After the ‘longest war’: visual themes of Afghan evacuees in U.S. newspapers

ABSTRACT

The end of the U.S.’s 20-year-old war in Afghanistan was followed by the mass evacuation and resettlement of Afghan allies. Reputed polls showed strong bipartisan support for resettlement on U.S. soil. Given the different reception of Afghans in U.S. public discourse (as opposed to other categories of forced migrants), the study examines visual coverage of evacuees in two major U.S. newspapers of record: the New York Times and the Washington Post. The main purposes of the study are to: (1) understand how relationships of power between the U.S. and Afghanistan are manifested in media coverage, and (2) study how visual themes are related to the pervasive “moral obligation” discourse regarding Afghan evacuees. The paper conducts a semiotic analysis of visuals of Afghan evacuees through themes derived from the literature review and the broader discourse surrounding the Afghan evacuation. Results indicate the wide influence of moral obligation in these themes. The study also suggests steps that can be producers to improve representations.

KEYWORDS:

• Visual themes
• visual semiotics
• refugee representations
• Afghan war

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Correction

Acknowledgment

The author wishes to thank Tania Nachrin for her research help.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Correction Statement

This article was originally published with errors, which have now been corrected in the online version. Please see Correction (http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/15295036.2024.2337494)

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Bimbisar Irom

Bimbisar Irom is an Assistant Professor at the Edward R. Murrow College of Communication, Washington State University, Pullman, WA. His research interests are visual communication, forced migration, refugee representations, virtual reality, and communication in humanitarian contexts.