-Take the abuse of prisoners by US troops in Iraq as an example.
As a kind of transnational information dissemination under political constraints, international communication is inseparable from national interests and has obvious political inclination and ideological color, but its performance is different for countries with different regimes. This paper briefly introduces the main activities of American domestic media during the prisoner abuse incident of American troops stationed in Iraq, and analyzes the challenges brought by the facts disclosed by these media to the American government and the negative impact on the international reputation of the United States. Through the in-depth discussion of these contradictions, the advanced and universal nature of the internal error correction mechanism of democracy is explained. At the same time, taking a news forwarded by China Daily as an example, this paper reveals the limitations of the international communication vision of domestic mainstream media, and tries to put forward some methods for reference and improvement.
Key words: international dissemination of national interests, prisoner abuse and government confrontation, inaccurate reports, review and improvement
Firstly, the definitions of international communication and national interests are adopted in this paper.
There are many definitions and arguments about the terms international communication and national interests. In order to ensure smooth writing, firstly, the definition and reasons adopted in this paper are explained.
International communication refers to the cross-border and cross-cultural communication and dissemination of various information between different nationalities and countries in the world today. International communication can be divided into broad sense and narrow sense, and this paper mainly discusses the latter. The definition is: international information exchange and dissemination with mass media as the pillar and international audience as the object.
International communication includes: communication from outside to inside: conveying important events and changes in the international community to domestic people; Communication from the inside out: transmitting national political, economic and cultural information to the international community. Different from the general forms of communication, the leaders of international communication are sovereign countries and other international actors. As a part of international politics, international communication is restricted and controlled by political power. Screening, filtering, seeking advantages and avoiding disadvantages are axioms of international communication, and Chinese and western media are no exception.
In today's world, the national interest is the highest criterion of diplomacy and international communication, and its complete expression includes three parts: survival, rise and fall, honor and disgrace. Without responsible international communication, there will be no recognized international status.
2. How was the incident of prisoner abuse by US troops in Iraq exposed?
In principle, international communication follows the unspoken rule of "Don't wash your dirty linen in public". When spreading abroad, communicators often choose information that helps to establish a good image of the country, while rejecting those that are useless or harmful; In internal communication, it is inevitable to avoid those negative and harmful information and introduce information that is beneficial to you. However, since the end of April 2004, thousands of pictures of prisoner abuse have appeared in American newspapers and television, which shocked the world and dealt a heavy blow to the American government (* * * and the party government).
Since Joe Darby, a special soldier of the army, put a disk with photos of prisoner abuse on the beds of military investigators, thus initiating the military criminal investigation into the prisoner abuse in Abu Ghraib prison, the military has invested a lot of manpower and material resources to solve this matter. An officer and a company commander working in the prison were dismissed, and six soldiers also faced prosecution for abusing prisoners. At the same time, Lieutenant General Sanchez, commander in Iraq, warned General Dzhanis Karpinski, the highest official in charge of the prison. From this perspective, it is entirely possible for the incident to be solved in secret. However, CBS issued a notice to the Pentagon in the "60 Minutes" program, saying that it would publish photos of prisoner abuse in Abu Ghraib prison. Although General Myers privately asked CBS twice to postpone the release of the photos to avoid anti-American riots, CBS released the photos of prisoner abuse to the public on April 28.
World public opinion is in an uproar. Many international human rights organizations issued statements condemning the barbaric acts of the US military, and some American allies issued statements attacking the US government. In the United States, 270,000 people signed for the resignation of Defense Secretary Rumsfeld, forcing President Bush to apologize to the public many times.
