Visual Communication Quarterly, 2 (Spring, 1995): p. 4-8, with David Shaw

Critics and journalism professionals have called attention to the grand entertainment embedded in the Persian Gulf War's presentation by the media. "Even as the war in the Persian Gulf showed signs of ending yesterday, the television war gained drama," was the lead on Walter Goodman's "Critic's Notebook" column for the New York Times during the final days of the war. In another story on the entertainment value of this news event, The New York Times referred to it "as a staggeringly successful mini-series." By framing the war as grand entertainment, did the media downplay the seriousness of the effort.

Critics of the media have been equally concerned about what they perceive to be the missing coverage of the human costs of war. According to editors of a book assessing the Gulf War, the media "covered the conflict like a sporting event without regard for the fact that people were being killed." This lack of concern for the human costs was expressed in a quote in the same book by an American pilot who described the air attacks as "the biggest Fourth of July show you ever saw." This study investigated how newsmagazines portrayed the drama of the Gulf War looking specifically at whether the war was presented visually as antiseptic and bloodless.

The Visual Representation of War Themes

This analysis investigates the portrayal of the drama of the Gulf War by looking at the visual themes used to frame the coverage in the three U.S. news magazines, Newsweek, Time, and U.S. News and World Report. This analysis was built on a review of the analytical articles that appeared during and after the war to determine a set of rhetorical themes associated with the coverage. These themes were then used to structure the research questions for a subsequent interpretive analysis that documented the manner and extent to which these key themes were communicated visually in the news magazine coverage.

Much of the critical analyses of war coverage questions the framing of the coverage. Framing is the way information is presented to focus on common themes, myths, and metaphors used to create symbolic meaning. These "grand themes" can be expressed in words as well as pictures and embed the discussion in shared contexts that people use to make sense of complex information. In his book on Vietnam War coverage, Hallin explains that visual coverage "thematizes" the news by simplifying and unifying definable elements of news coverage.

It is the assumption of this study that a standard ideology of war provides the central frame, or deep structure, within which the coverage of the Persian Gulf conflict was presented by the media. The objective of this study is to deconstruct this framing and analyze it in terms of its visual presentation. In addition, the study will attempt to determine to what extent criticism of the war coverage as bloodless or overly patriotic is confirmed by an analysis of the war photos.

A number of articles and studies have looked at war coverage--specifically the Cold War, the Vietnam War, and the Gulf War--in terms of themes, rhetoric and ideological framing. In previous studies, themes of "a clean, effective technological war," as well as the human misery of war, man's inhumanity to man, and good versus evil were identified with World War II, the Korean War, and Vietnam. Critics have called attention to the entertainment dimension embedded in the Gulf War coverage suggesting that this war was presented more as a game or a drama than as a dangerous conflict.

War themes are often presented in terms of oppositional relationships. Foss and Littlejohn note that most war rhetoric can be expressed as "us = good; them = evil." That translates into such notions: as our side is responsible, our leaders are good, our soldiers are stalwart and brave, and the damage we create is justified; their side is irresponsible, their soldiers are untrained or demonic, their leaders are evil, and the damage they do is random and likely to involve civilians.

In terms of the destruction delivered by the U.S. and its Allies in the Gulf War, for example, some critics believe that the public was left with an image of pinpoint bombing from the pictures of the computer guided "smart" bombs. Small observed that this "left an impression that we rarely missed." He also noted, however, that in 43 days of aerial bombing, some 82,000 tons of unguided bombs were dropped and their accuracy rating was only 25 percent--not the 90 percent of the "smart" bombs. Of the 88,500 tons of bombs dropped, only 30 percent found their targets. The question is how did the news magazines present the bombing?

The propaganda efforts and censorship by the military also dismay some critics. Boot criticized the military's rules on pool coverage suggesting that reporters became tools in the Pentagon's propaganda game. Kellner concluded that the mass media were involved in manufacturing consent rather than fulfilling their mission to inform the public. And foreign commentators are particularly critical of U.S. coverage saying, "As a result of overt military censorship by allied forces, a distorted picture of the war's reality was given to the people around the world."

The role of media patriotism is another source of media criticism. Although most military leaders believe that the media contributed to the failed Vietnam effort, many news professionals criticize the same coverage as being too accepting of the military view. Lee and Solomon assert that the most powerful news media in the U.S. were solidly behind the Gulf war and went to great lengths "to coat the news frame with red-white-and-blue varnish." If the press is a cheer leader in its coverage, as some suggest, does that also show up in a negative presentation of demonstrations? U.S. war protesters complained that less coverage was being given to their views than to those of supporters. Is that a realistic assessment?

