Pockets of Resistance

Piers Robinson is Senior Lecturer in International Politics at the University of Manchester. Peter Goddard is Senior Lecturer in the Department of Communication and Media at the University of Liverpool. Katy Parry is Research Assistant in the Department of Communication and Media at the University of Liverpool. Craig Murray is head of Media Analysis at Opoint AS, Norway. Philip M. Taylor is Professor of Internal Communications at the Institute of Communication Studies, University of Leeds

‘Richly detailed and engagingly presented … It is a “must read” for anyone who wants to know how the 24-7 news system covers national security crises, and why that coverage takes the shape that it does.’‘Pockets of Resistance … intervenes into the heart of contemporary debates about media, democracy and legitimized killing and death. An important new landmark and essential vantage point on the contested field of media and war studies.’‘Pockets of Resistance is a first-rate study of Iraq war reporting - broad, rigorous and insightful in the way it surveys British coverage of the war. It paints a complex picture of war reporting that clarifies our understanding of the relation between media and political elites during wartime. Without a doubt, it is one of the most ambitious and important works published to date on media and war.’Piers Robinson and his co-authors have accomplished that most sought-after goal of academic publishing: delivering both a substantial and original piece of scholarly research, and a useful and accessible test for undergraduate teaching ... The carefully structured approach to explaining and testing different models in the light detailed analysis of the data is what makes the book so valuable as a teaching text as well as a rigorous contribution to the academic study of war reporting. Pockets of Resistance is an impressive achievement, likely to be consulted as a key text for many years to come.Professor Philip Hammond, South Bank University, Media, War and Conflict

• Preface and acknowledgments1. Introduction2. Mobilising for battle: The news media and war from Vietnam to Iraq3. Theorising and analysing media performance in wartime4. Placing coverage of the invasion in context5. ‘Supporting our boys in battle’: Evidence for supportive coverage and the elite-driven model 6. ‘Independence, diversity and professional autonomy’: Evidence for negotiated and oppositional coverage7. Case studies from the invasion of Iraq: Jessica Lynch, Ali Abbas and the anti-war movement8. Conclusion: Patterns of support, negotiation and oppositionBibliographyAppendices:A. Further information about the content and framing analysisB. Examples of the detailed criteria provided to coders for assessing thematic frames