Globalization and justification of war in international media discourse: A comparative study of media discourses between the 1st and the 2nd Gulf Wars

For decades globalization has had enormous implications on almost every dimension of life. In examining these implications, this research addresses the relationship between globalization and international media discourse through the topic of justification of war. Accepting media as a tool of soft power, it attempts to study the function of media on people's perception of realities. Based on this foundation, it aims to understand how soft power is composed and maintained through media in the new form of international affairs. More specifically this research first compares and contrasts the international media discourse on the two Gulf Wars through a two step framing analysis. Then, it contrasts the results with the Turkish national media discourse of war justification to see the impacts of international media discourse on national media. Finally, it provides an evaluation of findings in relation to the globalization literature, reveals the implications of the findings in terms of the use of soft power, and make recommendations for policy makers and researchers. The results of the analysis prove the diffusion in international media discourse. According to findings, the 1st Gulf War was presented by only one news channel, CNN, with a hard pro-American discourse, while the 2nd Gulf War is presented by multiple news channels representing the both sides of the war. Reflections in the Turkish news media confirm the same stances with international media for both wars. In the 1 st War, the unavailability of alternative news sources provided CNN with the ability to operate freely and basically control the international media domain. It gave a strong voice to the causes and successes of American policy, while offering very little perspective from to other views. In the 2nd Gulf War, however, diffusion in the discourse revealed the removal of a superpower monopoly on communication technologies and the emergence of alternative views in international media. The diffusion had enormous implications in terms of the use of soft power. It renders conventional tools and strategies obsolete, and requires new ones in terms of maintaining soft power due to newfound critical challenges.