The Visual Politics of Wars.

• Author: Cristian-Mihai, Costenar
• Position: Book review

The Visual Politics of Wars

Edited by Ibrahim Saleh and Thomas Knieper

Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2017, 227 pages, [pounds sterling]61.99, ISBN: 9781443898676

In The Visual Politics of Wars, the contributors explore the concepts of journalism and mass media in a post-truth world and argue for the importance of examining media trends and understanding the large impact of media on public perception. In a post-truth world, the authors advocate scientific rigor when investigating news, as well as a dose of skepticism in accepting news footage as a factual description of reality. The contributors investigate journalistic issues connected to developing countries, as well as countries that experienced turmoil in regions of South Asia, the Middle East and Africa. In this pursuit, the authors dive into various political theories in order to explain the relationship between media and politics.

The authors split the book into four major themes: they explore the relationship between media outlets and foreign policy in various countries, and then analyze the media's dependence on financial backers and its influence with particular segments of society. Additionally, the authors debate the challenges journalists face in conflict areas, and debate the ethics of unilateral journalism and embedded journalism. On a final note, the authors reflect on future technological developments in the field of journalism and ponder the question of artificial intelligence as a viable solution for journalism.

In the fifth, sixth and ninth chapters, the authors discuss the effect of foreign policy on media's communication strategies. They argue that the latter is dependent on the former. In the first and fourth chapters, the authors examine the influence of mass media in India and Egypt and discover that the relationship between the media and its audience cannot be explained with reference to neoliberal market factors alone. In the case of unprofitable media companies, the authors emphasize identifying the financial backers as well as understanding the objectives of each media company. In the third and seventh chapters, the authors argue against the use of embedded journalists, as they are susceptible to emotional attachment to the military unit they are dispatched to, as well as being subjected to censorship. The eighth chapter argues that computer algorithms have been used in journalistic practices, but have a limited capacity for making...