The human cost of war is portrayed through photos of the wounded, bloody, and the dead. Lule analyzed the human costs of war, as well as heroes and victims, in a study of the Newsweek cover of the battered face of POW Navy Lt. Zaun. In defending its decision to run the grim photo on its cover, Newsweek noted that "there was an inclination among military briefers, the press and much of the American public to view the war as a remote and somehow antiseptic conflict."

Critics say the military resists coverage of the blood and gore of war because it is seen as undermining public commitment, as they believe it did in Vietnam. Although WW II was largely uncensored, photographs of dead Americans were not permitted to be published until 1943. Pimlott and Badsey pointed out that in the Gulf War the military refused to release pictures, not only of bombs that missed their targets, but also of any that included human casualties.

The actual human costs of the Gulf War can only be estimated. Israel, suffered four dead from Scud attacks but a figure for Saudi Arabia is unknown. The number of lives lost in Kuwait is also unknown. The number of wounded and dead for the Coalition has been reported by Taylor at 367 with 266 of that number representing U.S. losses. The number of Iraqi civilians and soldiers who were killed as a result of the war is unknown, although the Iraqi Red Crescent estimated 6,000-7,000 civilians killed. Estimates of Iraq's military losses range from 40,000 to 200,000.

Because of geographical and technological differences, it is impossible to draw direct comparisons between the Gulf War and previous wars, however, it is also impossible not to compare on some level the imagery used to visualize previous wars. Studies of Vietnam provide benchmarks, as well as clues on how to analyze Gulf War visual coverage. Patterson's study of Vietnam visuals, for example, found that, contrary to the views of the military, there was no increase in the "blood and gore" coverage that led to a shift in public support for the Vietnam war.

Sherer compared news magazine photos of the Tet Offensive and a similar battle of the Korean War finding that slightly more than a third of the images published during the Tet offensive (37.5%) were of actual combat situations but only 4.5% of the Korean battle images were of combat, not surprising given MacArthur's censorship. Photographs from the Tet offensive brought the viewer closer to death and destruction (18.8% for Vietnam and 3.0% for Korea) or people in life-threatening situations (17.4% for Vietnam and 3.6% for Korea). The question is did the Gulf War coverage present the bloody business of war or a bloodless war?

Research Questions The "grand themes" identified in this study of the critical literature included such notions as the bravery and technical superiority of "our" side, the bravery of our prisoners of war, the denial of protesters, and the idea that war is bloodless with only limited or pinpoint damage. This analysis of the critical writings about the Gulf War led to the development of four research questions:

1. How was the drama of the war expressed?

2. Was patriotism and cheer leading evident in the coverage?

3. How was our side--and theirs--presented in terms of good and evil?

4. How were the human costs of war depicted?

Methodology

This study investigated the nature of the visual images presented in the three U.S. news magazines--Newsweek, Time, and U.S. News and World Report-- to discover how the drama of war was treated in these mainstream publications. Print media, in particular large-circulation news magazines are important for their contribution to the general public's sense-making of such an event, as well as for their role as historical record. News magazines are also important for such a study because their quality reproduction showcase the memorable imagery of war photography. The publications were analyzed from the point where the U.S. became involved in the Persian Gulf (the February 28 issue) until the Iraqis were defeated (the March 11 issue). The set of 21 issues (seven of each magazine) included a total of 583 Gulf War photos.

This study's methodology involved a combined qualitative and quantitative analysis. An example of qualitative, interpretive research that focuses on a visual interpretation of war themes is Lule's study of the Newsweek cover of the POW, as well as his studies of the KAL shooting and the TWA hijacking. The framing of visual ideology has been discussed in several works and those authors, who use various methods to identify visual dimensions of ideology, make the point that what we know is often shaped by the images we see.

Another qualitative approach that is particularly useful for analyzing a large collection of photographs and deconstructing framing is semiotics, which looks at levels and types of meanings that can be interpreted from the symbolism in the text or visual as well as from intertextual references, where one text (either written or visual) is interpreted in terms of another context. Another approach to interpretation looks at myths, narratives, and rhetorical structures. Barthes, working from a semiological approach, analyzes myth structure as a first step in deconstructing the ideological framing of messages. Lule used Barthes' notion of myth but recast it in terms of Kenneth Burke's rhetorical/dramatist pentad--act, scene, agent, agency, and purpose---in his analyses of the Achille Lauro hijacking,.