However, the major media are still indomitable, scrambling to report the exposure: Washington post reported the truth told by female prisoners on May 8, "My superiors ordered me to abuse prisoners as much as possible." On May 9th, a signed article entitled "Apologizing Country-The Art of Apologizing" was published, criticizing the lack of responsibility behind the American government's apology. On May 19, ABC reported that in addition to the seven American military and police officers who were charged, dozens of American soldiers participated in the prisoner abuse in Abu Ghraib prison in Baghdad. The Pentagon tried to cover up this fact. Although these photos were mainly taken from Abu Ghraib prison in Baghdad, the Los Angeles Times insisted that "this happened all over Iraq" and made no secret that "many people think that this organized punishment has lasted for many months." The American "Time" magazine published on May 23rd reported that at least 2,000 pages of investigation reports about the abuse of Iraqi prisoners by the US military were missing, which did not rule out the possibility that some people deliberately did it ... Although the authenticity and accuracy of some reports were questioned and debated to varying degrees, it was obvious that in the prisoner abuse incident, the major media seemed to lack consideration for maintaining the image of the government.
Third, the contradiction and reconciliation between media rights and national interests.
In the United States, media practitioners are called "uncrowned kings", and news media is the "fourth power" independent of legislative, judicial and administrative powers. The media is equal to the government and challenges the consciousness of the ruling party, which inevitably conflicts with the hidden rules of maintaining the national image in international communication. Many questions caused by the prisoner abuse incident: Is the political character of Americans also changing? The United States has always advertised human rights. Are these examples of human rights? The war on terror has entered a new stage. Should we continue to fight violence with violence, or treat both the symptoms and the root causes, and combine rigidity with softness? It made the American government look a little incompetent, and its international reputation instantly fell to the bottom.
In any country, government power tends to violate human rights, among which administrative power is the easiest to violate human rights, while military power is the administrative power among administrative powers. The army pays attention to efficiency, subordinates obey superiors, enjoys many privileges, is not bound by ordinary courts, and is not easy to be supervised by the media. The army is a top headache for any country. The liberal democratic political system implements the policy of nationalization and professionalization of the military, which effectively restricts the impulse of military personnel to interfere in politics. This is a great progress, but it has not completely eliminated the brutality of the army. Therefore, it is difficult to control the maintenance of international order by American occupation forces: it is necessary to maintain local order and protect the military and economic interests of liberal and democratic regimes, as well as the interests of occupied countries, and to control the military to exercise various powers in a manner consistent with freedom and democracy. There are many things that American troops stationed around the world infringe on the rights and interests of local people, and the abuse of Iraqi prisoners of war by American troops is even more serious this time. Therefore, the United States certainly deserves to be attacked by various countries. However, this matter should be the responsibility of some Americans who practice freedom and democracy, not the responsibility of American freedom and democracy. Rumsfeld should be released, not American troops go home. Once the goal of establishing a free and democratic political system in Iraq is shaken, all previous efforts will be wasted.
But what is certain is that prisoner abuse is also a feature of world integration and globalization. The differences between East and West are narrowing. When people condemn the abuse of the criticized during the "Cultural Revolution", the United States, the pearl of western freedom and human rights, also has serious human rights problems. It can be seen that the psychology of human abuse of others is so similar. No matter what cultural background or political system, there is such a collective sadistic psychological state and sadistic behavior. When a country is involved in a great cause and movement that it considers just, it will carry out extreme political description and political confrontation against its enemies "capitalist roaders" and "terrorists". Abuse has become a "just act". The difference is that in centralized China, the atrocities of the Cultural Revolution took several years to be exposed, and it has not yet become a collective and independent reflection of the whole nation; In the free United States, the exposure of "now" has aroused the conscience of Americans, and the condemnation, criticism and apology from the president to the people all show that the traditional values and systems of American freedom founded by the founding fathers such as Washington, Jefferson and Lincoln are still working.
In international competition, national interests are the primary consideration of all countries. Frankly speaking, countries in the international community are also selfish. However, for a liberal democratic regime, he has to regard its expansion as a part of national interests, because it is impossible for a liberal democratic regime to survive inviolately in a world where authoritarianism and authoritarianism prevail. What's more, liberal democracy itself is moral. Just as moral people like to deal with moral people, moral regimes also like to deal with moral regimes. (This is not to say that there are no contradictions between liberal and democratic regimes. The conflict between French culture area and English culture area has a long history. France, Britain and the United States are countries with mature liberal and democratic political systems, and there will be no war between them, but economic disputes and cultural disputes are inevitable. Therefore, even if the news media mercilessly criticize and expose the current government and the ruling party and damage the national image of the United States, it is out of the bounden duty to safeguard the fourth right of democracy.
