REVIEW: Manipulation that we now take for granted

Abstract

It cannot have been a coincidence that the bombs and missiles that rained down on Baghdad at the beginning of the American invasion of Iraq on 20 March 2003 fell just where the world’s television cameras could capture the resulting explosions. President Bush had promised shock and awe and there it was, carefully designed to look as spectacular as possible for the journalists beaming pictures and descriptions from the Palestine Hotel. It was a deliberate piece of media manipulation intended to remind the Arab states, Pakistan and Afghanistan, of American military might.