In Iraq alongside the military campaign, a media tussle emerged between some of the western channels and their Arab counterparts. Differing representations of the war in this semiotic battle not merely gave scope to varied interpretations, but also provoked controversy.
While there is no dearth of news of the devastation caused by the ugly war in Iraq, there has been a profusion of absurdities, in the pronouncements, claims and counter-claims of the leaders and war correspondents and the editorial output of the Indian media.
It is dismaying that there has hardly been any reaction in the media to the order of the Lucknow Bench of the Allahabad High Court against the publication of news reports and comments on the Ayodhya issue by the print and electronic media
Critical Issues in Communication: Looking Inwards for Answers – Essays in Honour of K E Eapenedited by Srinivas R Melkote and Sandhya Rao, Sage Publications, New Delhi, Thousand Oaks, London; 2001; pp 491, Rs 595.
The Kashmir University campus has been declared out of bounds for the media and the vice-chancellor has instructed university teachers to keep away from the media and avoid expressing their opinions on political matters. This is nothing short of an assault on academic freedom and fundamental rights and the silence of the national media on it mirrors the media's indifference to all the other outrages perpetrated in Kashmir.
Significantly, the focus of the mass upsurge against the US war on 'terrorism' although visible across the whole Muslim world is in the countries which have large oil reserves or provide a passage for the transport of oil but which continue to be poorly developed. With almost no working class movement, the masses are rallying round the traditional 'ulema' who can understand the mass injustice only in terms of traditional religious symbolism.
The mainstream western media projects Islam as inimical to civilised values. The demonising of Islam fits in well with the western geo-political interests in arms and oil Today, after the demise of communist states, when Islam is being seen as a security threat to the west, the media in the Muslim world needs to devise ways and means to reduce the dependency on western news sources.
