Abstract

The danger with news, especially television broadcast news, is that it is regarded as wholly real, devoid of manipulation and transparent. Whilst a critical media audience understands that immediacy, liveness and authoritatively stated presentations are manipulable and edited, constant vigilance and attention to content and framing is required in the theatre of news reportage to avoid succumbing to the reality effect of actualité – particularly when it is live. Taking a Derridean deconstructive stance, we explore the constructed polarisation of the War Body during Operation Iraqi Freedom 2003 (19/03/03 – 02/05/03) in a range of 24/7 news broadcasts, taking into account a continuum of presentational formats ranging from the pre-planned event to the unplanned and live event.