The Role of the Media in International Wars from the Perspective of Jean Baudrillard (Case Study: US Invasion of Iraq in 2003)

The role of the media in how the war is portrayed is important. This importance is compounded by the intersection of the role of the international media in international wars and in the context of postmodernism. Because the media is a buffer between the audience and the field of events. Jean Baudrillard is a leading theorist in this field and refers to it as hyperreality. Accordingly, this article seeks to answer this key question: How can the performance of the media on the eve of the US military invasion of Iraq be explained in light of Baudrillard's postmodern approach? In response to this question, a descriptive-analytical method has been used. According to the research results, in the postmodernist approach, political realities such as war are considered as something constructed, so that this reality develops according to different circumstances and the media becomes very important as an arena for representing political reality. Accordingly, US actions in both the pre- and post-war periods have been evaluated. Pre-war US psychological actions include depicting and magnifying the Iraq threat, mobilizing hatred against the enemy (Iraq), conducting propaganda-psychological warfare against Iraq, and engaging public opinion with symbolic action. US psychological and propaganda operations during the war include the quantity and quality of forces and weapons on both sides, the goals of military leadership on both sides, and the surprise.