Теория и практика "информационной войны"

Based on content analysis of global media and interviews with many diplomats and journalists, this paper describes the trajectory of the media from objective observer to fiery advocate, becoming in fact a weapon of modern warfare.

Исследование выполнено методами контент анализа сообщений мировых СМИ и интервью с ведущими дипломатами и журналистами.

Показано как именно - какими механизмами - достигалось изменение позиции журналистов из нейтральных наблюдателей в активных сторонников только одной [арабской] из двух сторон конфликта, и таким образом превращения СМИ в один из высокоэффективных родов оружия современной войны.

The paper also shows how an open society, Israel, is victimized by its own openness and how a closed sect, Hezbollah, can retain almost total control of the daily message of journalism and propaganda.

В отчете показано, почему и как именно открытое общество каким является государство Израиль заведомо проигрывает информацилонную войну закрытой секте, которой является Хезбола, благодаря чему эта самая Хезбола может приобретать в таких ситуациях практически полный контроль над содержанием текущих сообщений журналистов с места боевых действии, превращая их в орудие своей пропаганды.

The Media as a Weapon in Asymmetrical Conflict:

The Israeli-Hezbollah War of 2006

By Marvin Kalb, Working Paper Number:RWP07-012 Submitted: 02/28/2007

via olegs

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Текст отчета по итогам выполненных в Гарварде исследований доступен по вышеприведенной ссылке. Он предлагается в PDF формате, а потому для тех, кому почему-либо читать его таким образом покажэется не свосем удобным, ниже предлагаются его некоторые - заключительные - разделы в текстовом формате.

... Scholars say that if the media had the technology during World War II to show photos and videotape of Allied bombing attacks on German and Japanese civilians, and to hear their tales of woe on 24/7 cable news programs, the morality of the war (though unlikely the outcome) would have been significantly different.

Исследователи обсуждаемого явления предлагают читателям данного отчета вообразить как - в какую именно сторону и до какой степени - изменился бы моральный дух союзных стран, боровшихся против Германии и Японии в период WW2, если бы населению Британии, Канады и Америки денно и нощно - 24/7 cable news programs - показывали фотографии и видеозаписи жертв и разрушений, которые имели место в ходе той войны среди мирных жителей городов Германии и Японии ...

Conclusion

Is there then such a thing as objective journalism in the Middle East, a journalism that can report on the ups and downs of Israeli policy with a degree of detachment?

According to Walid Omary, a Palestinian journalist with an Israeli ID card from the village of Sandala between Afula in Israel and Jenin on the West Bank, the answer is no. “Objectivity and balance do not exist in the Middle East and in this region especially,” he said.69

With degrees from Hebrew and Tel Aviv universities, Omary is an accomplished journalist, who rose to become Jerusalem bureau chief for Al-Jazeera.

“My village was under the attack of missiles from Lebanon and my relatives were under attack from the Israelis in Lebanon, which means, to give good balance, to try to give good coverage—is not easy at all in this area.”70 Omary added a personal dimension to the chronic Arab predisposition to see Israel as an unwelcome, foreign intrusion into their neighborhood.

When Hezbollah rocketed Israel during the war, many Palestinians enjoyed the spectacle of Arabs hurting Jews. Abdelraouf Arnout, the Jerusalem correspondent for the Palestinian newspaper Al Ayyam, said that the Hezbollah leader, Hassan Nasrallah, had become a hugely admired “symbol” of Arab resistance among the Palestinian people.71 Daoud Hussein, a Kuwaiti actor, speaking on the Al-Jazeera call-in program, “Voice of the People,” praised Nasrallah and prayed for his victory against Israel.

“If there was just one Nasrallah in every Arab country— one person with his dedication, intelligence, courage, strength and commitment—Arabs would not have had to suffer stolen land and defeat at the hands of Israel for 50 years.”72 Call-in shows naturally reflect popular mood and opinion, but news broadcasts are supposed to be based on the principles of fairness and objectivity.

In the Middle East, where the Arab-Israeli conflict is an inescapable fact of life, these principles are rarely observed. During the war, according to Yoni Ben Menachem, general director of Kol Yisrael, Israelis were convinced that Al-Jazeera presented a “distorted picture of what was going on,” especially in its reporting from Lebanon. “They were not reporting objectively,” he said. “They were making some propaganda for Hezbollah.”73

Add one other crucial ingredient to this journalistic wartime stew of charge and countercharge—and that was the Internet. This was a live war, in which the information battlefield played a central role.

