PRINTED WITH NATIONAL INK: POST-9/11 REPRESENTATIONS OF THE SELF AND OTHER ON THE COVERS OF TIME A Thesis Presented to The Faculty of Graduate Studies Of The University of Guelph by DANIELLE VAN WAGNER In partial fulfilment of requirements for the degree of Master of Arts April, 2011 © Danielle Van Wagner, 2011 Library and Archives Bibliotheque et Canada Archives Canada Published Heritage Direction du Branch Patrimoine de I'edition 395 Wellington Street 395, rue Wellington Ottawa ON K1A0N4 Ottawa ON K1A 0N4 Canada Canada Your file Votre reference ISBN: 978-0-494-88930-5 Our file Notre reference ISBN: 978-0-494-88930-5 NOTICE: AVIS: The author has granted a non­ L'auteur a accorde une licence non exclusive exclusive license allowing Library and permettant a la Bibliotheque et Archives Archives Canada to reproduce, Canada de reproduire, publier, archiver, publish, archive, preserve, conserve, sauvegarder, conserver, transmettre au public communicate to the public by par telecommunication ou par I'lnternet, preter, telecommunication or on the Internet, distribuer et vendre des theses partout dans le loan, distrbute and sell theses monde, a des fins commerciales ou autres, sur worldwide, for commercial or non­ support microforme, papier, electronique et/ou commercial purposes, in microform, autres formats. paper, electronic and/or any other formats. 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Canada ABSTRACT PRINTED WITH NATIONAL INK: POST-9/11 REPRESENTATIONS OF THE SELF AND OTHER ON THE COVERS OF TIME Danielle Van Wagner Advisor: University of Guelph, 2011 Dr. John Potvin This thesis examines how TIME magazine edits and assigns meaning to cover images in order to supplement the dominant national, political and cultural discourse of their publication and American culture. This discourse is understood through an introduction of the history of TIME, including a discussion of visual precedents, the statistics of readership and an examination and definition of the self and other. The terms self and cither are grounded in their political and cultural precedents and discussed within an Orientalist and post-colonial framework. The self, from an American perspective, appears whole and dominating, in comparison with the other who is intrinsically unfamiliar, fragmented, inferior and submissive to the dominating gaze. In order to situate specific images within their historical, political and cultural context, foreign policy, the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, media war practices and terrorism are examined, analyzed and defined. The evolution of those constructs are then evaluated on individual cover images using rhetoric, framing, topoi, metaphor, semiotics, photographic messages and media and communication theory. Acknowledgements First and foremost, this thesis would not have been possible without the support and supervision of Dr. John Potvin. I am grateful for his insight and support, but perhaps more importantly, for introducing and encouraging an interest in critical theory. I am grateful to the members of my committee, Dr. Sally Hickson and Dr. Margot Irvine for their encouragement and assistance. A special thanks goes out to Julie Wooters at TIME for providing documents on readership and circulation. These documents added an-in-depth look at readership, which would have been impossible otherwise. I am indebted to many friends and classmates who helped me along the way, especially Logan Stachiw, who spent hours reading over drafts and Katie Green, who was with me every step of the way. Contents Introduction 1.1 Introduction 1 1.2 Literature Review 1.2.1 History and the Academic Discourse of TIME. 10 1.2.2 Understanding Readership 13 1.2.3 The Self and the Other 13 1.2.4 The Self and Other in the Middle East 14 1.2.5 War Photography and the Creation of Nation 19 1.2.6 Photographic Theory 22 Chapter 1 2.1 Publication History 24 2.2 Who Reads Time Today? 