A Century of Media, A Century of War

by Robin Andersen

Forged over the course of a century, the connections between war and media run long and deep. As this book reveals, the history of war and its telling has been a battle over public perception. The selection of which stories are told and which are ignored helps justify past battles and ensure future wars. Narratives of protest and pain, defeat and suffering, guilt and abuse struggle to be heard amid the empowering myths of war and heroism.
As Robin Andersen argues, the history of struggle between war and its representation has changed the way war is fought and the way we tell the stories of war. Information management, once called censorship and propaganda, has developed in tandem with new media technologies. Now, digital imaging creates virtual battlefields as computer-based technologies transform the weapons of war. Along the way, images on the nightly news, on movie screens, and in video games have turned war into entertainment. In the grip of virtual war, it is difficult to realize the loss of compassion or the consequences for democracy.

Genres: War

350 pages, Paperback

First published September 1, 2006

About the author

Robin Andersen is Professor of Communication and Media Studies at Fordham University in New York. She is the author of four books, dozens of book chapters, journal articles and writes media criticism for a variety of publications. Her book A Century of Media: A Century of War won the 2007 Alpha Sigma Nu Book Award, the honor society of Jesuit colleges and universities. She helped develop the curriculum for Fordham University’s MA Program on Humanitarian Action.