November 2004 #3

New Frames of Reference

There comes a time when even the most unexceptional pictures moves you to consider what life is all about. This week the picture that moved me to that place was found on page 13 of Tuesday’s Melbourne Age newspaper. Last week I had a whinge about the lack of emotional, gut felt reporting on the war on Iraq. While I maintain that position, I must admit I have fallen into the trap so often present when reading the daily paper. This trap is to be drawn into the "frame" of reference of the picture.

In this case the picture was of two year old Mustafa Adnan who will never be able to play hopscotch or soccer or enjoy a walk unaided. With his leg blown off by a so-called "smart" weapon, this little boy is victim of our unwillingness to stop this unnecessary war.

On first glance I almost dismissed the photo as just another futile attempt to depict the ‘human cost’ of the battle for Fallujah. Set on a page featuring stories on the spat within the US Army Engineering corps, fanatical Jewish Rabbis, pilotless jets, ETA and advertisements for computer parts, the photo was nothing spectacular. Next to it was a larger photo of a US Humvee trundling down a Fallujah street.

If you were to take away the rubble, the fallen power and telephone lines, the burnt and blackened car you can almost hear the everyday hustle and bustle of an everyday street in an everyday city just about anywhere in the world – except Iraq. You can almost see little kids hanging off their mother’s hands as they shop or visit family and friends. You can almost see little Mustafa playing with other kids in a creche as his mum and other mothers do whatever it is mothers do when they don’t have the ‘ankle biters’ hanging off them.

The main story in which the picture of a limbless Mustafa was embedded focused on the plight facing Dr. Ahmed Ghanim who had been a doctor at the main hospital in Fallujah. He said that when the US Marines blew up the hospital causing the deaths of doctors, nurses and patients and he escaped, he just wanted to die. We read of his flight to Baghdad and how he expected to be killed, shot by US troops who were firing on anything that moved. He describes how he sees a cousin lying only a few metres from him, die of his wounds and how he witnessed people bleeding, screaming and shouting to be helped. For them and the good doctor, like little Mustafa, there was no help. No respite from the hell they found themselves in.

This description conforms to the expectation that is exactly what the editors of the papers, the TV and radio news want us to think about. As someone once said, the media cannot tell us how to think about things, but that can tell us what things to think about. What I have done in outlining the ‘story’ of the pictures is to adopt or align myself with what the experts would call, the ‘normalised frame’ of reference or the ‘preferred reading’ of the picture and story.

All of us use terms, phrases, comments and twists of grammar to express ourselves in such a way as to present whatever it is we are presenting as if, at least to ourselves if to no one else, it is ‘normal’. Whatever it is we are presenting we do so from within our own frame of reference. We frame things to suit our purpose and also because our own experience is the obvious starting point for any examination or presentation of anything. It is, therefore, not surprising that the media also frames the way it presents stories to us in such a way to force, or at least favour, a ‘preferred reading’ of them.

As anyone who has had long term friends and relationships knows, after a while we begin to accept that if someone is going to talk about something they will do so from a particular point of view. We may even chide them for not taking into account another perspective – or frame of reference – that is just a valid as their frame of reference. However, over time we forget these little annoying habits – of limiting a frame of reference to one out of the hundreds potentially available – and get on with the business of being a friend or partner. In short, what we do is accept that person’s presentation as being ‘normal’ for them and begin to ignore the annoyingness of their limited perspective. If we didn’t do this there would be no such thing as long term relationships. The same occurs to us when exposed to the mainstream media for prolonged periods.

What I did in my expression of the story of Mustafa and Dr. Ghanim, was to adopt the very frame of reference or ‘preferred reading’ the editors of the newspaper wanted me and I would assume most of us, to adopt. That is, we allowed the frame they set to provide the boundaries within which we interpret the story and from which we then derive the meaning of the story. In this case we are meant to derive the meaning that "war causes suffering" or that "in wars little kids get hurt" or even, "we had to blow his leg off in order to save him. Poor darling". This is what we are expected to read, feel, understand and believe.

It is not accidental that from time to time stories and pictures like that of two-year-old, one legged Mustafa and the traumatised Dr. Ghanim appear in the press and on the TV and radio news. They are there to placate us into the feeling that, even though we all know the war is not good, it was unavoidable. The mainstream media shouts throughout it’s length and breadth that "there was nothing we could do to prevent it. All we can do is report on it". To that I say, balderdash – or something much stronger.

The war was framed from the beginning by those who suffer from blood lust – the US, British and Australian neoconservative fundamentalists and their sycophantic minions. They fed the media lies upon lies and the media lapped it up without once trying to step outside the frames of reference the political spin doctors offered. By the time the illegal invasion of Afghanistan and Iraq began, the corporate and mainstream media no longer needed to be supplied with the stories already framed in a particular manner. They had by then adopted exactly the same frames from which to write their "reports".

These reports have been framed in such a way as to present a ‘normalised’ view of the war. That is, any opinion, perspective or alternative framing is derided as the work of ‘fanatics’, ‘leftwing bleeding hearts’ or propagandists. If you do not conform your understanding of the story to the frames and preferred readings from which it emanates, then you are the one out of step. It’s your fault that you can’t accept the "facts". A final insult may be offered as if to justify the presentation of ‘normalised’ views and that is that you are really a "collaborator". How does this all feed back into the story of little, legless Mustafa?

What the framing of these stories does is to rip from within the larger issue, that of the war and its possible ramifications. They are presented as "human interest" stories that fall outside the real issue, which is "killing insurgents". The story of little Mustafa and Dr, Ghanim are presented within a larger or ‘primary’ frame. That ‘primary’ frame was established on the 11th September 2001 and was called "the war on terror". By adopting that frame, from which all else proceeds, the mainstream and corporate media has ‘dumbed’ themselves down the to a new, never before seen, low.

Having failed in their duty as the ‘fourth estate’, the mainstream and corporate media find that they are trapped inside their own frames of reference. In an ever decreasing spiral of ‘scoop reporting’ we find that incidents like the blowing off of little Mustafa’s leg or the more recent alleged extrajudicial murder of a wounded and unarmed Iraqi by marines pumped up on whatever it is they put in their coffee, are reduced to being reported as ‘isolated’ incidents with no connection to the "real" issue.

Framing is something we do every day. It is a necessary part of the way in which we present the world we experience to others and it is what helps us make sense of the world around us. However, what has been subtly occurring within the corporate and mainstream media, along with the whole political apparatus, is that the great forgetting has begun. I want to leave you with a question and I hope as you struggle to respond to it you will keep in mind the fear, hatred and anger that little Mustafa and thousands of other little boys and girls have brewing in the bowels.

If in fifteen to twenty years time, as young man, hobbles up to an Australian, US or British guard post outside his home town and blows himself and half a dozen soldiers up, will the young men and women we love and cherish be able to explain to their children why it is such an act would occur? If we want to ponder that for a while we may well demand a new frame of reference to be adopted as the basis for writing the history of the atrocities committed in our name during the first world war of the 21st century.