Abstract
This chapter presents an analysis of a video clip of a lethal drone strike on YouTube. Two cultural frames are identified—seeing the killing either as legitimate or illegitimate. The first audience framing views the uploader’s framing as legitimate by constructing (1) a moral response where death through drone strike is justified and the killed lives are constituted as unlivable, and (2) an aesthetic and affectual response where the death is enjoyed as drone porn. The second audience framing (1) contests the uploader’s frame and constitutes the lives as livable, and (2) responds to the contested kill with drone horror. The study shows the characteristics of war propaganda in a time pervaded by highly technologized warfare, by discourses of terrorism, and by new digital modes for communication.
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Notes
- 1.
An earlier draft of this chapter was presented at the European Sociological Association conference, 7–10 of September 2011 in Geneva, Switzerland. We thank the editors and the Cultural Matters Group at Uppsala University for their comments on earlier versions of the text. We also wish to thank Franz Kernic for suggesting that we study lethal drone strikes.
- 2.
The uploader of the video clip is Defense Video & Imagery Distribution System (DVIDS). DVIDS is owned by Defense Media Activity, which is a United States Department of Defense (DoD) field activity. DVIDS describes itself as providing “a timely, accurate and reliable connection between the media around the world and the military serving at home and abroad” (https://www.dvidshub.net/about, 29 November 2016).
- 3.
The phenomenon of drone strikes has been around for decades. However, between 2009 and 2016, the Obama administration intensified their drone warfare. Statistics on these drone strikes are both unreliable and hard to come by. Nonetheless, the Obama administration estimated that during this time period 473 drone strikes killed between 2372 and 2581 persons outside the US conventional wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Syria (Shane, 2016). Figures and numbers for the drone strikes in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Syria have not been released. But these conventional wars have regularly been reported to involve covert drone operations. The increased use of armed drones can partly be explained by technological developments, but also as a military and political strategy to minimize US militarycasualties in war and to more effectively kill insurgents through targeted killings. The use of drones for sky-led covert operations and killings has led to ethical conundrums (see Calhoun, 2015). In contrast to being seen as effective for targeted killings, drone operations have been claimed to kill civilians (Shane, 2016). These claims not only lead the Obama administration to reveal statistics about the number of drone strikes outside the conventional wars, but also the number of civilians killed in these drone strikes. The debate about drone warfare has also concerned the stress and trauma experienced by the drone operators effectuating the distant killing (Calhoun, 2015).
- 4.
Officially, the Iraq War was a military engagement authorized by the US Congress, as the US has not declared any wars since the Second World War.
- 5.
The number of times the comments have been read is unknown. Moreover, some comments have disappeared because someone has removed the comment or the account associated with the comment has been deleted. Even though it has been regularly reported that robots make comments (Reagle, 2015), we argue that these comments also become part of the framing process and the construction of death.
- 6.
The cessation of US involvement in the Iraq War in 2011 may explain the decline in the number of comments during the last four years. Moreover, the high numbers of comments from 2009–10 to 2012–13 may also be explained by the highly debated WikiLeaks release of the leaked video clip “Collateral Murder” in April 2010. The video clip shows a helicopter air strike and includes radio chatter about the attack. It was later reported that two civilian journalists were killed in this attack. The large media coverage following this release and viewings of this video clip may not only have generated an increase in viewings and comments, but may also have set the tone for some of the comments during this period.
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Fürst, H., Idevall Hagren, K. (2019). Frames of Death: Media Audience Framing of a Lethal Drone Strike. In: Holmberg, T., Jonsson, A., Palm, F. (eds) Death Matters. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-11485-5_11
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