a war of words

This study is based on a reanalysis of our data base which captured the main evening news available on all British terrestrial and satellite television throughout the duration of the 1991 Gulf War. Examination of the language of television news revealed that the war was largely presented as a clinical exercise in destruction which eclipsed empathetic accounts of human suffering. For example news presenters and reporters were the least likely to use expressions implying a passive enemy (as in 'dogfight') and the most likely to use expressions offering a more clinical image where no physical enemy was implied (as in 'sortie'). Overall, the ratio on television was 2:1 in favour of the clinical image. However in the Gulf War, few events involved combat as such. It was mainly a war fought from the air by bombing and it is not surprising that the language of military training dominated. Overall this research raises more questions about how the public relate to issues of conflict and social order than answered by the research to date.