This interpretive study attempted to answer the four research questions by using these qualitative techniques to analyze the representation and symbolism of the Gulf War visuals. In addition, a content analysis provided scope and scale information about the frequency of occurrence of these same visual cues.* Specifically the interpretive analysis focused on the following categories:

Actions: military combat (bombing, fighting) and non combat (maneuvers, camp scenes)

Scenes and settings:

military: non-threatening and life threatening situations

scenes of destruction, hospital scenes

home front

meetings

Agency/tools: equipment

Agents/characters, actors: leaders, soldiers, POWs, civilians

Patriotism/propaganda cues: treatment of demonstrators; covering reportage

Findings

This study recognizes that war coverage was highly restricted and the images in the news magazines represent the military's view of what should be shown, as

*There is no hypothesis of differences behind the content analysis, so significance testing is not appropriate. As in many of the qualitative studies mentioned in the literature review, numbers from the tally are noted only to provide perspective for the interpretation. An intercoder reliability study, as expected from a simple count, found agreement of 99%.

much as they do editorial judgment. The Economist noted that the U.S. military was able to exercise virtually total control over the war. Given the control over access as well as the sourcing of the photographs, the Gulf War was criticized by that publication as "history's most televised, but least visible war." The point of this analysis is to determine how visible the war really was.

1. How was the drama of war visualized?

With 35% of the photos focused primarily on equipment, the tools of war received a great deal of coverage. It's hard to know, of course, what a realistic or "normal" proportion might be for war coverage, but one point of comparison comes from Sherer's study of Vietnam War visuals. He found that photos focusing on equipment reached a high of 25 percent compared to two other periods when the percentage was 11 percent. If the Vietnam War provides a benchmark, then the critics' notion that the gulf War was a war of technology is clearly supported.

Intertextual interpretations could also be identified in the shots of futuristic planes and tanks that not only depicted what these tools of war looked like but also suggested how advanced they were. Some of the operations shots could be used as cover illustrations for science fiction novels or settings for Nintendo games. In another intertextual reference, the war of missiles above Tel Aviv and Ridyah was represented by double-page streaks of light in the night skies--an imagery that had a Fourth-of-July quality that one might associate with a patriotic picnic. (Photo #5) While these images are, in one sense realistic, they also convey a strong fantasy message that contributed to this sense of war as a game.

The extensive coverage of maneuvers, plus the frequent use, particularly in the early stages of the build-up, of catalog-like shots of planes, tanks, and other equipment, ( Photo #8) also suggest that Desert Storm was more a war game than a war. Maneuvers and training operations dominated the military visuals, rather than combat. The lack of photos depicting life-threatening situations also supports the war game interpretation. In an analysis of the settings, this study found that only six percent, or 33 photos, depicted soldiers in life threatening situations compared to the 17 percent that Sherer found in his analysis of Tet offensive visuals. The difference can also be seen as a comment on the more dominant role of technology in a high-technology war. On one hand, technology frees soldiers from danger but, on the other hand, it contributes to the idea of a depersonalized war.

In comparison to the eight percent combat images in the Gulf War, Sherer found that the combat imagery ranged from a low of 18 percent to a high of 30 percent in his three phases of the Vietnam War coverage. Another study by Sherer of the Tet offensive visual coverage, found 37.5% of the photos depicted soldiers in combat, almost five times as many as the Gulf War photos. Of the total 583 Gulf War photos, only 48 (8%) were pictures of soldiers in combat. (Photo #3)

2. Patriotism and Propaganda?

As mentioned previously, one of the most difficult editorial decisions involves determining the responsibility of the press in times of war. Should it get behind the war effort or should it critically engage its readers in serious public debate? One cue to media cheer leading is the way demonstrators are depicted. Protesters in the U.S. charged that the media did not give them fair coverage. This study found that supporters at home in the U.S. received three times as much coverage as protesters which may tend to confirm the war protesters' charges.

An interesting dimension of this coverage is seen in the types of images used to portray supporters and protesters. Most supporters were women and children often holding candles with peaceful or thoughtful expressions and demeanors. In one of the great ironies of war coverage, the protesters, the people who actually support peace, were depicted as angry, irrational, and possibly violent. In one layout a large picture of angry demonstrators is positioned against a small picture of peaceful women and children. The cutlines points to a candlelight vigil for the supporters and clenched fists for the protesters. ( Layout #7) In terms of putting a patriotic spin on the coverage, the news magazines were definitely more inclined to use positive pictures of supporters of the war. Protesters received far less coverage and when they were presented the imagery generally contained negative overtones.

