A comparartive media study of the Falklands War

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A comparartive media study of the Falklands War

The analysis of media coverage is tricky in any time period, with debates raging over the role and aims of the media in conveying information to the masses. The situation is further complicated during periods of crisis - historically, the media has been used to spread propaganda, through the popular press in the First World War, and the radio and cinema in its successor. It was the television coverage of the Vietnam War which shaped the way broadcasting was perceived - for the harrowing shots of wartime behaviour was said to strike American morale so deeply, as to ultimately lose the war.

It is in such an atmosphere that the media confronted the Falklands Crisis. In fact, this conflict was unique in being inaccessible save by Naval crossing. Thus the British government was able to exclude any independent or foreign journalist from travelling the 8,000 miles with the Task Force, allowing select teams from Britain to make the journey, as long as they conformed to the strictest censorship.

The Glasgow University Media Group (1985) examined the production process of news during this period, and here I explore their analysis,