Book Review: Mass Media and Modern Warfare

Greg Simons. Mass Media and Modern Warfare: Reporting on the Russian War on Terrorism. Farnham: Ashgate, 2010. vii + 207 pp. $99.95. ISBN 978-0-7546-7472-6.

The Global War on Terrorism has spawned a large body of literature that encompasses research devoted to as diverse of topics as the historical roots of the western conflict with Islamic fundamentalism to the cultures that are accused of aiding and abetting terrorists, and everything in between. The present volume engages the highly politicized conflict between the Russian Federation and Islamic fundamentalism in Chechnya and the North Caucasus, serving as both a precursor to the events of September 11, 2001 and as an additional case-study in the burgeoning literature on understanding terrorism and modern warfare. What Greg Simons’ book highlights, in an informative and objective way, is how far Russia has to go before its media can be considered free and independent considering the near constancy of state intervention in the media and its desire to garner support from civil society by any means necessary. Russia’s historical heavy-handed approach to governing is not unique, but Simons’ book provides observations about the use of the media as a tool of socialization in the global clampdown on extremism.

Simons’ greatest contribution to this field of research is providing insight into the role of the media in shaping public opinion by focusing on the official version of events rather than providing objective reporting from on the ground. The role of the media as ‘watchdog’ for government and military actions in Chechnya is nearly nonexistent under the present media environment in Russian reporting on the Chechen War. Though Simons notes a number of worthy exceptions (Andrei Babitsky, Raf Shakirov, and Anna Politkovskaya to name a few), the subservient coverage and lack of credibility that has largely typified the media environment surrounding Russia’s war on terrorism has undermined the reputation of the Russian media as a whole.

The history of post-Soviet authoritarianism that saw a state-led heavy-handed approach to undercutting resistant media outlets, namely assaults or murders of journalists and raiding media offices has become increasingly rare. Dmitri Medvedev’s tenure has made considerable improvements over his predecessor’s Soviet-style methods for garnering public support through lessons from western media outlets which ‘manufacture consent’ (to borrow a term from Edward S. Herman and Noam Chomsky) by filling the post-Cold War void with an “‘ideology’ of anti-terrorism” (p. 71). In this regard Simons concludes that the Kremlin has become more astute in its methods of managing Russian media outlets through carefully placed rhetorical responses to oppositional sources; a ‘propaganda model’ for a new era of war reporting. On this point Simons conclusions shine and provide insight into a sobering area of research: the fact that democratic regimes are not alone in their perceptive manipulation of media. Terrorist organizations and authoritarian regimes alike have shown how adept they can be in manufacturing and maintaining an ideology (p. 192-193). The Internet has been touted as a beacon of democratic expectation and hope but, as Simons has shown freedom of speech and expression via the worldwide web is a double-edged sword. The present volume’s analysis of the current struggle in Chechnya is just one case-study of a greater field of research that challenges previous conceptions about the transformative nature of the media.

Finally, it must be noted that the work does suffer in a few areas, namely editorial oversights and cases where empirical evidence challenges or undermines Simons’ conclusions throughout. Both are cause for concern during the reading of the book as they defy understanding, but the discrepancies are generally cleared up in Simons’ final remarks. The book also lacks synergy. Terrorist acts, such as the Nord-Ost theater siege (2002) and the Beslan hostage crisis (2004), are found throughout the work, but the synergy is lost in the analysis. Though Simons consults various news sources, the analysis fails to bridge any larger trends, or tease out any deep-seated issues that could breed future acts of terrorism. This volume, while lacking a comparative study of media coverage in the greater Global War on Terrorism field of literature, provides a multidisciplinary approach to understanding how democratic aspirations in civil society challenge the Kremlin’s attempts to combat extremism. Researchers of the Russian mass media, Russian military and security actions, as well as the general public interested in the Chechen War will find Simons’ work helpful in understanding some of the finer details of the conflict.

Reference

Herman, Edward S. and Noam Chomsky. Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media. New York: Pantheon, 1994.