'The Troubles':Northern Ireland 1968-1998 - theme 8
Reporting Northern Ireland
Documents:
Curtis, Liz, Ireland and the Propaganda War: the British media and the
‘battle for hearts and minds' (London, 1983). Chapters 9, 10.
Rolston, B and D. Miller (eds.), War and Words: The Northern Ireland Media Reader (Belfast, 1996). Chapters 5, 10, 15, 21, 24.
See http://cain.ulst.ac.uk/othelem/media/docs/freespeech.htm for extracts from ‘The British Media and Ireland – truth: the first casualty’. This also contains an article by Peter Taylor on ‘Reporting Northern Ireland’ which appeared in Index of Censorship, 7, 6, 1978 and is also chapter 5 in Rolson and Miller, cited above.
Questions:
How have the ‘troubles’ been presented in print and/or visual media?
What factors have influenced the ways in which the British media has portrayed events in Northern Ireland?
How independent are journalists in their coverage of Northern Ireland?
What role has censorship played in reporting the ‘troubles’?
How effective has the ‘propaganda’ war been?
How are unionists/nationalists portrayed in the print media?
Reading:
As above