Media Power and The Transformation of War

CHIARA DE FRANCO is Deputy Director of the Foresight Research Group and co-founder of the #global_mediatisation initiative in the Department of War Studies at King's College London, UK. She is also coordinator of the Task Force for the improvement of EU's capabilities for mass atrocities prevention. She has published on international political communication and conflict prevention.

• Acknowledgements Introduction PART I: MEDIA POWER: A RADICAL VIEW Media Effects Media Power For a new analytical framework The sources of power: The image and the Arena A Four-dimensional definition Two Case Studies Looking for Media Effects PART II: POWER OVER THE AGENDA 'Agending' Kosovo 'Agending' Afghanistan Comparison and Conclusions PART III: POWER OVER THE PROCESS Real Time Kosovo Real Time Afghanistan Comparison and Conclusions PART IV: POWER OVER THE CHANNEL Media Diplomacy In Kosovo Media Diplomacy in Afghanistan Comparison and Conclusions PART V: POWER OVER THE INSTRUMENTS Kosovo's Semiotic War The Airstrikes Afghanistan's Semiotic War Operation Enduring Freedom Comparison and Conclusions PART VI: CONCLUSIONS Media Power Clarified The Medium and the System Implications for Warfare What's Next Notes

"Social media has become a trending arena for citizen journalists and civil society groups. This book is quite fascinating in how De Franco builds on the works of founding scholars, such as Marshall McLuhan, Erving Goffman, and Joshua Meyrowitz. An intriguing part of the book is the author's interest in the works of McLuhan, drawing attention to the World Wide Web and the global village concept. Media Power shows the potential in applying the four-dimensional definition of power to the Internet and social media platforms together with the semiotic method used in analyzing television media. It may be productive to see how the framework fits into new media platforms. The book will be useful to journalists, students, academics, and individuals interested in history, foreign policy, political science, international relations, mass communication, and war and conflict studies." - International Journal of Communication "Media Power is a thorough qualitative study, which presents a compelling case for the use of a four-dimensional definition of media power in relation to the agenda, the process, the channel and the instruments an approach which also holds the potential to be applied to new and emerging media platforms." - Media, Culture and Society