Simons, Cogent Social Sciences (2016), 2: 1170583 http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/23311886.2016.1170583 POLITICS & INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS | RESEARCH ARTICLE News and Syria: Creating key media moments in the conflict Greg Simons1* Received: 19 October 2015 Abstract: Mass media play a critical role through the production of news in influenc- Accepted: 29 February 2016 ing how citizens have their perceptions and opinions shaped. This article intends *Corresponding author: Greg Simons, to delve into the role of news production in creating knowledge and shaping public Uppsala Centre for Russian and Eurasian Studies, Uppsala University, Uppsala, perception and opinion within the Syrian case and demonstrates that news is not Sweden an accidental occurrence, neither in terms of subject or timing. Articles on specific E-mail: [email protected] issues, such as the reaction to the chemical weapons attack of August 2013 and the Reviewing editor: Christina Holtz-Bacha, Friedrich- allegations of “industrial killings” by the Syrian government, appearing in the mass Alexander-Universitat Erlangen- media, are subjected to analysis based on the theoretical notions outlined in the pa- Nurnberg, Germany per. These two cases hint that the timing and nature of these specific news events Additional information is available at are not as “random” and coincidental as would seem at first glance. the end of the article Subjects: Communication Studies; Politics & International Relations; Social Sciences Keywords: Arab Spring; Syria; regime change; propaganda; news; industrial killing; chemical weapons 1. Introduction Prior to the approximation of armed conflict, there is often a flurry of informational activity that tries to establish the storyline of the event. A good example of this was the establishment of the Committee of Public Information in the United States prior to entry in the First World War. A domi- nant storyline is established and contrary information is often scarce. There is a need to take a criti- cal stance towards information and “evidence” that creates the emotional context for war. This does not necessarily mean rejecting the information, but rather the need to probe more deeply into pos- sible underlying motives and interests in the nature and timing of the content, therefore correspond- ing to an attempt to minimise the chances of repeating past failures (such as using weapons of mass destruction and links to terrorism as a pretext for war, similarly to what happened in Iraq in 2003). The current Syrian conflict has been referred to as a proxy war, with the United States and its allies ABOUT THE AUTHOR PUBLIC INTEREST STATEMENT Greg Simons, associate professor, is a researcher This paper is intended to explore the different ways at the Uppsala Centre for Russian and Eurasian and means through which mass media coverage, Studies (Uppsala University, Sweden), the via news, can manipulate public perception and, Swedish Defence University, the Department of therefore, opinion of an event. An underlying Communication Sciences at Turiba University reason for this manipulation is to engineer public (Riga, Latvia) and an associated researcher at consent for a certain line of policy that would the Swedish Institute for International Affairs be potentially unpopular and hence encounter in Stockholm. He specialises in researching resistance. In the framework of this paper, two key the relationships that exist between politics, moments in the Syrian conflict are chosen so as to mass media and armed conflict. He teaches an test this concept of engineering consent. undergraduate course at Uppsala University on mass media and contemporary armed conflict. He has published numerous books and journal articles, primarily in English, Russian and Spanish. © 2016 The Author(s). This open access article is distributed under a Creative Commons Attribution (CC-BY) 4.0 license. Page 1 of 16 Simons, Cogent Social Sciences (2016), 2: 1170583 http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/23311886.2016.1170583 seeking to topple the regime of Bashar Assad (Defence Intelligence Agency (DIA), 2012). The politi- cal leadership of the United States and the United Kingdom has been a very vocal proponent of re- gime change in Syria and has engaged in covert military action and support to realise this goal (supplying weapons, intelligence, finance, training and so forth). The pursuit of peace by some countries, within the context of their foreign policy toolkits, has in fact proved to be a thinly disguised effort to promote certain national foreign policy interests (Eriksson & Kostic, 2013; Holland & Aaronson, 2014). The recent case of Libya, where Gaddafi was overthrown under the given pretext of protecting civilians from warring sides, illustrates this ap- proach. An open war between the United States-led allies and the Syrian government of al Assad seemed almost inevitable when the “red line” on the use of chemical weapons in the Syrian war imposed by Obama was conveniently broken. This was used as a cue to