U.S. Media Control and Authoritarianism: A Critical Analysis

Following U.S.-Israeli joint military strikes in Iran in early 2026, those closely following Washington’s authoritarian shift expressed concerns surrounding media coverage of the conflict, namely referring to the large censorship gap existing between American and international news outlets. While the algorithms of social media platforms such as Tiktok and Instagram heavily restrict the flow of information for American citizens, intrinsic features such as instantaneous messaging and globally interconnected chat forums make such a gap evident: Americans know their content is filtered, and there exists a high degree of mistrust. 

As U.S. citizens navigate heavily sanitized domestic news coverage of U.S. military interventions in Iran, Cuba, and Venezuela, a critical theory analysis of media as a conduit of civic participation becomes not only relevant but necessary. This commentary examines three visual media “events” that illustrate an authoritarian shift to a new kind of censorship, and its grim implications: Vietnam, or “the first televised war,” the Abu Ghraib prison torture scandal, and the new age of mis(AI)nformation under the second Trump administration. The war iconography of the past, responsible for such public outrage, as well as the disturbing AI-generated content at present, exist dually as what Judith Butler named “frames of war.” Endlessly recirculated and their meaning co-opted, images of atrocities become part of the abstraction of American memory, and by extension, the trivialization of the atrocities themselves. Upon analyzing this phenomenon, we must take cues from regime panic about the power of photographs of war, furthering our understanding of why authoritarian regimes cannot exist without an exertion of control over the media. We must ask why American grief and outrage are born from interpretations of reality, and not refusal to engage with distortions. When an image is removed from context, who becomes the authority on meaning? And how is responsibility separated from those who are responsible? Such questions are essential in connecting power and the production of knowledge.

Vietnam: The First Televised War?

When most people think about the public reaction to the Vietnam war, many consider the televised nature of such graphic violence— reaching American homes for the first time— as a major influencing factor in widespread unpopularity. But media coverage during the war was not always frontline; in fact, suppression of the bloodiest images until after the end of the war was common. American fatigue and resignation influenced media production and redistribution of violence. Images of atrocities such as the My Lai massacre and “Accidental Napalm,” showing a naked girl fleeing napalm, later proved to be more shocking than real-time television coverage, and subsequently became solidified in the collective memory of military involvement abroad. On the subject of morality and outrage, photos as a medium capture striking moments of pain without fatiguing muddy context, and thus are more palatable and directly received by their audience. Contrary to televised reporting at the time, images of war worked to produce maximum emotional impact. Whereas most scholars today assume media influenced public opinion, it was actually the opposite; “The First Televised War” served as a litmus test, gauging how much violence the American public was willing to digest, influencing how the government released future images of war. 

Abu Ghraib: The American Capacity for Violence

The American cultural practice of shielding ourselves is rooted in our puritanical beginnings; as such, there exists a revulsion and unwillingness to process what is seen. At the same time, the privilege of being shielded from atrocities creates a grotesque curiosity satisfied by images. This cultural context provides a background for understanding the reaction to images released during the Abu Ghraib prison torture scandal in 2004. Similar to “Accidental Napalm,” “The Hooded Man” photograph became iconic in demonstrating such violence as excessive and unnecessary, rather than a casualty of war. Government strategy and control of the media during the U.S. invasion of Iraq was instrumental in altering collective memory; widespread public protests occurred, but are not associated with the invasion of Iraq to the same degree as the Vietnam War. In order to avoid the “icon effect” with images of prison torture, the Bush administration appropriated Abu Ghraib as a case of American exceptionalism, turning a moral Chernobyl into a testimony of American strength, effectively redefining and sanitizing national values. Controversial photographs break with the cultural zeitgeist at any given time, making it difficult for governments to control their meaning, and by extension, the public’s reaction. Officially released photographs, however, establish visual and verbal frames for viewing, talking about, and consequently understanding war. By “releasing” images from Abu Ghraib, the Bush administration set boundaries for what would be included in the conversation, in effect framing responsibility by separating the unflinching truth from the perpetrating regime itself. 

The sanitization of the Abu Ghraib prison torture scandal was made possible by several factors. The practice of embedded reporting, or the agreement of journalists to report only from the perspective established by military and governmental authorities, was highly influential. More importantly, the Bush administration censored images of American casualties because it raised a conversation about the destruction of war. For photographs to invoke a moral response, they must not only contain the capacity to shock but also appeal to our sense of moral obligation. Censorship lies at the heart of American moral outrage because our culture so heavily relies on visuals, but a relevant political consciousness was lacking, perhaps distorted by the events of 9/11, making citizens more favorable to digesting what was fed to them by the American government. Regime panic about the power of the Abu Ghraib photographs was exemplified in speeches given by figures of authority: Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld said that to show all the photos from Abu Ghraib would be allowing them to “define us.” This suggests that the photographs would not just communicate something atrocious but also make our capacity for atrocity into a defining concept for Americanness. But in the case of Abu Ghraib, the released photographs substituted for the event to such an extent that they structured memory more effectively than reflection or understanding by the American public. Images such as “The Hooded Man,” those that emphasize dramatic perspective without historical detail, or greater understanding of responsibility, become part of the abstraction process, embodying a process of cultural fragmentation. Rather than having an effect on public policy and opinion, iconic images have an effect on the strategy of increasingly authoritarian states. 

The Age of Mis(AI)nformation: Future Implications

Today, media coverage of war follows an “infotainment” protocol, constantly inundating citizens with short, negatively-focused videos. Rather than keeping Americans informed, the flood of media images— some of them graphically violent— has the opposite effect, obfuscating the truth, and putting viewers off from further investigation. Echo chambers within social media algorithms misrepresent support and backlash for a given issue, easily diverting innocuous searches towards propaganda or AI-generated content. Anyone with a phone can become a voice of authority on the internet. The unrestricted use of AI further spreads misinformation, making it difficult for individual Americans to separate factually true and factual false news. Though platforms such as TikTok provide globalized and instantaneous connections through comment sections, allowing American citizens to compare local coverage of war with foreign news outlets, only a small portion of people actively work to follow credible coverage. Many citizens now view all media as falling on a spectrum of real versus fake, resulting in general mistrust. The problem, then, is not whether American citizens are able to perceive bias in the news, or recognize when a powerful syndicate is pushing a particular agenda. The danger lies in the overall disengagement from relevant political issues such as U.S. involvement in Iran, Cuba, and Venezuela. We are aware we are being censored, and yet we do nothing about it. We have the world at our fingertips, but we do not reach out to our neighbors. In short; we have the tools to push back against an increasingly authoritarian government, but we refuse to use them. The polarization of politics and increasing control over the media— whether through censorship or denigration of the truth— is an intentional strategy of the American government to disengage its constituents from their civic duty. It is more important now than ever to view the media with a critical eye, going a step beyond separating fact from fiction. We must examine how we are being asked to receive information, and who benefits from the production of popular narratives. Otherwise, our freedom becomes yet another casualty of war. 

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Halle Shoaf (she/her) is a recent graduate from Saint Louis University, where she double majored in International Studies and Anthropology, and double minored in Political Science and Spanish, earning a summa cum laude distinction. She aims to pursue a doctorate degree in Medical Anthropology, and do her fieldwork in Latin America, where she will advocate for indigenous healthcare needs at a public policy level.

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To quote this article, please use the following reference:

Shoaf, Halle. “‘U.S. Media Control and Authoritarianism: A Critical Analysis.’” Observatory On Contemporary Crises, Observatory On Contemporary Crises, June 2026, www.crisesobservatory.org/post/u-s-media-control-and-authoritarianism-a-critical-analysis.