cold War to influence the public, for
instance.
11A reason for its continuous popularity might be that reaching a broad public has never been easier. Today’s
widespread and technologically well advanced media system has led to the possibility of an easy, fast, and
comprehensive dissemination of propagandistic material beyond comparison. The daily flood of information that
comes with the sophisticated media system makes in-depth research a luxury many journalists cannot afford −
making the distribution of propaganda possible, not only in dictatorships or countries with state-owned or -
controlled media, but also in democracies that promote freedom of speech and press.
12Rampton & Stauber (2003), pp. 134/135
13see Wikipedia (2007b)
14Wilcox & Cameron (2006), p. 15
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Of course, even if some PR professionals do not see spin as a part of public relations, making a clear secession between the two almost impossible. It is still associated with and vastly used as a synonym for political PR, especially by the media, and often supported by ‘legitimate’ PR activities and tactics. Therefore, it is not surprising that in a lot of today’s literature about the war in Iraq, the terms public relations, propaganda and spin are often used interchangeably. While all three concepts admittedly share similarities and in some form derive from each other, the change in the professional self-image of the public relations industry makes it necessary to re-evaluate this exchangeability.
As mentioned above, public relations in its ideal form is about relationships, mutual understanding and reciprocity − components both propaganda and spin are lacking. Propaganda “is the more or less systematic effort to manipulate other people’s beliefs,15foremost by trying to hide or discredit opposing beliefs and attitudes, or actions,”
portraying the propagandist’s view as the only valid one.
PR is equally persuasive, but is competing for attention and acceptance with other facts16And while public and opinions in the public arena instead of trying to undermine them. relations may in some cases also put a favorable bias on information, outright manipulation and deceit − like it is most often the case with spin and propaganda − can never be its goal, since it would hurt the organization and its image in the long run and would, therefore, go against public relations’ core responsibility: “to build and maintain a17hospitable environment for an organization.”
Even though he was discussing spin in general, Dilenschneider, therefore, essentially summarizes the problem of simply calling the administration’s campaign ‘PR’: The White18House left most public relations goals behind when it went public with its case for war. Dialogue, compromise, and mutual understanding were replaced with deception, manipulation and misinformation; spin and propaganda were extensively used in tandem to convince the public and the United States Congress of the necessity for war.
So while marketing in a broader sense might in some respect still be an applicable term for the Bush administration’s campaign (after all, the White Housewastrying to sell its product: the war in Iraq), and some public relations strategies and tactics were implemented in the campaign, for the three claims discussed in the following part of this paper, spin and propaganda are by far the more accurate terms.
15Encyclopaedia Britannica Online (2007)
16see Szyszka (2003), p. 9
17Wilcox & Cameron (2006), p. 18
18see Chapter 2 of this paper
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2. THE COMMUNICATION CAMPAIGN
Since the war in Iraq and the events leading to it are very complex issues, this paper will only discuss a clearly limited part of the matter. Complex background information that does not serve primarily to understand the context of the issues discussed herein after will be disregarded in order to ensure and maintain comprehensibility.
It shall neither be the objective of this paper to delve into the reasons the U.S. government might have had to attack Iraq preemptively, nor will be discussed in great depth where false information and intelligence used by the administration came from, and who was responsible for it being used in presidential speeches and other public appearances by senior Bush officials.
However, it will be treated as a fact (as has been reported by several newspapers and19that the decision to go to war had been made acknowledged by White House officials)
long before the public was aware of the government’s plans regarding Iraq. Moreover, the major assertions that were constantly repeated by the administration were chosen20deliberately to achieve the desired effect: public support for a preemptive strike.
2.1 INTRODUCTIONTO THECAMPAIGN
21first anniversary, the Bush administration launched an On the weekend before 9/11’s
elaborate campaign to convince Congress, and ultimately the American people, to22The moment was well-timed; the support a preemptive strike against Saddam Hussein.
country was still reeling from the worst terrorist attack on American ground ever, while Congress was preparing for upcoming elections, putting pressure on hesitant Democrats to vote pro military action in order not to appear unpatriotic.
The White House did not bother to mask its intentions, standing openly by its strategic decision to kick-start its campaign at this particular point in time. As White House Chief of Staff Andrew Card put it in an interview withThe New York Times:“From a marketing23point of view, you don’t introduce new products in August.”
In the course of the following years, the Bush administration − mostly represented by President George W. Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney, then Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice, then Secretary of State Colin Powell and then Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld − employed a multitude of strategies and tactics to initially convince the
19see Rampton & Stauber (2003), pp. 37-39; Fritz, Keefer, & Nyhan (2004), pp. 148-150
20see Fritz, Keefer, & Nyhan (2004), p. 152; Mossaddeq (2003), pp. 208/209
219/11 refers to the terrorist attacks on New York and Washington, D.C. on September 11, 2001.
22see Fritz, Keefer, & Nyhan (2004), p. 153
23Bumiller (2002, September 7)
Card is referring both to the fact that August is a ‘slow news’ months due to the nationwide summer break, as
well as a ‘slow’ month in Washington, with Congress being in recess and many government officials being out
of town.
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people of, and later justify the war in the Middle East. This paper will focus on the U.S. government’s key justifications for attacking Iraq, namely the following three assertions:
1. Iraq has weapons of mass destruction (biological & chemical weapons)
2. Iraq has a nuclear program
3. Iraq has ties to al Qaeda
Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction (WMD) constituted the administration’s main reason for military action in the Middle East. However, senior administration officials usually included all three assertions in their public appearances, effectively multiplying the grave and gathering threat Iraq allegedly posed to the United States and its allies.
This chapter will give an overview on how the Bush administration used those three claims to gain support for the war by citing the most striking public appearances and speeches given between August 2002 and the beginning of military operations on March 19, 2003. If there were opposing voices to the government’s statements before or at the time those statements were made, they will be exemplified.
A closer look will also be taken at how and when the administration’s assertions were irrevocably rebutted and the respective White House’s reaction. Lastly, the paper will point out the main propaganda and spin techniques used in the cited addresses and public appearances, and the previously discussed claims will be put into a broader perspective.
2.2 GENERAL LINEOFARGUMENTATION
The speeches cited in the following chapters are merely a selection of well-known and striking public appearances made by Bush administration officials in the run-up to war. They were chosen out of a multitude of interviews, press briefings, and addresses conducted during that time and can be seen as exemplary of the administration’s communication strategy. Noticeably, all the addresses follow the same general line of argumentation:
1. Iraq has a history of aggression, lies and deceit.
2. Saddam Hussein agreed after the Gulf War to comply with UN resolutions, but has violated every one of them.
3. He has lied relentlessly to the UN weapons inspectors and still has not accounted for a major part of the WMD the UN concluded he possessed in the 1990s.
4. He resumed his efforts to acquire WMD as soon as the UN inspectors left the country in 1998.
5. Saddam is not merely producing the weapons to defend his country against attack, but to use them offensively against his enemies. He has used WMD before and will not hesitate to use them again − this time maybe against the United States.