put the use of military means on the table again. Naturally, these actions were quickly blamed on Assad as “irrefutable” and “un- deniable” by those same countries that had been consistently advocating a military “solution” to end the conflict. However, a combination of a deep-rooted public aversion to another war and the Russian proposal on securing the chemical weapons and avoiding a military conflict, for now, ulti- mately prevailed. This does not change the ultimate goal of the US-led allies (UK, France, Turkey, Qatar and Saudi Arabia, for example), although it does momentarily close one window on how to achieve regime change (Dreyfuss, 2012). Various media (TV, radio and Internet), either deliberately [as in Rupert Murdoch’s admission that he used his media assets to gain public support for Iraq (Greenslade, 2003)] or inadvertently (through the acceptance without question or double checking of information or statements given by parties with vested interests), have been at the forefront of masking national interests of the US-led coali- tion in regime change from global audiences. The make-up and content of news are crucial for a political elite’s ability to pursue potentially unpopular policy, such as foreign military intervention. There is a lot of literature on the issue of the media being used to manipulate public opinion within the context of armed conflict (Bennett, Lawrence, & Livingston, 2007; Jowett & O’Donnell, 2006; Snow, 2003; Willcox, 2005; Zelizer & Allan, 2002). Many discuss the use of media frames and narra- tives in guiding the nature of the debate (DiMaggio, 2009; Nacos, 2007; Tuman, 2010). A number of academic articles on the Arab Spring, including those that take a less than positive appraisal of the situation, emphasise the negative nature of the outcome or uncover foreign power involvement. These often adopt the point of view of ethics, law or political science (Friedman, 2011; Siebens & Case, 2012; Springborg, 2011). Increasingly more articles are appearing from a communication per- spective on the issue of the Arab Spring, focusing on how information is managed (Campbell & Hawk, 2012; Comunello & Anzera, 2012; Karagiannopoulos, 2012; Khondker, 2011; Simons, 2012, 2013; Downloaded by [Uppsala universitetsbibliotek] at 02:17 12 April 2016 Stepanova, 2011; Wollenberg & Pack, 2013). The present article shall tackle the subject of under- standing what happens when the goal of regime change stays the same, but the means of achieving this change have altered owing to events and public opinion in Syria post-August 2013. Both of the media events covered demonstrate the use of atrocity stories to serve either as a primer for public opinion to support military operations against Syria or as a means of detracting support and per- ceived legitimacy from the Syrian government on the eve of crucial peace talks. The task of this paper is to explore some of the possible means and mechanisms to engineer pub- lic consent for a distinct (and probably unpopular) line of foreign policy via news content in the mass media. An idealised role of news is the first subject to be analysed: news should serve as an objective means of enlightening the public so as to facilitate the making of informed decisions. This is tem- pered by the manipulation of news, such as explained by Bernays and Lippmann, which provides subjective information on the basis of which the public reaches a certain pre-determined conclusion, such as support for military intervention. There is a need to take a look at the role of motivation (priming an audience) and propaganda in the news. In order to explore how these two particular aspects are managed for the originator of the manipulated message to realise specific goals and objectives, this article will focus on two media events, namely the chemical weapons attack, which Page 2 of 16 Simons, Cogent Social Sciences (2016), 2: 1170583 http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/23311886.2016.1170583 was coordinated by Turkey and the United States, and the “industrial killing” story that was sup- ported by Qatar. 2. Theoretical role of news News is something that saturates the information environment and can come in many different shapes and forms from many different kinds of media. So what is news exactly? Denis McQuail pro- vides a concise definition: The main form in which current information about public events is carried by media of all kinds. There is a great diversity of types and formats as well as cross-cultural differences, but defining characteristics are generally held to be timeliness, relevance and reliability (truth value) (McQuail, 2010, p. 564). Despite the fact that news can be found in many different shapes and forms, there are a number of common underlying conceptual commonalities. One of the basic underlying assumptions and duties of journalism is to separate “facts” from “val- ues”, a separation that inheres in the objectivity of reporting, for example. Having said this, rather than being found in absolute terms, objectivity and subjectivity should be viewed as essentially rela- tivistic.