Security, Media, Legitimacy: Multi-Ethnic Media Publics and the Iraq War 2003

1. Marie Gillespie1

- Author Affiliations

1. ¹The Open University, UK

資料來源

 doi: 10.1177/0047117806069408

  International Relations December 2006 vol. 20 no. 4 467-486

摘要Abstract

The article examines how multi-ethnic publics negotiate questions of legitimacy. It explains the deep public scepticism surrounding the Iraq war (2003) and subsequent security policy, not just in terms of declining trust in Prime Minister Tony Blair and in the news media, but as a corrosive ‘legitimacy deficit’ with significant implications for the prospects of participatory democracy and multicultural citizenship. The arguments are grounded in a collaborative ethnography of news audiences across the UK, including multilingual and multi-ethnic ones. Using a Weberian framework, the article analyses the patterning of interviewees' responses to the justifications given for going to war, and it assesses the implications of the ‘legitimacy deficit’ for notions of security and UK security policy. 

關鍵字

• audience ethnography
• Iraq war
• legitimacy
• legitimacy deficit
• manufacture of consent
• multi-ethnic public opinion
• war on terror