Politics, Propaganda and the Press

This book examines British and Argentine media output in the prelude to and during the 1982 Falklands/Malvinas Conflict and acknowledges the aftermath and legacies of the media response.

Yards of ink have been spilt, reinforcing the view that the Argentine Junta’s action on 2nd April 1982 was a ‘diversion’ from domestic tensions. This view, coupled with the paucity of any thorough, in-depth analysis afforded to Argentine media aspects of the War - particularly the press - necessitates this volume’s copious international study of the Conflict. Uniquely, US media output is also analysed alongside Britain’s and Argentina’s, all drawing upon Cold War historiography and media theory, with a view to contesting the traditional consensus that media outlets merely reflected government opinion during the Crisis, providing almost no effective dissent. Asserting media and culture influenced the climatic decision-making process of key actors in the Conflict, this book’s triangulated approach explores the integral, influencing role played therein by culture, and how it was not only instrumental to government actions, but also to Argentine, British and US media output.

This book’s revisionist approach makes it a reference point for any nascent research on Falklands/Malvinas media reporting and Argentine and international approaches—particularly the US—to the 1982 Conflict.