Page 211 - An Introduction to Political Communication Second Edition

AN INTRODUCTION TO POLITICAL COMMUNICATION

dictator Leopold Galtieri. In this sense, the conflict became in itself
an act of political communication, loaded with symbolic resonance
and echoes of Britain’s imperial past. It was also a limited war, as
defined above, in which no less important than military success was
the battle for public opinion at home and abroad.
The military option was not the only one available for dealing
with the Argentinians. Economic and diplomatic sanctions could
have been used more aggressively by the British government, as
they have been used against many other countries in recent history.
Once the military option had been decided upon, however, the
Falklands conflict became a war of news and opinion management,
as much as one of armed force. Throughout, the British
government, like the Americans in Vietnam, had to counter
domestic and international opposition to its preferred means of
resolving the conflict. That Margaret Thatcher and her ministers
succeeded where the Americans failed was due not least to the
degree of control which they exercised over public images of the
war. Few observers would dispute the view that media coverage
was among the most restricted of all post-Second World War
conflicts. Journalists were confronted with censorship,
disinformation, misinformation, and political intimidation in the
course of the government’s efforts to ensure a favourable (from
its perspective) portrayal of the conflict. Despite the limited
character of the war, government information policy was to treat
it as a matter of national survival, and to manipulate and constrain
coverage accordingly.
Its ability to do this was greatly facilitated by the fact that the
Falklands conflict was fought 8,000 miles away from Britain (and
from most of the rest of the world) on territory and in conditions
relatively inaccessible to media organisations. Although the
availability of electronic newsgathering technology could have
permitted live coverage of the conflict (of the type which later that
year accompanied the Israeli invasion of Lebanon) the geographical
isolation of the Falkland Islands was an obvious obstacle for media
organisations. Electronic newsgathering, if it is to be truly ‘live’,
requires the use of communication satellites. Access to these was not
easy in the Falklands. Robert Harris’s study of media-government
relations during the conflict notes that ‘the special circumstances of
the Falklands campaign ensured that the government had unique
control over how the war appeared on television. Because there were
no satellite facilities, the MOD could regulate the flow of pictures
and deodorise the war in a way that few other democratic

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