Media Coverage: The Peace Movement During the 2003 Iraq War
To understand media coverage of the protest, or antiwar movement that coalesced in early 2003 against the Iraqi War, requires an understanding of the growing interconnectedness between the mass media and protest or peace movements. Peace movements rely on the media to spread their message. Media coverage, however, depends not only upon the news value of an event, but on other factors such as the size of the crowed and social and political issues.
An examination of media coverage of the peace movement during
the 2003 Iraq War indicates that traditional media outlets in the United States played down the historical and political significance of the movement, only adjusting their coverage as protestors directly confronted them. Media professor Barbara Epstein, who teaches in the History of Consciousness program at the University of California at Santa Cruz and has research extensively in the field of cultural politics and social movements points out, the peace movement against the 2003 war in Iraq was the largest ever global movement against a single war. In spite of this, the peace movement did not always receive the media attention demanded by its numbers. Barbara Epstein teaches in the History of Consciousness program at the University of California at Santa Cruz and has researched extensively in the field of cultural politics and social movements. This paper analyzes several articles on peace and social movements in the United States, and media coverage of these movements, to conclude that such coverage has historically downplayed the significance of these movements when they appear to contradict majority pubic opinion. The paper concludes that media coverage was biased.
The numbers for organized protests against the 2003 war in Iraq support Epstein's contention that these were the largest peace demonstrations ever (Epstein, 2003, p. 109). In particular, Karl...