Rebel groups can win the international public-image war against governments

Evidence

During the Sri Lankan civil war, the Tamil Tigers exploited mass media in their decades-long control of substantial territory in northern and eastern Sri Lanka until they were routed by the Sri Lankan army. The government realized that it was losing the public-image war in the international media to the Tigers: “They were better at this than we were. They were trying to tell the world that we were killers and racists and barbarians and that we will not allow their women to come out of their houses without killing and raping them” (Meadows, 2010). So the government mounted its own media campaign to promote a favorable image in the world community: “They have six websites to talk about their cause. And we have ours.” — Albert Bandura, Moral Disengagement, 2263

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the ‘public image war’ theme parallel to image-management in corporate and political spheres; also to moral disengagement via delegitimization scripts.
• corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim — Albert Bandura, Moral Disengagement: How People Do Harm…, 2263