Word Choice and bias in media by John Fleming https://padlet.com/jfleming84/Bookmarks I can analyze how word choice and the use of language influences the bias of a news story en-us 2020-09-29 12:33:53 UTC 2021-07-17 11:22:40 UTC hello@padlet.com Why does the author define America's foreign policy when using the word "aggression"? jfleming84 https://padlet.com/jfleming84/Bookmarks/wish/1537843627 Aggression, in international politics, is commonly defined as the use of armed force against another sovereign state, not justified by self-defense or international authority. Any state being described as aggressive in foreign or international reporting, therefore, is almost by definition in the wrong.
It’s a word that seems easy to apply to the United States, which launched 81 foreign interventions between 1946 and 2000 alone. In the 21st century, the United States has attacked, invaded or occupied the sovereign states of Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria, Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia.
Despite the US record, Western corporate media overwhelmingly reserve the word “aggression” for official enemy nations—whether or not it’s warranted. In contrast, US behavior is almost never categorized as aggressive, thereby giving readers a misleading picture of the world.


]]> 2021-05-19 00:03:19 UTC https://padlet.com/jfleming84/Bookmarks/wish/1537843627 Why does the author use examples of Iran, China, and the Taliban to examine the use of the word "aggression"? jfleming84 https://padlet.com/jfleming84/Bookmarks/wish/1537854224 Perhaps the most notable internationally aggressive act in recent memory was the Trump administration’s assassination of Iranian general and political leader Qassem Soleimani last year. Yet in its long and detailed report on the event, the Washington Post (1/4/20) managed to present Iran as the aggressor. The US was merely “choos[ing] this moment to explore an operation against the leader of Iran’s Quds Force, after tolerating Iranian aggression in the Persian Gulf for months,” in the Post’s words....Russia is another country constantly portrayed as aggressive. The New York Times (11/12/20) described a US fishing boat’s mix up with the Russian navy off the coast of Kamchatka as typical Russian aggression, complete with the headline, “Are We Getting Invaded?” The Military Times (6/26/20) worried that any reduction in US troops in Germany could “embolden Russian aggression.” And a headline from the Hill (11/14/19) claimed that “Putin’s Aggression Exposes Russia’s Decline.” In the same sentence that publicized a report advocating that NATO expand to take on China directly, the Wall Street Journal (12/1/20) warned of “Russian aggression.” Suffice to say, tooling up for an intercontinental war against another nuclear power was not framed as Western warmongering...Corporate media even present the Taliban’s actions in their own country against Western occupation troops as “aggression” (Guardian 7/26/06; CBS News, 11/27/13; Reuters, 3/26/21). The New York Times (11/24/20) recently worried about the Taliban’s “aggression on the battlefield,” while presenting the US—a country that invaded Afghanistan in 2001 and still has not left—as supposedly committed to the “peace process.”


]]> 2021-05-19 00:10:11 UTC https://padlet.com/jfleming84/Bookmarks/wish/1537854224 Why does the author use examples from the study of the "Manufacturing consent"? jfleming84 https://padlet.com/jfleming84/Bookmarks/wish/1537866245 That the US, by definition, is always acting defensively and never aggressively is close to an iron law of journalism. The US attack on Southeast Asia is arguably the worst international crime since the end of World War II, causing some 3.8 million Vietnamese deaths alone. Yet in their seminal study of the media, Manufacturing Consent, Edward Herman and Noam Chomsky (Extra!, 12/87) were unable to find a single mention of a US “attack” on Vietnam. Instead, the war was commonly framed as the “defense” of South Vietnam from the Communist North.
Even decades later, US actions in Vietnam are still often described as a “defense” (e.g., Wall Street Journal, 4/29/05; Christian Science Monitor, 1/22/07; Politico, 10/10/15; Foreign Policy, 9/27/17). In a 2018 autopsy of the conflict headlined “What Went Wrong in Vietnam,” New Yorker staff writer Louis Menand (2/26/18) wrote that “our policy was to enable South Vietnam to defend itself” as the US “tried to prevent Vietnam from becoming a Communist state.” “Millions died in that struggle,” he adds, as if the perpetrators of the violence were unknown.


]]> 2021-05-19 00:17:17 UTC https://padlet.com/jfleming84/Bookmarks/wish/1537866245 What does this last line say about the word "aggression", and what does it say about word choice in media in general? jfleming84 https://padlet.com/jfleming84/Bookmarks/wish/1537868941 The concept of US belligerence is simply not being discussed seriously in the corporate press, leading to the conclusion that the word “aggression” in newspeak means little more than “actions we don’t like carried out by enemy states.”]]> 2021-05-19 00:18:29 UTC https://padlet.com/jfleming84/Bookmarks/wish/1537868941 https://padlet.com/jfleming84/Bookmarks/wish/1653298559 2021-07-17 11:22:40 UTC https://padlet.com/jfleming84/Bookmarks/wish/1653298559