Media Framing and the Destruction of Cultural Heritage

Mischa Geracoulis is a human rights journalist and critical media literacy expert, and Managing Editor at the media watch and education organization Project Censored and its publishing imprint The Censored Press. With a background in the politics and culture of Southwest Asia, the Middle East and North Africa (SWANA/MENA), Mischa serves on the editorial board of The Markaz Review. Her writing on UN Article 19 and US First Amendment issues, journalistic ethics and standards, and truth in reporting can be found in independent news and academic publications.

• Epigraph by Ammiel AlcalayAcknowledgmentsForward by Benjamin GatlingPrefaceIntroduction1 Media Practices and Constraints Covering Cultural Heritage Destruction2 Silences That Bury the History of Armenia, Its People, and Its Cultural Heritage3 Destruction of Gaza and Palestinian Cultural Heritage4 Cultural Heritage Is a Human RightConclusionIndex

This essential book is one that teaches us how to challenge such absolute loss through engagement, attention and - most importantly - recall.Salar Abdoh, Director of Undergraduate Creative Writing, The City College of New York, USA.Drawing from two recent cases of ethnic cleansing—namely the annihilation of Gaza and the forced displacement of the Armenian-populated territory of Artsakh—the author examines how legacy media have normalized atrocities against these “unworthy victims” and the destruction of their respective cultural heritages. Geracoulis does us all a favor by dismantling the make-believe objectivity of the corporate press when it comes to their coverage of these two conflicts, and by extension, of many others.Markar Melkonian, Philosophy lecturer, California State University (retired), author, and co-founder of the Monte Melkonian Fund, Inc. In this book, Mischa Geracoulis examines how media covers the destruction of Armenian and Palestinian cultural heritage and the evident bias that appears in its narrative. The topic is extremely timely especially considering the on-going violence in Gaza and Artsakh and the attacks on academic freedom and freedom of speech. Geracoulis does an excellent job challenging media representation of two communities that have suffered cruelty, social exclusion, displacement, and homeland dispossession. She advocates for the protection of cultural heritage as a human right, and she is absolutely right. Cultural heritage serves as the beating heart and memory center of a community. Without it, a community loses its story, which is clearly the danger Armenians and Palestinians run when misrepresented by media. Geracoulis not only questions the dominant narrative in media but also corrects through advocacy. Excellent read!Mireille Rebeiz, Chair of Middle East Studies, Dickinson College, USA.This manuscript offers a timely examination of how media narratives shape global understanding of cultural heritage destruction. A profoundly humane work!Cher Weixia Chen, Associate Professor and Founder of Human Rights and Global Justice Initiative, George Mason University, USA.At a moment when governments are reshaping the narratives of cultural history, disappearing some pasts while creating disjunct presents, Geracoulis's book is a pressing and prescient reminder of the importance of cultural memory and heritage. Juxtaposing the genocide of the Armenians and the attempted erasure of their heritage in Turkey and Azerbaijan, with past and current situations in Palestine, Geracoulis brings history to bear on the present, in a necessary and extremely timely reminder of human folly. In lucid and engaging prose, Geracoulis has written a book that, more than ever, needs to be read with heightened attention.Deborah Kapchan, Professor Emerita, New York University, USA and former director of the Center for Intercultural Studies in Folklore and Ethnomusicology at UT Austin, USA. Few nations have histories as intertwined, and parallel, as Armenians and Palestinians...[Geracoulis] recounts pivotal events briefly but sensitively, making her book a valuable introduction to the Armenian and Palestinian causes, as well as a vital message for practitioners in media, cultural heritage and human rights. Gabriel Polley, scholar, historian, and author Geracoulis’s book sounds an urgent call for media literacy and practices that halt the denial, erasure, and complicity underwriting cultural genocide. […] Meticulously laying out her case through extensive rhetorical and geopolitical analyses, Geracoulis constructs a taxonomy of how media normalize and reproduce cultural violence, with lucid and accessible prose suitable for both introductory and advanced courses.Thomas Simsarian Dolan, International Journal of Middle East Studies