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David Perlmutter examines concerns over the interplay of pictures in the press, elite decision-making and public opinion on foreign policy. His focus is on certain celebrated, indelible images that, it is said, sum up famous events, provoke moral outrage, mobilize public opinion, and spur government action: the icons of outrage. Discourse elites thrust greatness upon such images as well as frame their meaning and interpretation. The public only plays a marginal role in making icons; ordinary readers and viewers are, however, often resistant or indifferent to elite interpretation and pretensions of outrage.
To explore these ideas, Professor Perlmutter offers a series of case studies in crises in American foreign policy and the images that came to define and affect them: the Tet offensive in 1968, the Tiananmen events of 1989, and the Somalia intervention of 1992-1994. In each case, icons became sites of political struggle and argumentation, tools of policy rather than masters of it. Actual effects on public opinion are rarely found. Presidents, diplomats, pundits, and journalists, when confronting news images, apply a first person effect, projecting onto all of America or even the whole world their personal reaction to an icon. As Perlmutter shows, the influence of icons of outrage lies in their ability to focus debate, not in any power of visual determinism. He concludes that rather than worrying about how pictures affect policy, more attention should be paid to how politicians manage, frame, and spin images to win support for policies. A provocative study for students, scholars, and the public concerned with visual communication, the mass media, and current international affairs.
List of contents
Preface
In Search of Icons of Outrage
The "Magic Bullet" of General Loan: Tet, 1968
The Consensus of Outrage: Tiananmen, 1989
When Icons Collide: Somalia, 1992-1993
Managing Icons of Outrage
Appendix A: Comments on the Saigon Execution Incident and Image
Appendix B: Descriptions of the Man Killed in the "Saigon Execution"
Appendix C: Comments on Somalia Icons
Selected Bibliography
Index
About the author
DAVID D. PERLMUTTER is Associate Professor at Louisiana State University's Manship School of Mass Communication and Senior Associate for Research and Grants at the Kevin P. Reilly, Sr. Center for Media and Public Affairs. He serves on the board of directors of the American Association of Political Consultants. He has previously written for the Journal of Communication, Visual Comunication Quarterly, Visual Anthropology, and other academic and popular publications.