31 2.3 The Case for the Cover 34 2.4 Methodology 36 2.5 The Evolution of the American Self 48 2.6. The American Military as Self. 52 2.7 Conclusion 54 Chapter 2 3.1 The Knowledge of Time 56 3.2 Historical Precedents 3.2.1. Soviet Russia 58 3.2.2 Vietnam 60 3.2.3 Operation Desert Storm 62 ii 3.3. The Self 3.3.1 Mission Not Accomplished: Visual Hero Worship after 6.10.2003 65 3.3.2 Soldiers as Heroes 67 3.3.3 Presidential Doubt 70 3.3.4 The Transformation of Responsibility: Abu Ghraib and Haditha on TIME 72 3.4 The Other 3.4.1 The Visualization of Terrorism 77 3.4.2 The X-Treatment 82 3.4.3 The Personification of Religion in the War against Terror 88 3.5 Who is the Person of the Year? 3.5.1 Osama bin Laden 90 3.5.2 The American Soldier 94 3.6 The Self vs. The Other: 3.6.1 The Militant body vs. the Islamic Body 96 3.6.2 Hegemonic Masculinity vs. Fundamentalist Masculinity 101 3.6.3 Muslim Women and Children vs. Muslim Men 106 3.7 Conclusion 110 Conclusion 4.1 Conclusion 112 iii References 5.1 Bibliography 119 Appendix Figures 130 Copyright Permission 132 iv List of Figures Fig. 2.1 - TIME readership by geographical location. December 2002. Fig. 2.2 - Electoral map of the United States. 2004. v Introduction: In the 1996 film City Hall, the New York mayor, John Pappas, played by Al Pacino, appears on the cover of TIME to laud his decisive action against the mafia. After a dinner with New York's elite, including a senator, the deputy mayor says to Pappas, "[the senator's wife] couldn't stop talking about the cover of TIME. I think she collects them. National ink, the mother's milk of politics" (Dir. Harold Becker n.p.). TIME is arguably the biggest selling newsmagazine in the United States, but even more important is the role it plays as "national ink" - for it is not just a magazine; it has also become a brand. Since its inception in 1923, TIME aims to bring current events and popular culture to its target audience - the American people. The magazine aspires to encompass positive American values, yet still be challenging to the reader. TIME managing editor Jim Kelley, described this goal perfectly in 2005: TIME is a niche publication, tailor-made for those who are open- minded, for those who value perspective over attitude, a niche composed of people who are intensely curious about the story behind the story, who are willing to have their assumptions challenged, and who are surprised by the world around them. TIME seeks to engage the reader in the same journey that all of us are on every week: to know why. (qtd. in May n.p.) TIME situates itself as the foremost source of news every week - and to understand the biggest and most important event - the American viewer need only to look at the cover. The red TIME masthead and the red border of its cover has become a familiar icon of American culture. Walking past a newsagent or seeing the magazine in the line at the grocery store, the viewer does not even need to pick up the magazine to be affected by the cover. As the best possible example, consider the 9/11 terrorist attacks. On 11 1 September 2001, nineteen terrorists, associated with the Al-Qaeda organization, hijacked four commercial American airplanes and crashed them into the World Trade centre and the Pentagon. On 14 September 2001, TIME released a special edition issue entitled "September 11,2001," - the cover was a photograph of the Twin Towers on fire, debris raining down as the south tower was about to collapse. The issue was purchased by 3.4 million people on the newsstands; a staggering number considering the average issue sells 150,000 copies (ABC Dec 2001: n.p.). TIME made one thing clear, after 9/11, the first major international terrorist attack on American soil - American politics would never be the same again. The United States witnessed Osama bin Laden, the Taliban, Al- Qaeda, Saddam Hussein, the war in Afghanistan and the invasion of Iraq on the subsequent covers of TIME. Since 9/11, these covers, composed of photographs, collages, illustrations and digitally altered images with headlines, provide the American viewer with the visual means to navigate the post-9/11 landscape. In these images, American soldiers, American politicians and American flags represent the self, while the dark-skinned Middle-Eastern man is unequivocally understood as the other. Such a black and white dichotomy is not a new trope to TIME; this visual lexicon stretches back to the Cold War, the Vietnam War and Operation Desert Storm. These precedents developed a referentiality, in which the visual language used to identify and represent the self and the other is expected and identifiable in a pro-American nationalist discourse.