ABSTRACT
The expression ‘media war’ was first heard in the aftermath of the Gulf War (1991, US official military designation: Operation Desert Storm), although as a concept it pre-dates that war by slightly more than a decade. It was coined to reflect a significantly new relationship in war between Western armed forces and the media, not only of greater importance than in previous wars, but also different in nature. Media war represents not (as some could perhaps be forgiven for thinking) a war conducted by the armed forces against the national and international news media, but rather the exploitation of the news media by the armed forces as a means of securing military victory on the battlefield. Systematic and pre-planned, media war is structured from the highest levels downwards, stretching around the globe to the centres of national policy and public opinion. It has developed as a consequence of recent increases in the news media’s intrusion into the sphere of military operations, followed by an unprecedented (and politically much more controversial) intrusion by the military into the civilian sphere of the domestic media and public opinion. Although media war is closely related to public diplomacy, practised in both peace and war by governments and others, in itself it is best considered as a branch of the military art.
