Wie Kriege dargestellt werden, hat Einfluss auf die Kriegsführung. Das gilt nicht erst für die elektronischen Waffengänge moderner Zeitrechnung. Mit dem Zweiten Golfkrieg aber, so eine gängige Lesweise, hat sich die Wahrnehmung von Kriegen selbst verändert. Was wird perzipiert, was bleibt außen vor, was geht unter in der Flut an Informationen? Nachrichten über Kriege sind immer ungleich auf Interessenlagen bezogen. In den Blick gerät, was Medien verbreiten. Andere Kriege existieren in der Realität, aber nicht im Bewusstsein von Zeitgenossen weltweit. Fiktionale Verarbeitungen von Kriegen können, anders und intensiver als die Nachricht, die Gewalt reflektieren, sie einordnen, ihr Sinn geben oder sie verwerfen. Sie sind Mittel oder Teil der kriegerischen Strategie und der Propaganda, können aber ebenso gut Gegenentwürfe anbieten zu den Gräueltaten, die sie repräsentieren. Weder Fiktionalität oder Information, noch die Art der medialen Umsetzung stellen, an sich betrachtet, eine Vorentscheidung dar, wie kritisch oder wie affirmativ Kriegshandlungen geschildert oder gedeutet werden. Der vorliegende Band zeigt diese grundsätzliche Ambivalenz in den großen, epochalen Umbrüchen der Mediendispositive und den inter- und transmedialen Wandlungen insgesamt. Er reflektiert sie anhand der Geschichte der Einzelmedien wie Fotografie und Malerei, Hörspiel, Tageszeitung, Essay, Internetforum oder Fernsehnachricht, an der Arbeit von PR-Agenturen oder in der fiktionalen Verarbeitung etwa im Comic. Krieg in den Medien bringt zudem Einzelanalysen und Autorenporträts in den Gattungen Roman, Poetikvorlesung, Spielfilm, Drama oder politisch-philosophische Theorie.

Peace Journalism, War and Conflict Resolution draws together the work of over twenty leading international writers, journalists, theorists and campaigners in the field of peace journalism. Mainstream media tend to promote the interests of the military and governments in their coverage of warfare. This major new text aims to provide a definitive, up-to-date, critical, engaging and accessible overview exploring the role of the media in conflict resolution. Sections focus in detail on theory, international practice, and critiques of mainstream media performance from a peace perspective; countries discussed include the U.S., U.K., Germany, Cyprus, Sweden, Canada, India, Pakistan, Papua New Guinea and the Philippines. Chapters examine a wide variety of issues including mainstream newspapers, indigenous media, blogs and radical alternative websites. The book includes a foreword by award-winning investigative journalist John Pilger and a critical afterword by cultural commentator Jeffery Klaehn.

Flying and the pilot were significant metaphors of fascism's mythical modernity. Fernando Esposito traces the changing meanings of these highly charged symbols from the air show in Brescia, to the sky above the trenches of the First World War to the violent ideological clashes of the interwar period.

The term 'Yugoslav Wars' (or, often, 'the Balkan conflict') refers to a series of wars in the region of former Yugoslavia, which were associated with the break-up of that state. The Yugoslav Wars resulted in an unimaginable number of dead, injured and displaced people. They also had a devastating impact on the economy and on the environment. Most notably, in some of the states which emerged from the conflict, people still to this day cannot peacefully coexist with one another. Beyond the affected region itself, the military conflict also had significant implications for Europe and its member states. It destroyed the illusion that Europe had overcome war. Perhaps these recent wars have given Europe an impetus to draw lessons from them, to find out what really needs to be done to build a peaceful Europe. A particular characteristic of this publication is that it does not settle for a single precise analysis of the reasons for war and for post-war conflicts. Rather, peace efforts and peace treaties are analyzed by focusing on their function of preventing conflicts or reducing their extent. Emphasis is placed on the efforts of national actors as well as on those of actors in civil society to promote peace policies in the international sphere. This collection of articles might, for the first time, clearly display the political challenges of peace in the context of the collapse of Yugoslavia and its subsequent wars. It certainly seeks to illustrate what has been learned and what still needs to be learned for the future.

Media Agoras: Democracy, Diversity, and Communication is a collection of essays presenting some of the most up-to-date perspectives on the study of the role media play in the construction of a more inclusive and respectful society. From theoretical debates on the role played by media in fostering participatory practices in the public sphere to more empirically based analyses of the media policy, production, content, and reception in relation to democratic possiblities and diversity, this book presents a critical overview of such crucial debates in contemporary European societies.

‘Jürgen Habermas’, wrote the American philosopher Ronald Dworkin on the occasion of the great European thinker’s eightieth birthday, ‘is not only the world’s most famous living philosopher. Even his fame is famous.’ Now, after many years of intensive research and in-depth conversations with contemporaries, colleagues and Habermas himself, Stefan Müller-Doohm presents the first comprehensive biography of one of the most important public intellectuals of our time. From his political and philosophical awakening in West Germany to the formative relationships with Adorno and Horkheimer, Müller-Doohm masterfully traces the major forces that shaped Habermas’s intellectual development. He shows how Habermas’s life and work were conditioned by the possibilities offered to his generation in the unique circumstances of regained freedom that characterized postwar Germany. And yet Habermas’s career is fascinating precisely because it amounts to more than a corpus of scholarly work, however original and influential that may be. For here is someone who continually left the protective space of the university in order to assume the role of a participant in controversial public debates Ð from the significance of the Holocaust to the future of Europe Ð and in this way sought to influence the development of social and political life in an arena much broader than the academy. The significance and virtuosity of Habermas’s many writings over the years are also fully and expertly documented, ranging from his early work on the public sphere to his more recent writings on communicative action, cosmopolitanism and the postnational condition. What emerges from this biography is a vivid portrait of one of the great public intellectuals of our time Ð a unique thinker who has made an immense and lasting philosophical contribution but who, when he perceives that society is not living up to its potential for creating free and just conditions for all, becomes one of its most rigorous and persistent critics.