‘Contemporary warfare is a media spectacle driven by the search for meaning in the West rather than by strategic aims on the ground.’

In his latest book, Media, War and Postmodernity, Phil Hammond argues that Western military operations are now conducted as high-tech media spectacles, more important for their domestic propaganda value than for any more tangible strategic aims. Tracing the development of conflict and the way it has been reported since the end of the Cold War, through the humanitarian interventions of the 1990s to the current War on Terror, Hammond draws together debates from a variety of theoretical perspectives to make a convincing case for understanding contemporary military intervention as an attempt to recapture a sense of purpose and meaning for Western societies.

Venue: Sussex University