The Media and Medievalism: A New Tyranny Rears Its Head

Draws on Elias Canetti's (1960) crowd theory to explore the authority of the global media. It is argued that the left has mutated into the global media, taken to be a cosmopolitan network with exposure as its principal weapon. Anchormen are compared to medieval saints & described as the epitome of disembodiment & characterized by a moral authority centered on the "cult of victimhood."; this is exemplified in the global media coverage of US military operations in Iraq, eg, Marines in Fallujah. Attention is given to the gap that now exists between the US military & US journalists, who are said to belong to the crowd-pack of the global media with its global cosmopolitan perspective. Adapted from the source document.