Here the Israelis suffered from the openness of their democratic society. They succumbed to the public pressures of live 24/7 coverage. They couldn’t keep a secret.

Hezbollah, on the other hand, controlled its message with an iron grip. It had one spokesman and no leaks.

Hezbollah did not have to respond to criticism from bloggers, and it could always count on unashamedly sympathetic Arab reporters to blast Israel for its “disproportionate” military attack against Lebanon.

Nik Gowing, a respected BBC World anchor, warned at a recent Harvard conference that the “new asymmetric information—the new level of accountability and public perceptions in a time of crisis” exposed “the vulnerability of traditional institutions of power and influence.”74

Israel, in this context, was the “traditional institution,” made suddenly “vulnerable” by the flow of “asymmetric information.” Gowing gave an example of how “in a time of crisis and tension, public perceptions can be created by the new media matrix.”

During the war, even though Israel still had military censorship, technically, “you could be up there on the northern border [of Israel] filming, uplinking live war: live war of soldiers moving into south Lebanon, live war of anti-tank missiles immobilizing Merkava tanks.” Such reporting, common on the Israeli side of the war, had “a fundamental impact on the reputation and the image and the fear factor created by the IDF.”

The bloggers helped spread the impression of Israeli “vulnerability.” Gowing said “it was the bloggers and the calls to radio stations, which were highlighting the vulnerability of the Israeli defense forces.”

Whether the flavor of journalism is American or Qatari, both march to their own drummer, both convinced their principles best define good and honest journalism. Efforts at reconciliation are likely to fail, at least in the near future. Yet both schools of journalism, however different they may be, are strongly influenced in their practice by what might be called “the new media,” that combustible mix of 24/7 cable news, call-in radio and television programs, Internet bloggers and online websites, cell phones and iPods.

The upshot is a new kind of populist journalism, which strongly influences the story that is being covered. Indeed, the journalist or, in this new age, the commentator, often becomes part of the story.

During the Lebanon War, for example, the bloggers had more influence over the flow of the story than they had had during any other war. Ravi Nessman, the senior Jerusalem correspondent of the Associated Press, thought the influence of the bloggers, especially in the United States, was “unprecedented.”75

When the bloggers [in the U.S.] discovered that photographs had been doctored, “the credibility of the bloggers…skyrocketed and our credibility plummeted.” Nessman added, “After that everything that we did was suspect. And that makes it very difficult to cover a war, to have honest people who are trying, who are not doctoring photographs, who are not taking one side or the other, but who are trying to present the truth of what is going on there, and have everything we say be examined, which is fair, but basically be questioned as a lie, and starting with that premise that the media is lying.”

The Lebanon War produced a bumper crop of stories both good and bad, growing out of a new kind of asymmetrical warfare waged by a state on the one side and a religious, nationalistic guerrilla force on the other side. Will Israel seek to change the ground rules for coverage of the next war?

And even if the effort were made, could it succeed? In an open society, ground rules may be announced, but they are not likely to be observed or enforced. During the 2006 summertime war in the Middle East, it was Israel versus Hezbollah, led by the charismatic Hassan Nasrallah, and because Israel did not win the war, it is judged to have lost.

In Iraq, in the not too distant future, it may well be the United States versus the Mahdi Army, led by the equally charismatic Sheik Moqtada al-Sadr. The challenge for responsible journalists covering asymmetrical warfare, especially in this age of the Internet, is new, awesome and frightening.
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Update - по обыкновению переношу в апдейт к основному сообщению те диалоги из комментов которые: 1)точно соответствуют теме сообщения; 2) поясняют и дополняют его основную мысль:

mingbai - Я вот только не пойму, почему закрытые СССР, КНР, КНДР проигрывали информационные войны? Ну ладно КНДР совсем закрытая, т.е. никакого "ассимметричного ответа". Но ведь СССР вполне пытался вести антипропаганду.

• разложение практически полное изнутри "тыла американских войск", сражавшихся во Вьтнаме,
• постоянно нараставший градус антиаериканизма практически во всех странах НАТО;
• возлавляемое Кастро всемирное "движение неприсодинившихся стран";
• "движение за мир во всем мире";
• и пр.