– in combination with other factors – incite pro-war sentiment.
Information conveyed through popular culture also can affect attitudes about war.11 Mrs. Miniver, a British film (based on a bestselling novel) released in 1942, showed audiences in the United Kingdom and elsewhere how heroically resolute the British people were, even in the face of heavy bombing and the evacuation from Dunkirk. German propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels noted its effectiveness, saying, “There is not a single angry word spoken against Germany; nevertheless, the anti-German tendency is perfectly accomplished.”12 The Germans themselves knew the value of cinematic propaganda, as exemplified by films such as Leni Riefenstahl’s Triumph of the Will. Through the Second World War, the Cold War, and beyond, fictive and documentary films have been, to varying degrees, persuasive in how publics view specific conflicts and war generally. A detailed examination of this topic is outside the scope of this book, but it is an intriguing field for exploration.
Information’s credibility has long been affected by the venues through which it is presented, but these venues are now so plentiful that information consumers may lack the knowledge needed to distinguish among sources and weigh their relative credibility as they decide what to believe. Online content competes with the media forms to which we grew accustomed during earlier decades. YouTube rivals television; websites and the likes of Facebook and Twitter vie with print; text messaging and email supersede face-to-face conversation and provide incessant updates about events. The speed and variety of providers have few limits, and members of the public dip into various offerings with a click or a tap that unleashes a river of information that washes over them.
This book is about relationships among primary contributors to information at war, including the public, which must be defined broadly. Some members of the public watch war as if it was a spectator sport; the television or cellphone screen does not drip the blood of combat onto the living-room carpet, and escaping a war zone is merely a matter of switching channels or clicking on another app. Others might have much more at stake: those who are themselves caught up in war, including the noncombatants who become “collateral damage” (an obscenely cold-blooded term) as war’s fury touches their lives. Some of these may choose to be “citizen journalists” themselves, tweeting, blogging, or otherwise presenting information about the rage of warriors and the damage they inflict.
Information tools available to the public are also used increasingly by conflicts’ actors themselves. Within recent years, we have seen inflammatory – and often false – information deployed within targeted populations as part of long- or short-term provocation leading toward military action, as was the case with Russia’s 2014 invasion of Ukraine.13 Joining the ranks of conflict-related communicators are “trolls,” “bots,” and other mechanical and human spreaders of tales that are designed to disrupt. “Deepfakes,” for instance, can look and sound so real that they can mislead even those who consider themselves to be savvy information consumers.
Distorted information has long been used for military advantage. To some extent, this could be offset by influential mainstream information providers with the skill and wherewithal to verify and, if needed, correct misleading material. In recent decades, these have included trusted print publications as well as many of the foundational news broadcasts on radio and television, their ranks expanded by global and regional cable and satellite news networks. Today, however, that policing role has shriveled due to the ease with which global publics can obtain information directly from an always-growing universe of sources, some of which have negligible allegiance to truth.
We are in a transitional period during which individuals are learning (at varied speeds) how to navigate the sea of information. Which information providers offer safe harbors with reliably accurate content? Which ones are actually whirlpools that lure audiences with appealingly angry messages? How can the public distinguish among them? What level of media literacy is essential in the information era?14
War is always with us in one way or another. Information can change the course of war, and war can change the role of information. The persistence of conflict and the relentless flow of information ensure that information at war will long continue to be part of our lives.
This book proceeds roughly chronologically.
During war, as at other times, information can make the remote seem proximate. The first true “living-room war” was a function of radio, and one of the most distinctive voices early in the era of electronic media was a young man born near Polecat Creek, North Carolina – Edward R. Murrow. As we see in chapter 1, “Living-Room Wars,” Murrow told many of his stories of war from the battle zone in real time, which captivated their audience and heightened their impact. His voice came into American living-rooms from across the Atlantic in 1940 as Great Britain was enduring intense German bombing, and his reports helped to chip away at the isolationism that was strongly influencing US politics. His work and that of other journalists provided President Franklin D. Roosevelt with room to maneuver as he sought to help keep Britain afloat in its fight against Nazi Germany.
War being brought into the living-room also had great effect two decades later, when television had been established as a principal news provider. By 1960, nearly 90 percent of American households had a television set,15 and seeing as well as hearing about war on a continuing basis would sharpen public perceptions about the nature of conflict. As portrayed by some in the news media, the costs of the fighting in Southeast Asia and the apparent endlessness of that war fueled Americans’ growing doubts about the necessity of such a conflict.
While television coverage was capturing attention, journalists working in other media were also wielding increasing influence. Certain print journalists made clear that they were not “on the team” in terms of shaping their reporting to conform to government officials’ wishful thinking. Correspondents such as David Halberstam of the New York Times aggressively challenged the purported wisdom of “the best and the brightest” policymakers.16 Such print reporters’ diligence, coupled with the dramatic force of television, reshaped the balance of power between news media and government in wartime. With increased amounts of vivid information available to them, more and more Americans had grounds for doubting, and then opposing, the war policies of their elected leaders.
Television’s rise also contributed to greater emphasis on the optics of war. In itself, this was nothing new. From the armor of Achilles gleaming in front of the walls of Troy to the giant missiles in parades through Red Square (and, more recently, Pyongyang), the appearance of military might has affected fighters’ and publics’ attitudes about their prospects in conflict. When news media deliver consistently pessimistic appraisals supported by grim visual evidence, a government (at least in a democracy) must devote ever greater effort to sustain popular backing for a war. This may include attempts to counteract the effects of information that the government deems to be an obstacle to achieving its goals in the conflict. That might be done in a number of ways, such as by interfering with collection and dissemination of information perceived to be unhelpful, and by the government producing its own information to offset unsupportive content.
Information has value only if it is credible. During wartime, government and news media may engage in a struggle for primacy in credibility, and the viability of the war effort may be shaped by the outcome. Newer information providers – including individuals – are now part of the mix. Sometimes their content offers valuable perspective on events, but sometimes their material may be politicized to the point of being fraudulent. This makes careful appraisal of information’s validity more important among information consumers who find such decisions complicated by the sheer volume of information flowing toward them.
As chapter 2, “Competing for Information Control,” illustrates, when governments recognize unhelpful political repercussions of news coverage of conflict, they might resort to simple obstruction,
