The first ‘Clean’ war? Visually framing civilian casualties in the British Press during the 2003 Iraq invasion

Abstract

This article examines the visual coverage of civilian casualty incidents in the first month of the Iraq invasion in 2003, drawing on a detailed and comprehensive content and framing analysis of Iraq war photographs printed in seven British national newspapers. The study found that around 7 per cent of all Iraq-related news photographs dealt with the issue of civilian casualties (including journalists and non-Iraqis), across tabloid and ‘quality’ press titles. However, the prominence, treatment and functions of civilian casualty photographs varied greatly among particular newspapers, and not always in a predictable manner considering the papers’ editorial positions on the conflict. The article details the study’s findings on the varying occurrence of casualty-related photographs, and analyses the ways in which such events were pictorially and verbally framed; whether by graphically representing the human cost of the war or, alternatively, by ‘disappearing the dead’ through visual and rhetorical means.

Keywords:

• Iraq war
• photography
• casualty agnosticism
• casualty imagery
• press
• visual framing