Resistance beyond time and space: Hizbullah’s media campaigns

Abstract

The February 2008 assassination of paramilitary mastermind Imad Mughniyeh and the July War of 2006 presented challenges to Hizbullah’s capacity as a military organization.[i] Yet the group has attempted to use its media capabilities to translate the two events into political capital in Lebanon and the wider Arab World. While the reach of Hizbullah’s media apparatus has grown with its integration into Internet-based platforms, the group has also become adept in the creation and presentation of its political media content. Hizbullah’s media responses to these specific incidents demonstrate how the group has become skilled at framing key episodes of political violence against the backdrop of historical themes that resonate with the group’s domestic and regional constituencies. With a narrative that transcends and conflates time and space, the group’s media aim to cultivate Hizbullah’s image as being the vanguard of resistance against perceived Israeli and Western domination. In commemorative videos produced by Al Manar in response to Mughniyeh’s death, this narrative is largely derived from the group’s own unique political culture of militancy and Shiism, while aspects of the group’s prolific media response to the July War of 2006 also incorporate broader nostalgic themes of pan-Arabism. Thus, the group has sought to utilize these events to further reinforce its image of defiance by tapping into themes of revisionism that have timeless currency with its local Shia and greater Arab audiences.