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Abstract
This article examines the homemade videos uploaded to YouTube by coalition soldiers stationed in Iraq and Afghanistan. I interrogate how perceptions of war, and the conventions of war reporting, change as new media technologies allow soldiers to log on to the Web and upload personal views from the frontlines. The Iraqi conflict is emerging as the first YouTube war, where homemade soldiers' videos throw into sharp relief the reportorial conventions of the mainstream news coverage. I take into consideration the format, meanings and communicative functions of these amateur videos, and the distinctive ways in which they reconfigure professional standards of ethics and authenticity. The firsthand testimonials by soldiers offer the public uncensored insights into the experience of warfare and may provide the basis for a questioning of the authority and activity of U.S. foreign policy.
Notes
4Thousands of videos on the website are for example explicitly tagged with human rights violation terms such as “execution,” “torture,” “rape and sexual abuse,” and “mass killings” (CitationGimeno, 2008).
5A sixth type of content is the dissenting soldier testimony: Iraq war veterans bearing public witness to dark war experiences, such as killing unarmed civilians with the consent of their superiors. Since this is a specific genre that does not entail images that document the controversial aspects of warfare, I will not consider it further in this article.
6 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JWYNn1pTwPM Added February 22, 2008, by “Slavesrevolt.” Accessed June 15, 2008.
7 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LoFq9jYB2wo. Added July 24, 2006, by “acdclights.” Accessed June 19, 2008.
8 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XvMLREePkyY&NR=1 Frat-style humor is a key feature not only of these recurrent “toilet action” clips, but of many of the videos that show troops in downtime activities. The soldiers waste time in measured nonsensical performances such as taping a comrade to the front of a Humvee, dancing poorly in their underwear, drinking maple syrup, or pouring canned air – which boils at room temperature – into the palm of their hand and watching as it burns the skin.. Added June 16, 2007, by “Sensicane.” Accessed June 29, 2008.
9 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5k3L-_Snu7k. Added May 15, 2006 by SSG Matt Wright and SSG Josh Dobbs. Accessed June 30, 2008. See also Lazy Ramadi's official site at http://lazyramadi.com
10The video was viewed tens of thousands of times before YouTube took it down because of a violation of the site's terms of use. The clip is still widely available on the internet, however.
11 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WIw-BP4zfW4. Added August 27, 2006, by “prezjackie.” Accessed June 27, 2008.
12“Iraq War: The Soldiers,” at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FUm05_I8xJ4. Accessed July 16, 2008. Iraq video “Why” at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hPVPqERfTM4. Accessed July 16, 2008.
13“War in Iraq” at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Gu7pswE43Y&mode=related&search=. Accessed July 16, 2008. “Iraq anti war video” at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3wKG9T1xPwY. Accessed July 16, 2008.
14 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L71Y1galpyA. Accessed July 2007, 2008. This clip has been submitted to YouTube numerous times by different users.
15 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eBGi8jr_CBE&feature=related. Added December 18, 2006, by “tmacdagreat.” Accessed July 27, 2008.
16 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kpHWaUSfYj8&feature=related. Added February 7, 2007, by “666stunts666.” Accessed July 27, 2008.