In an attempt to tell the real story behind the war, the conflict sometimes appeared to be as much focused on military censors as the enemy. One telling photo showed a photographer being escorted away from a shot by a Saudi officer with a cutline that explains that the shot was not permitted by the Saudis. It is hard to know if this type of reportorial imagery is new since there are no benchmarks from previous wars. This study, however, found it to be a noticeably novel type of image that served, in a way, as an editorial statement about the intensely controlled environment. Even the shots of Peter Arnett in Baghdad did not show the Iraqis looking over his shoulder as obviously as those from Saudi Arabia, even though we all knew he was under continual scrutiny. In other words, our censorship, and the military propaganda machine behind it, was more visually apparent than theirs.

3. Good versus Evil?

One of the ideological spins that media can add to war coverage is the "us vs them" frame--right is on our side and they are brutal aggressors. For example, one photo that showed a number of Iraqi POWs marching in the desert was accompanied by a metaphoric cutline that began, "In a defeat of almost biblical proportions...." Clearly for that caption writer, God was on our side.

In the Gulf War, "us vs them" thinking is hard to escape given the invasion by the Iraqis of Kuwait. However such thinking can also reflect pressure on media to get behind the war. One way to assess this is to look at how people are represented in the coverage. Heroes and villains are an important part of war mythology.

President Bush, General Powell, and General Schwartzkopf were always pictured in positive ways. Bush, for example, was shown with his wife and the Quayles at church in prayer. The President was also shown walking in thoughtfully with other governmental leaders in the White House Garden. Powell was usually making a press briefing; in charge and clearly competent. Shwartzkopf was shown surrounded by cheering soldiers. In these visuals, our leaders were always depicted as good people, patriots, pious, thoughtful and concerned--and our military leaders were competent, well loved and cheered by their troops. U.S. soldiers were well trained, serious, and model soldiers, but they were also portrayed as regular guys playing volleyball in camp or reading, shaving, and writing letters back home.

Saddam Hussein was represented as a governmental leader in civilian clothes or as a military leader in uniform. Many of his images, however, were file photos reminiscent of police mug shots. In one small head shot, the caption said he was in prayer although the photo had been cropped so tightly that there were no visual cues that this was a religious activity. An interesting layout that showed how he could be symbolized as "the villain" was found in one issue where a small mug shot of him on the left hand page was counterbalanced on the right page with a large photo of a destroyer with its guns trained on him. (Layout #6)

The Iraqi soldiers in the few pictures that appeared were depicted as either rabble, terrorists, or novices who had to be taught how to use a gun. In truth, the news magazines, other than the one very obvious layout of Sadaam as a target, did not attempt to frame the Iraqis as villains. Most of the photos that might be seen as carrying ideological meanings were more likely to suggest incompetence than evil.

Some of the most telling images of the war, however, came from the presentation of POWs. The captured coalition soldiers looked battered, stoic in the face of mistreatment, and unwilling to cooperate. In contrast, the Iraqi POWs were unwounded and in good health, some of them looking happy to be captured. Often a large group of Iraqi POWs would be shown with just one or two coalition soldiers guarding them. In other words, they were clearly harmless even when they outnumbered their guards. (Photo #4)

The us/them ideology can also be analyzed in the presentation of war damage. Was the war a high-technology exercise characterized by pinpoint damage or was it seen as a war of random destruction? Some critics believe the war damage was misrepresented and this study provides some support for that criticism. Despite the tons of bombs dropped on Iraq, the Scud attacks on Israel and Saudi Arabia, and the widespread destruction in Kuwait, the images of destruction were few in the news magazines. Only 6.5 percent or 38 of the 583 photos depicted physical damage.

This study found that images of bombing by both our side and theirs were seen in 6.7 percent or 39 of the photos. Precision bombing, defined as visuals that show bombs or missiles hitting a target (usually reinforced or explained in the caption), was depicted in 2.9 percent (17 photos). Images of more generalized bombing (i.e. bombs dropping or missiles in the air) were seen in 3.8 percent (22 photos). Although there were more images of generalized bombing than of pinpoint bombing, the difference is small relative to the actual proportion of bombs dropped (30 percent pinpoint, 70 percent generalized).

