Networker: The medium that got away

November 7, 2001
Issue 

Networker
The medium that got away

By the time the first bombs dropped on Afghanistan in early October, thousands of images and millions of words had been fired in the US propaganda war. The purpose of these was clear: to "prove" that the US and its allies were going to war to protect the values of "civilisation".

Remembering similar propaganda campaigns of the past three decades I had resigned myself to several weeks of complete confusion from among my work colleagues and in my community. Instead, I was surprised by the level of information and understanding in discussions and debate. This was an experience echoed by other anti-war activists.

A crucial difference between this and previous wars appears to have been the role played by the internet. The process went something like this: US President George Bush makes an emotive and baseless claim. A highly respected authority from anywhere around the world, often from the left, then issues a detailed factual and historically based response, and this is posted from one internet discussion list to another, even on the technical discussion lists I subscribe to.

In the past such voices would initially be heard by a relatively tiny audience of teach-in attendees and readers of the radical press, and then take months or years to reach the wider community. In the past few weeks these responses are sent around the world in hours.

This presents the US war effort with a particular problem. Historically the capitalist press, despite proclamations of independence, has been a loyal supporter of imperialist wars (at least as long as the ruling class is united in its support for the war). An independent news agency such as CNN might provide some uncensored coverage of the Gulf War in 1991, but having made its name it quickly joined the traditional broadcasters.

During wars governments operate on a system of pre-approval of reports sent from a war zone. This is allegedly to ensure that no military secrets are accidentally released. As then war correspondent Leon Trotsky wrote from the 1912-13 Balkan wars, the actual purpose is simply political control.

But what happens when the media is not only truly independent, but totally diffuse? Since millions of people can now publish on the internet, a government loses control of some reins in the propaganda war. In order to maintain credibility and compete with these sources, even the capitalist press is forced to provide a little diversity in its own coverage.

Ironically, the internet project was originally created and funded by the US government to provide an almost indestructible means of continuing to provide military commands during a war.

Between the 1960s and the 1990s it evolved into much more than that, and became a media in its own right. Yet the indestructibility of its roots has stayed with it. It has become a medium that fails to follow the media script, yet another reason for capitalist governments to try to restrict it. And not coincidentally, another reason for the progressive movement to actively defend it.

BY GREG HARRIS (gregharris_greenleft@hotmail.com)

From Green Left Weekly, November 7, 2001.
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