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Communication is war by other means: a new perspective on war and communication in the thought of twentieth century selected communication scholars

The September 11, 2001 Jihadists attack on the West and the subsequent wars on
terrorism indicate that war may be a permanent condition of life in the contemporary
world. This implies that to understand contemporary society, culture and
communication requires an understanding of war because war could perhaps
provide a perspective through which to understand the world. The aim of this study is
to provide such a perspective and to critically explore the link between war and
communication. However, in approaching a study of war one is confronted with a
pervasive pacifist anti-war ideological bias. To overcome the bias the study adopts a
critical strategy: firstly it deconstructs the taken for granted assumptions about the
positive value of peace and then it reconstructs and traces the contours of a Western
tradition of philosophical thought that considers war as being an integral and
formative aspect of human identity and communication. Chapter 2 uncovers the
limitations of the pacifists' discourse on war. Chapter 3 traces the Western tradition
originating in Heraclitus that considers war as formative experience of being human.
Chapter 4 traces war and killing as formative of language and communication. Using
these insights a careful reading and interpretation of how war informs the thought
and functions in the texts of selected social theorists of the twentieth century.
Chapter 5 traces war as an agonistic structure in the works of Johan Huizinga on the
role of play and in the political theory of Carl Schmitt. Chapter 6 explores the idea of
war as a model of society in the works of Foucault. Chapter 7 investigates the central
influence of real and imagined war on Marshall McLuhan’s theory of the media.
Chapter 8 explores the way war structures the thought of Lyotard on the postmodern
condition. Chapter 9 concludes by drawing implications on how a perspective on war
contributes to development of communication theory and understanding life in the
postmodern condition. / Communication Science / D. Litt. et Phil. Communication )

Identiferoai:union.ndltd.org:netd.ac.za/oai:union.ndltd.org:unisa/oai:umkn-dsp01.int.unisa.ac.za:10500/10446
Date11 1900
CreatorsSonderling, Stefan Prof.
ContributorsGoosen, D. P. Prof.
Source SetsSouth African National ETD Portal
LanguageEnglish
Detected LanguageEnglish
TypeThesis
Format1 online resource (viii, 353 leaves)

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