Of course, the American media dare to speak with their own shortcomings, and they do not rule out their strength and are in an absolute leading position in today's world. But this is a secondary reason and will not be discussed in this article.
Fourthly, review and improve the international communication vision of the mainstream media in China in the past.
After the abuse of prisoners by the US military in China, the performance of domestic mainstream media failed to satisfy the public. The last part of the comparison report, you can get a glimpse of the whole leopard. The seemingly objective facts, after being tended to be selected and blocked, add up the local truth, cover up the overall falsehood, and bring only misleading and fooling to the audience. China's consistent propaganda policy is "mouthpiece theory", resolutely implementing relevant national policies, maintaining a high degree of consistency with the government, and putting stability first, especially in the field of international communication. However, an authority and a voice often hurt the wisdom and rationality of the whole nation. Without the protection of the right to know, all judgments are in vain. The direct manifestation of human ignorance is ignorance, and the danger of ignorance lies in the fact that the country's international reputation cannot be enhanced and it is difficult to carry out foreign exchanges, dissemination and cooperation.
Therefore, we need to consider how to improve the previous international communication vision from two angles. One is how to treat foreign news communication, and the other is how to develop its own foreign news communication.
For a long time, China has been wary of the spread of foreign news information for fear of disturbing people's hearts and undermining social peace. Since the reform and opening up, foreign news and information have flooded in, and people's attitude towards it has been much more enlightened. However, old stereotypes are faintly visible, and the practice of interfering with listening and watching has not disappeared. In today's world, with the rapid development of international information network, the way of news dissemination has undergone major changes, and the closed psychology has long been unworkable. In fact, the general news dissemination can be completely undefended except for the contents prohibited by international conventions. There is no need to include information or reports that have nothing to do with ideology, such as economy, finance, science and technology, sports, etc., and there is no need to include reports or comments on political changes, social life and international political relations in various countries. Because different social systems and ideologies coexist in the world, it is unreasonable and impossible for the government to let the public know about these social systems and ideologies and their views on world affairs. Only by letting the public know about them can we compare their advantages and disadvantages, distinguish their right from wrong, learn their positive and beneficial things, abandon their negative and fallacious things, and increase the discrimination ability of the whole society.
At the same time, China's external communication should also be improved, because it is too strong. Only by strengthening the news information disseminated abroad can we be close to the acceptance reality of foreign audiences. A country's foreign news communication should gather in the international news market. There, the news with the most news value and the most public concern is the most sought after news; The media that can provide accurate, timely, objective, comprehensive news with high news value is naturally the most popular media. This is the basic law that runs through international news communication activities. Especially after several years, when the high-speed information network gradually becomes the main body of international communication, people will have greater initiative, freedom and breadth when choosing to watch online news. It is naive and unrealistic to control the choice and acceptance of the audience according to the official propaganda needs, rather than their respective news needs (or news values).
Endnote:
Cheng: International Communication in the Era of Information Globalization, International Press, No.4, 2000.
Wu Yuling: Development and change of international communication under new technology, China News Research Center.
Ten Notes on China's Diplomacy in 20 Years, World Knowledge,No. 1 2004.
CBS released photos of prisoner abuse, Century Salon website, May 2004 13.
American Media Watch "Prison Abuse": An Apologized but Irresponsible President, May 9, 2004, China Journal website.
Dozens of American soldiers were involved in prisoner abuse, and the Pentagon tried to cover up the truth. May, 2004 19, China Journal Network.
The storm of prisoner abuse hit the White House, Tomburn, South Window, the second half of May, 2004.
Is there a better international policeman than America? Source: Essence of Century China Forum
The storm of prisoner abuse hit the White House, Tomburn, South Window, the second half of May, 2004.
International News Communication: Cross-century Leap and Challenge Zhang Yunruo comes from Yunruo Forum.