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Abstract
This paper examines the role of the media during and after the August invasion of Georgia by Russian troops. It shows how on both sides the media responded to strong pressures to report the conflict from a very one-sided perspective. Indeed the conflict can be seen as a media as much as a military conflict as both sides struggled to present themselves in the best possible light before the international community and to exaggerate the losses that had been inflicted on their own rather then their enemy's forces. The article details the way this conflict was played out in printed media and TV as well as Internet blogs and provides information on the cyber war, which also broke out between the rival states.
Notes
1. Human Rights Watch, Up in Flames, 3.
7. Resonansi, 28 August 2008.
12. Kviris Palitra, issue N 31 (4–10 August 2008).
13. Kviris Palitra, issue N 31 (4–10 August 2008).
14. Izvestia, 148-M (27673), 13 August 2008.
15. Kviris Palitra, 11–18 August 2008.
21. 24 Saati, 15 August 2008, A7.
22. Ia Antadze; the interview was conducted in February 2009.
24. Interview with Ivlian Khaindrava, conducted in February 2009.
42. I myself provided the figure in my reportage for The Nation.com, http://www.thenation.com/doc/20080818/akhvlediani.
45. Though the following joke suggests that many of the ethnic tensions were not always so hate-filled: There is a popular inoffensive joke in the Caucasus. ‘Why do not Armenians want Georgians to fly to space?’ – ‘Because if Georgians flew to space, then they would all die of happiness, and then Armenians would all die of envy. Then whom would the Caucasus belong to? Azerbaijani?! No way in the world!’
47. Ivlian Khaindrava, interview was conducted in February 2009.
50. 24 Saati, 14 August 2008, front page.
53. Giorgi Gogia, Caucasus Representative for HRW; interview was conducted in February 2009.
61. 24 Hours, 16 February 2009.
63. Giorgi Gogia; interview was conducted in February 2009.
86. Ia Antadze; interview was conducted in February 2009.
87. Batumelebi, N 259, 14 August 2008.
90. Paata Zakareishvili; interview was conducted in February 2009.
94. Kviris Palitra, 29 September 2008.
95. http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122963718776319647.html?mod = googlenews_wsj#articleTabs%3Darticle.
98. Ivlian Khaindrava; interview was conducted in February 2009.
100. Human Rights Centre, Putinization of Georgia, 40.