It made both the BCC and ITN news. But that storm-in-a-tea-cup over the Big Brother dominated the news. I'm in complete agreement. It's astounding that the most banal comments by bored women make headline news, whilst acts of extraordinary heroism by our service personnel in AFG do not. What does this tell us about the priorities of the voter in the street...?
Of course, if we had more kit (especially tactical airlift) then RM commandos would not have to be strapping themselves to helicopter gunships!
I am more interested why the MoD is not pushing this story harder. This is the kind of example of the amazing committment of UK troops in Afghanistan etc. and should be publicized much more. I have little doubt that HMG has the capacity to drive the media agenda, however, I am somewhat puzzled as to why they have not made more of a deal about it. Something tells me that Theo's thought about the lack of tactical airlift might be the reason behind it.
I'm not sure about that Ivan. I do doubt the capability of HMG to drive the media agenda in general. More importantly I think it's the zeitgeist of our time. Not just our media either. It's practically impossible to speak of war and heroism without irony. This is tragic. Chris Coker wrote about this in a RUSI Journal article called 'The Unhappy Warrior': 'There is a dialectical process at work here. On the one hand, a society that cannot produce heroes is one that does not really appreciate the heroic in life, or which, in this case, cannot invest the death of its soldiers with the force of sacrifice freely undertaken.'
I take your point, and can't help but agree that the this is in some ways the mark of the times we live in that the Big Brother issue (just the fact that such a programme is as popular as it is shows how low we have sunk as a society) had monopolized media space on that day. Nevertheless, I also think that this was a rare (or not so rare) opportunity to gain some advantages, if you can call it that, in the media battlespace. I have no doubts about the governments ability to set the media agenda. More importantly, I think that it is the realm of media that today's conflicts are fought, as much as on the battlefield. The reputation of UK forces had taken some knocks in the past few years and these are opportunities to restore some of it. In any case, thanks for raising this point!
Wow! I missed this in New York. A guy who jumped onto an electified subway line to save another made the front page of the New York Times but what these marines did was truly herioc. It does remind me of why soldiers fight. Ultimately, it's for their mates!
It's been a while since I have posted a reply to your blog (my bloglines feed machine dropped your blog for some reason and I did not notice).
Interesting what you said about the apparent zeitgeist and heroism and irony. I admit that the first thing I thought when I read about this particular story was 'yeah, yeah, big deal'. Big deal! What was I thinking?
As real life heroism is a relatively rare exception, I suppose that my response is the effect of fictional media and especially Holywood and the normalisation of superheroism (the parallel to the normalisation effect of violence on our screens then).
6 comments:
It made both the BCC and ITN news. But that storm-in-a-tea-cup over the Big Brother dominated the news. I'm in complete agreement. It's astounding that the most banal comments by bored women make headline news, whilst acts of extraordinary heroism by our service personnel in AFG do not. What does this tell us about the priorities of the voter in the street...?
Of course, if we had more kit (especially tactical airlift) then RM commandos would not have to be strapping themselves to helicopter gunships!
I am more interested why the MoD is not pushing this story harder. This is the kind of example of the amazing committment of UK troops in Afghanistan etc. and should be publicized much more. I have little doubt that HMG has the capacity to drive the media agenda, however, I am somewhat puzzled as to why they have not made more of a deal about it. Something tells me that Theo's thought about the lack of tactical airlift might be the reason behind it.
I'm not sure about that Ivan. I do doubt the capability of HMG to drive the media agenda in general. More importantly I think it's the zeitgeist of our time. Not just our media either. It's practically impossible to speak of war and heroism without irony. This is tragic. Chris Coker wrote about this in a RUSI Journal article called 'The Unhappy Warrior': 'There is a dialectical process at work here. On the one hand, a society that cannot produce heroes is one that does not really appreciate the heroic in life, or which, in this case, cannot invest the death of its soldiers with the force of sacrifice freely undertaken.'
I take your point, and can't help but agree that the this is in some ways the mark of the times we live in that the Big Brother issue (just the fact that such a programme is as popular as it is shows how low we have sunk as a society) had monopolized media space on that day. Nevertheless, I also think that this was a rare (or not so rare) opportunity to gain some advantages, if you can call it that, in the media battlespace. I have no doubts about the governments ability to set the media agenda. More importantly, I think that it is the realm of media that today's conflicts are fought, as much as on the battlefield. The reputation of UK forces had taken some knocks in the past few years and these are opportunities to restore some of it. In any case, thanks for raising this point!
Wow! I missed this in New York. A guy who jumped onto an electified subway line to save another made the front page of the New York Times but what these marines did was truly herioc. It does remind me of why soldiers fight. Ultimately, it's for their mates!
Hi David
It's been a while since I have posted a reply to your blog (my bloglines feed machine dropped your blog for some reason and I did not notice).
Interesting what you said about the apparent zeitgeist and heroism and irony. I admit that the first thing I thought when I read about this particular story was 'yeah, yeah, big deal'. Big deal! What was I thinking?
As real life heroism is a relatively rare exception, I suppose that my response is the effect of fictional media and especially Holywood and the normalisation of superheroism (the parallel to the normalisation effect of violence on our screens then).
Nick
Post a Comment