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7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A Must Read to Better Understand the War in Iraq, January 22, 2007
This review is from: A Century of Media. A Century of War (Paperback)
Media critic Robin Andersen's timely work, A Century of Media, A Century of War, is a must read for those seeking to understand how we were drawn into the war in Iraq. Just how did the Bush Administration and its corporate media allies sell us on successive lies to get us into this war? Director of the Peace and Justice Studies Program at Fordham University, Professor Andersen investigates the collaborative relationship of the media with the current and past administrations to promote the wars of the last 100 years. The chapter, "The Military Entertainment Complex: Permanent War and the Digital Spectacular," is the most cogent look yet at the nexus of the media industry and the Pentagon as Andersen examines the Department of Defense's (DOD) funding of corporate research and development of "militainment" for the recruitment, training and selling of current and future wars. In her conclusion, "War, Humanism and Democracy," Andersen clearly elucidates the threat the media/DOD collusion is to democracy, writing, "Militainment does not fulfill the media's democratic mandate, any more than does the simple dissemination of government proclamations." This seminal work provides the reader with a better understanding of how we are being manipulated and gives us the tools to cut through the media fog surrounding wars and maybe, just maybe, help prevent future armed conflicts that are not in the nation's interest.
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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Totally Unbiased Reporting, October 21, 2011
This review is from: A Century of Media. A Century of War (Paperback)
This book is mostly fact, intertwined with the author's interpretation of the latter. On page 315 author Robin Andersen writes about Abe Lincoln who said: "I am a firm believer in people. If given the truth, they can be depended upon to meet the national crisis." Unfortunately, the people are NOT given the facts, as Ms. Andersen shows for more than 300 pages. This book documents how America's imperial tendencies have not simply been ignored, but promoted by the mass media. Some quotes are as follows............ The author Robin Andersen refers to suffering and death as "an acceptable practice in contemporary democratic society." Is she referring to contemporary American democratic society, or contemporary world democratic society? One can only imagine. On the Iraq War Andersen quotes a Dr. Jabbar who said: "I saw the cluster bombs with my own eyes. Not less than 60% of the dead were women and children." Probably, most telling, she points out that the operation to rescue an elite group of American soldiers, documented in the film "Black Hawk Down," left more than one thousand Somalis dead, in order to rescue a dozen odd American soldiers. A horribly accurate tale of government and media collaboration to present war to the public as something that we can't live without. Four stars. One star missing for the staccato style of reporting. But this woman is a scholar, not a writer. Thank you Ms. Andersen. P.S. I am still upset with Amazon.com for their denial of internet services to Wikileaks.
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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Excellent Brief History of War Propaganda, September 19, 2010
This review is from: A Century of Media. A Century of War (Paperback)
Dr. Robin Andersen presents an outstanding overview of the main themes and trends of modern media propaganda that developed during WWI and continue into the 21st century. The first section of the book dealing with WWI concisely explains the tactics that arose throughout Europe and the US to sell the war to the public. In tracing the use of media--both news and entertainment--across and beyond the last century, Andersen demonstrates how the same techniques arose again and again, how the heroic pro-war narrative shifted in the Vietnam era, but was reclaimed in an alliance between Hollywood and the military with the new wars of the current era. What strengthens Andersen's book is her reliance of actual historical record to counter the misinformation that governments (specifically the US) have used to maintain morale, promote battle, minimize the slaughter and torture of civilians, and then rewrite history by transforming war into glorious fictions. Her section on how the general atrocities of WWII have been reshaped to conform to a "Good War" narrative was particularly informative and necessary. This is an academic text, not a popular one, so comments by other reviewers about its style should be taken with a grain of salt. As to whether the text is biased, Andersen provides ample examples and documentation for her observations. While its obvious where her sympathies lie, only the most devout ideological cog would defend the covering up of truth as a noble duty, the blowing up women and children (the main victims of modern warfare) from planes as a victory for human values, and the cynical use of distorted information and images as an acceptable means to persuade the masses that the worst of human behavior somehow serves the greater good of democracy.
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