# YouTube War/Conclusions and Recommendations

​ Conclusions and Recommendations.
The problem for the Army, and the larger military of course, is that it has no way to enforce or even pass on lessons that should be learned by the press. Yet it remains the case that a war against terrorism, or, if you prefer, against terrorists, is by definition a war of wills and therefore a war against propaganda and images. While I would argue that in a time of war it is not necessary for the press to be neutral for them to perform all their expected roles (which is why local sports reporters are often the harshest critics of home town teams and coaches), that is a debate for another time. By disseminating enemy propaganda without comment or critique, the press is failing its responsibilities, including, in any event, any responsibility to be neutral, for the media do unwittingly facilitate the terrorist's purposes. A simple change in visual protocols, one already in use in other types of stories and therefore already available, would mean that the broadcast media could, if they insist on continuing the practice of using footage from the enemy of the enemy's attacks on American forces, at least properly contextualize that material for their audience. That level of transparency would seem to be the very least they owe.
The military can, and should, point this out, aggressively and regularly. PAOs at every level should complain when a story airs involving footage taken from insurgent websites—but should then say, if you're going to use this material, the least you can do ​Page:Cori Elizabeth Dauber - YouTube War (2009).pdf/99 ​Page:Cori Elizabeth Dauber - YouTube War (2009).pdf/100 ​Page:Cori Elizabeth Dauber - YouTube War (2009).pdf/101 ​Page:Cori Elizabeth Dauber - YouTube War (2009).pdf/102 ​Page:Cori Elizabeth Dauber - YouTube War (2009).pdf/103 ​Page:Cori Elizabeth Dauber - YouTube War (2009).pdf/104 ​Page:Cori Elizabeth Dauber - YouTube War (2009).pdf/105 ​At a minimum, trying to determine if the negative response was to some extent context-based would be very important.
The war against Islamist insurgents will continue to be, in large part, a war against arguments, symbols, and images. That such a war is being fought in an information context unlike any other only complicates the challenges faced by the U.S. Army, and the U.S. military generally. New information and communication technologies are being used to great synergistic effect by the enemy: the military has to understand how this works and be prepared to make use of such technologies to counter enemy messaging to the extent possible, as quickly as possible. This cannot, by definition, be left to the PAO community, but must be understood by, and participated in, the entire military to have a chance at success.
ENDNOTES
1. "Hezbollah Dot Com: Hezbollah's Online Campaign,", n.p.:n.d), p. 19.
2. For a more detailed discussion of the conditions under which particular types of attacks will attract coverage, and the amount of coverage they are likely to attract under which circumstances—in other words, using the amount of press coverage a particular attack gains as a metric for its success, see Cori E. Dauber, "The Terrorist Spectacular and the Ladder of Terrorist Success," in James Forest, ed, Influence Warfare: How Terrorists and Governments Shape Perceptions in a War of Ideas, West Port, CT: Praeger Security International, 2009, pp. 93–122.
3. Majid Tehranian, "Review of Small Media, Big Revolution: Communication, Culture, and the Iranian Revolution," International Journal of Middle East Studies, Vol. 27, No. 4, November, 1995, pp. 523–525, available from links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0020-7438%28199511%2927%3A4%3C523%3AS
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