information operations – ZERO ANTHROPOLOGY

Realism or Iconography? The Pentagon’s Implicit Theory of Visual Representation

The following is an extract from my chapter, “A Flickr of Militarization: Photographic Regulation, Symbolic Consecration, and the Strategic Communication of ‘Good Intentions’,” published in Good Intentions: Norms and Practices of Imperial Humanitarianism (Montreal: Alert Press, 2014), pp. 185-279: US military documents make it quite clear that, for the military, a photograph is a straightforward, […]

by Maximilian C. Forte

The Military’s Media Whores: On Ethics, Power, Rapport and Responsibility

First, my thanks to Erik Davis (colleague, long time friend of this blog) for directing my attention to this brilliant piece by Matt Taibbi at Rolling Stone: Lara Logan, You Suck, from which I will quote extensively in the extracts that follow. This is a “notes and quotes” feature of this blog, apart from this […]

by Maximilian C. Forte

Militainment: U.S. Military Propaganda in the News Media, Hollywood, and Video Games

“Propaganda is at its most effective when the audience does not know it is being manipulated and one of the best, glitziest examples of that is when propaganda is delivered on the big screen in the guise of a Hollywood blockbuster.”–The Listening Post, 12 June 2010 Al Jazeera’s The Listening Post had an excellent review […]

by Maximilian C. Forte

Video Propaganda: Human Terrain System on National Geographic

In terms of American mainstream media propaganda at the service of U.S. wars of occupation, and particularly favourable to the U.S. Army’s Human Terrain System, my vote for the most generous treatments, in descending order, are first the piece in the San Francisco Chronicle, second this prize in The Atlantic, third this recommendation to Obama […]