ISBN: 978-1-4331-2823-3
Greg Simons
Institute for Russian and Eurasian Studies, Uppsala University
Zollmann’s book takes a critical look and re-examination of mass media
coverage of the political debate on military intervention by the West. The
logic of the book follows the contours of the filters proposed by Herman and
Chomsky. In addition to the choices of national media systems and types of mass
media product, Zollmann discusses six particular events (pp. 56-60). The logic
of choosing these particular cases is that the first three incidents represent
cases occurring in ‘enemy’ states (former Yugoslavia, Libya and Syria), the
other three are from ‘friendly’ or client states of the West. Should mass media
be politically independent, then the quality and style of the reporting of
these incidents should be similar. Zollmann identifies a number of significant
findings of his research, one of these being ‘the relative similarity in terms
of the quantitative provision of indignation and the use of similar keywords to
frame the studies incidents’ (p. 211). Thus the different media outlets
studied, in spite of their differences in terms of country and brand position,
did demonstrate ideological alignment on the reporting of the six examined
cases. A second finding identified was the media coverage tended to reflect the
specific interests of the national elite (p. 211). This finding fits with
Herman and Chomsky’s propaganda model that formed the basis of the lens with
which to make sense of the media content. A third, interesting finding of the
book is that the European media tended to be more adversarial than their
counterparts in the United States (p. 212). The significant difference in
reporting the between the ‘worthy’ and ‘unworthy’ victims validates Zollmann’s
method and approach.