Abstract
The video Collateral Murder was released by WikiLeaks on YouTube in April 2010. It drew public attention to American atrocities in Iraq. Reception of the video by the American popular and news media is contrasted with WikiLeaks’ modest contributions to the Arab Spring uprisings. WikiLeaks’ activities were greeted positively in Tunisia and beyond, both by Arab activists and by the leading regional news network Al Jazeera. By contrast, Collateral Murder did little to galvanize the American public, an outcome largely attributable to its coverage by the US news establishment. Ultimately the US media’s treatment of Collateral Murder served to strengthen popularized myths and mainstream rhetoric supportive of the status quo.
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Marmura, S.M.E. (2018). Lessons from Collateral Murder. In: The WikiLeaks Paradigm. Palgrave Pivot, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-97139-1_3
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