Deconstructing the “War of All Against All”: The Prevalence and Implications of War Metaphors and Other Adversarial News Schema in TIME, Newsweek, and Maclean’s

Abstract

This study examines and critiques the discursive construction of a Hobbesian “war of all against all” in North American commercial news magazines. The prevalence of war metaphors and related adversarial news schemas is documented over a twenty year period, from 1981 to 2000, through an analysis of TIME and Newsweek, along with their Canadian counterpart Maclean’s. After documenting the pervasiveness of these discursive constructs, the paper discusses the underlying causes and potential consequences of these patterns in commercial news discourse. The paper concludes by asserting that this discursively constructed “war of all against all” is highly problematic and unsustainable in an age of increasing social and ecological interdependence. Accordingly, scholars who are interested in peace and conflict resolution would do well to take into account the role that news discourse and other forms of mass-mediated communication play in the perpetuation of social conflict.