Front page coverage heralding al-Zarqawi's death on a few tabloid newspapers yesterday was predictable. The bloodied face of the militant was significant in that it helps to redirect some of the criticism against the U.S. military engagement in Iraq. Pictures have been used for political propaganda since the invention of the halftone printing process in the 1880s.
Susan Sontag in Regarding the Pain of Others (2003) observes, "Ideologies create substantiating archives of images, representative images, which encapsulate common ideas of significance and trigger predictable thoughts, feelings" (p.86).
Consider the The New York Post's use of inflammatory commentary superimposed over the dead face Abu Masub al-Zarqawi. As close to a supermarket table as so-called legitimate media may get, the Post's use of the text-bubbled "Warm up the Virgins" coming from al-Zarqawi's battered face signifies our insatiable fascination with death and sex. The reference to virgins on the cover refers to the beliefs some extremists hold that if an individual dies a martyr they will be met by 40 virgins in the afterlife.
Here the media plays a role in constructing a reality that extends beyond the image. The language aims to offend deeply by connecting death to sexual activity. The juxtaposition of the text bubble coming from the dead man's mouth calling for "virgins" may be perceived not as a object of contemplation but as one of gallows humor and prurient interest.
Again as Sontag notes, "An image is drained of its force by the way it is used, where and how often it is seen" (Regarding the Pain of Others, p. 105).
In this case, American audiences are generally shielded from images of the dead. But in this case, the dead was the "enemy" -- he was not just another human being. Therefore, how we use his image and how often it is seen, dead or alive, is part of constructing a pathology of hatred and fear in the audience's mind.
Imagine viewing a full-size front page picture of a U.S. Marine killed in action with a text bubble added to suggest a final thought or desire. Readers would burn down the newspaper. Even the idea of suggesting that such an image would ever make the front page of newspaper seems so wrong. Nevertheless, picturing the death of an individual who has been demonized as evil incarnate appears reasonable for a government set on winning the public relations war in the American press.
There were actually a variety of the death image released to the media -- one picture showing the bloodied and swollen face and another image after the body had been cleaned up. In this instance, the pentagon provided two versions for public consumption.
Alexandra Fuche of the BBC reports in "Parading the Dead" that showing the bodies of dead in Iraq is "controversial on religious grounds, as Muslim tradition requires corpses to be buried as quickly as possible."
Using imagery of pain and death in order to make a point or prove something to one group may provoke excitement and a blacklash of violence from other groups. There is a price to be paid for from the visual propaganda used on both sides of this conflict. Whether it is a video showing Islamic extremists beheading hostages, or pictures of dead sectarian leaders, the of such imagery can only escalate tensions.