Media and objectivity and their relation and effects towards war

Seminar paper from the year 2013 in the subject Communications - Media and Politics, Politic Communications, grade: 2,0, Malmö University, language: English, abstract: “It’s the value of fairness which is extremely important. It’s the ethic of restraining your own biases which is also important… It’s the idea that journalism can’t be the voice of any particular party or sect.” This is only one of numerous definitions of the term 'objectivity' which will be the main theme of this thesis paper. The following text will deal with the concept of 'objectivity' and its relation and effects towards journalism and media. It will especially concentrate on 'objectivity' in regards to war and conflict by analyzing the link of 'objectivity' and 'subjectivity' to two photographs taken during the Russo-Georgian conflict of 2008. First the thesis will present 'objectivity' as a concept in general and why it plays an important role and is often discussed in the field of journalism. Subsequently the two photographs will be introduced shortly and examined focusing on how far 'objectivity' can be transferred or not to those two contrasting photographs. The conclusion will sum up the results of this analysis.