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Social Media, Gender and the Mediatisation of War: Exploring the German Armed Forces’ Visual Representation of the Afghanistan Operation on Facebook
[journal article]
Abstract
Studies on the mediatisation of war point to attempts of governments to regulate the visual perspective of their involvements in armed conflict – the most notable example being the practice of ‘embedded reporting’ in Iraq and Afghanistan. This paper focuses on a different strategy of visual meaning-... view more
Studies on the mediatisation of war point to attempts of governments to regulate the visual perspective of their involvements in armed conflict – the most notable example being the practice of ‘embedded reporting’ in Iraq and Afghanistan. This paper focuses on a different strategy of visual meaning-making, namely, the publication of images on social media by armed forces themselves. Specifically, we argue that the mediatisation of war literature could profit from an increased engagement with feminist research, both within Critical Security/Critical Military Studies and within Science and Technology Studies that highlight the close connection between masculinity, technology and control. The article examines the German military mission in Afghanistan as represented on the German armed forces’ official Facebook page. Germany constitutes an interesting, and largely neglected, case for the growing literature on the mediatisation of war: its strong antimilitarist political culture makes the representation of war particularly delicate. The paper examines specific representational patterns of Germany’s involvement in Afghanistan and discusses the implications which arise from what is placed inside the frame of visibility and what remains out of its view.... view less
Keywords
social construction; opinion formation; public opinion; Federal Republic of Germany; legitimation; war; mediatization; masculinity; facebook; gender; Federal Armed Forces; social media; military; femininity; engineering; gender-specific factors; Afghanistan
Classification
Women's Studies, Feminist Studies, Gender Studies
Peace and Conflict Research, International Conflicts, Security Policy
Interactive, electronic Media
Document language
English
Publication Year
2017
Page/Pages
31 p.
Journal
Global Discourse (2017)
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1080/23269995.2017.1337982
ISSN
2043-7897
Status
Published Version; peer reviewed
Licence
Deposit Licence - No Redistribution, No Modifications