Mission & Goals

This site has been created by the War & Media Studies Special Interest Group of the Society for Cinema and Media Studies to serve as a portal for the delivery of information of interest to all scholars working on these subjects. The SIG charter states:

MISSION STATEMENT

The War and Media Studies Special Interest group encourages an intensive study of the representation and conduct of war and militarism in all media forms. It aims to bring scholars and practitioners working in the fields of cinema, radio, television, communications, new media, and sound and music studies together with experts in the history and practice of military communications, journalism, and commercial cultural production. Group members address a variety of issues related to military communications–from the history of signaling, reconnaissance, psychological operations, and surveillance in wartime to the various efforts to represent and manage public perceptions of war from propaganda efforts and public affairs techniques to commercial news coverage and the phenomenon of militainment. They are also interested in the ways media may be used to challenge the legitimacy of war and militarism. Our mission is to provide a forum for scholars and students to present new research on war and media and to help shape the larger interdisciplinary field of War Studies.

GOALS AND OBJECTIVES

  1. To cultivate research on war and media within SCMS by
  • facilitating the annual organization of panels and other sessions on media and war
  • fostering communication and collaboration among SIG members and with other SCMS groups
  • organizing a yearly meeting at the SCMS conference during which scholars sharing these interests may come together to formulate specific projects such as screenings, conferences, and publications on topics that fall under the rubric of War and Media Studies
  1. To reach out to other scholars and professional organizations concerned with the history and culture of war, especially the relationship between media and militarism, and encourage their participation and membership in SCMS.
  2. In that way, to promote interdisciplinary collaboration among scholars working in cinema and media studies and scholars working on similar subjects in other disciplines, for instance rhetoric, history, political science, sociology, trauma studies, gender/race/sexuality studies, surveillance studies, cultural studies and peace studies.
  3. To increase the participation of War Studies scholars in SCMS and to encourage submissions on the topic to Cinema Journal.
  4. To encourage cinema and media studies scholars to contribute more actively to the War and Peace Studies communities by fostering interactions with groups like the War and Media Network and encouraging submissions to journals like Media, War & Conflict.
  5. To maintain a web site articulating the interests and values of the Group and act as a forum for its members and other similar organizations.