Digital Mind 🧠

đŸȘ” The Threshold

Media coverage of Afghan women spiked eighteenfold only once it served war aims

Properties2
tagsja-picks, share, xref, seed, addendum, causal_relationships, trade, corroborated, category/causal-relationships
aliases@kumar_islamophobia_2012, loc. 288

5 min read

Media coverage of Afghan women spiked eighteenfold only once it served war aims

Evidence

Subtle references to “our” culture and values, as can be seen in the quotes above, served to ground the rescue narrative within a “clash of civilizations” framework, which pits the “West” and “Islam” in a transhistoric battle. To be sure, conditions for women in Afghanistan were harsh. However, until they proved to be useful for empire, Afghan women warranted little coverage in the media. As Carol Stabile and I wrote, in broadcast media only thirty-seven programs focused on Afghan women in 1999. From January 2000 to September 11, 2001, there were thirty-three programs. From September 12, 2001 to January 1, 2002, the number of broadcast programs spiked to 628.26 This sustained attention was due in no small part to the role that “primary definers” such as those quoted at the start of this section play in determining what is newsworthy and when. When the suffering of Afghan women proved useful to the war on terror and to US imperial aims in South and Central Asia, they became the subject of sustained media attention. In reality, Afghan women are no better off than they were before the war, particularly in the rural areas where things deteriorated after the US/NATO invasion. — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of Empire, 288

However, until they proved to be useful for empire, Afghan women warranted little coverage in the media. As Carol Stabile and I wrote, in broadcast media only thirty-seven programs focused on Afghan women in 1999. From January 2000 to September 11, 2001, there were thirty-three programs. From September 12, 2001 to January 1, 2002, the number of broadcast programs spiked to 628.26 This sustained attention was due in no small part to the role that “primary definers” such as those quoted at the start of this section play in determining what is newsworthy and when. When the suffering of Afghan women proved useful to the war on terror and to US imperial aims in South and Central Asia, they became the subject of sustained media attention. In reality, Afghan women are no better off than they were before the war, particularly in the rural areas where things deteriorated after the US/NATO invasion. — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of Empire, 288

However, until they proved to be useful for empire, Afghan women warranted little coverage in the media. As Carol Stabile and I wrote, in broadcast media only thirty-seven programs focused on Afghan women in 1999. From January 2000 to September 11, 2001, there were thirty-three programs. From September 12, 2001 to January 1, 2002, the number of broadcast programs spiked to 628.26 This sustained attention was due in no small part to the role that “primary definers” such as those quoted at the start of this section play in determining what is newsworthy and when. When the suffering of Afghan women proved useful to the war on terror and to US imperial aims in South and Central Asia, they became the subject of sustained media attention. — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of Empire, 300

Categorization

  • SHARE: The concrete program counts (37 in 1999, 33 in 2001 pre-9/11, 628 after) are a striking numbers tidbit for someone following media framing studies.
  • XREF: Connects to the ‘Complaints About Immodesty Go Way Back’ article’s logic about how moral panics over dress get deployed as political signaling, and to Abu-Lughod’s ‘Do Muslim Women Need Saving?’ — connects to: Western media’s Afghan women coverage spiked twentyfold only when it served war aims — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of
, 300; News juxtaposed Afghan women’s horrors against liberation images to justify war — Evelyn Alsultany, Arabs and Muslims in the Media: Race
, 533; Feminist framing of Afghan women’s oppression concealed harm from U.S. bombing and food-aid disruption. — Evelyn Alsultany, Arabs and Muslims in the Media: Race
, 576 (+1 more)
  • SEED: A strong data point for an essay on how imperial propaganda works by selective compassion: suffering is news only when it legitimates escalation.
  • ADDENDUM: Pairs with published article ‘Complaints About Immodesty Go Way Back’ — its moral-panic-over-dress logic is exactly what the 628-program spike operationalizes here.
  • corroborated: 3 independent passages support this claim — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of
, 288; Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of
, 300

Broader Connections

✉

Backlinks