There were photos of coalition missiles and bombs hitting civilian targets but the captions always made it clear that this was a pinpoint hit because it was thought that the site was really a military installation. There were no images of coalition bombs or missiles that either malfunctioned or were off target. To answer the question, then, our side was more often represented visually as delivering pinpoint bombing rather than the more likely generalized destruction.

In contrast, many of the missiles and bombs delivered by the Iraqis were shown as hitting civilian centers. The Iraqi missiles were either instruments of random destruction--and these pictures were always of damaged civilian sites--or as dead Scuds in the street or sand that had failed to perform. In other words, the missile might be a threat to civilians, but it was just as likely to be a dud.

4. How were the human costs of war handled?

The depiction of the wounded and dead--in other words, the human costs of war--were minimal in the news magazines. Only seven coalition deaths and eight wounded were presented. Even when you consider the 17 wounded and dead Iraqis shown in the photos, the total is 32 wounded or dead people, imagery that appeared in only five percent of the total photos. The only dead U.S. soldier was shown as a body bag in the background of a photo and explained through the caption. (photo/layout #1) In other words, there were no obviously dead American soldiers anywhere in the coverage. The impression is left that few were wounded or killed in the war and Americans, in particular, were untouched by the conflict. As a point of reference, Hallin reports that prior to the Tet offensive--i.e. general coverage of the extended war rather than the intense coverage of one battle--24 percent of the visuals showed dead or wounded.

Furthermore, the depiction of blood spilled during the Gulf War was almost nonexistent--both for the coalition (1%) and the Iraqis (1.5%). A sum total of six pictures of the 583 total showed people bloodied by the war. The photos that depicted any kind of discernible blood included one shot of a wounded Israeli woman that ran in two magazines, another wounded Israeli girl, one shot of a dead Iraqi that ran in two magazines, and one wounded Iraqi boy. While there were a total of 12 photos of dead people, only two showed blood. No Americans were bloodied by the war. Another interesting finding was that there was only one hospital shot in the collection and it showed a field hospital training session before the combat began.

Photos showing the horribleness of war were available, in spite of the military control. One particular photo of a dead Saudi body in a burned out tank, which was used in many European magazines, was only used by one of these news magazines, which is evidence of the other editors' self censorship. ( Photo #2) And many European magazines had far more dramatic visuals of the War's blood and gore.

Critics charge that the military intended that the Gulf War be seen as antiseptic. When one considers the estimated number of dead, the conclusion would have to be that the news magazines' coverage did indeed depict Desert Storm as a relatively bloodless war, a depiction that could hardly be called accurate.

Conclusion

It is easy to understand why critics charged that the Gulf War was framed as a mini-drama. In answer to the first research question, the high tech fascination of the media led to images that connected easily with science fiction imagery, the Fourth of July, and electronic games such as Nintendo. The question is not whether the press failed to do something, but whether such fantasy imagery trivializes a very serious undertaking and desensitizes the public to the reality of the costs of war.

In response to the second research question, the news magazines were clearly patriots in their support of the Gulf War. Demonstrators protesting the war, in particular, received less treatment and a decidedly unfavorably presentation at that. However, the magazines' imagery also made a statement about the ever-present censorship and the fact that they were tools of the military propaganda machine. The public may not care, but the message was there.

The third research question asked how our side was presented in contrast to theirs. This study found that the grand theme of good versus evil was clearly evident in the imagery of this war particularly in the treatment of leaders, soldiers, POWs and the myth of pinpoint bombing.

The human costs of war, the focus of the fourth research question, raised the most serious ethical question for the media. Without a doubt, the Gulf War was depicted as antiseptic. It would be impossible to conclude that the visual representation of the Gulf War as bloodless was fair, accurate, or objective.

The inherent power of the visual image demands that editors undertake some serious soul-searching about their publications' policies on the depiction of war. In spite of the legitimate concern for public taste, holding back on such coverage means the media may be implicitly supporting military ideology, as well as not giving the public an accurate account of the realities of a war.

Although this initial study was limited to the visual imagery of mainstream news magazines, companion studies of television images, as well as newspaper coverage in both metro papers and the elite press, need to be undertaken to compare the media imagery of war. Further research also needs to be undertaken in the area of self censorship to determine how these news decisions are made and what stated or unstated news policies about depicting blood and gore operate in times of conflict.


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