The document discusses security literacy and evidentiality in discourses. It summarizes a study on the construction and deconstruction of the Iraq war in media before the war. Key findings show politicians' framings dominated without challenging qualitative evidence. Media served as animators of politicians' soundbites rather than advocates seeking good reasons. Reasons for lack of evidence-based reporting included commercial pressures and making information easily accessible. Tools for security literacy include analyzing situations, actors' framings, practices, effects and creating interpretive explanations. The CIA's new rules aim to guarantee high quality information through processes ensuring diversity and scrutiny of experts' views and sources.

1. Evidentiality & Security Literacy Prof. Dr. Una Dirks (University of Hildesheim, Germany)

5. Traditionally: Focus on War & its Outcomes Situation at the beginning of action ? situation after action logic of the situation (context) actors‘ framings ? (cf. qualitative evidence) logic of selecting specific practices waging of the Iraq war logic of aggregation (effects) individual effects collective effects © U. Dirks

7. Focus on the Pre-War Situation Situation before the Iraq war situation after action logic of the situation (context) actors‘ framings (cf. qualitative evidence) logic of selecting specific practices waging of the Iraq war logic of aggregation (effects) individual effects collective effects © U. Dirks

8. Reconstructing the Situation‘s History Situations 1,2,n : Ext. & interior conditions logic of the situation (context) actors‘ framings (cf. qualitative evidence) logic of selecting specific practices process of acting logic of aggregation (effects) individual effects © U. Dirks Situation before the Iraq war = situation after events 1,2,n & its effects Critical Discourse Moments (CDM‘s): referring to salient, dramatized topics (cf. Chilton 1987)

12. NYT/WP: LexisNexis-Research about the War Reasons (Viehrig 2007) © U. Dirks Archiv LexisNexis, quantity of articles w. searched terms in whole texts (Viehrig 2007).

13. SZ/FAZ: LexisNexis-Research about the War Reasons (Viehrig 2007) © U. Dirks Archiv LexisNexis, quantity of articles w. searched terms in titles & leads (Viehrig 2007).

15. Examples: Fallacious framings – fallacious reasoning © U. Dirks Jacques Chirac in an interview with the NYT: Asking for evidence of the ‚WMD‘s! NYT, 09.09.02 : Two front page articles about the interview with Chirac w.o. his request! Relegated to A9 (!): Chirac asked for „‘indisputable proof‘ of the existence of WMD‘s“.

16. Jacques Chirac asking for evidence of the ‚WMD‘s‘ © U. Dirks NYT, 09.09.02, A1 : Potentially supportive quotations of members of the US-Administration (TIME AS NO RESOURCE, POWER IS UP/ POLITICS IS ACTION): „ ... Cheney warned grimly that ‚time is not on our side ‘, ... Hussein‘s efforts to build an arsenal of immensely destructive weapons left the US little choice but to act against Iraq. ‚There shouldn‘t be any doubt in anybody‘s mind that this president is absolutely bound and determined to deal with this threat ‘ ... He said that Iraq was sparing no effort to revive its nuclear weapon program ...“ Rice : „‘there will always be some uncertainty about how quickly ‘ Mr. Hussein can acquire nuclear weapons .“ (cf. FAZ) Rumsfeld : „ The world cannot wait to see what Iraq may do .“

18. Interdependencies between the Spheres of Politics & the Media © U. Dirks Politicians‘ Practices Effects of Politicians‘ Practices Situational Conditions of an Event Situational Conditions of Journalists‘ Work Effects of Journalists‘ Practices Journalists‘ Practices The communicative challenge: qualitative evidence – no ‚objective‘ evidence

25. A Taxonomy of Security Literacy (cogn. Sociolinguistics) © U. Dirks Strategies of de-/ encoding Meaning Indicators & Practices of Security Literacy Description of the situation & its history Taking account of the situation‘s inner conditions : indiv. frames & scripts, identity & of its outer conditions : cultural frames, material resources, institutional rules. Interpretive understanding I Re-/construction of actors‘ framings: how did they define the situation (cf. ‚covert action‘)? Why? e.g. COHESION of X/Y IS UP Interpretive understanding II Re-/construction of actors‘ scripts: which practice(s) have they chosen to enact (cf. ‚covert action‘, Schütz 1971)? Description of practices Which practices (orally, written) can be observed or reconstructed? Description of effects Which effects (changes of the prior situation) can be observed? Interpretive Explanations Create causal-functional connections betw. the effects & relevant context factors trying to explain the collective effects, i.e. the explanandum.

26. A Framework for ‚Interpretive Explanations‘ (cf. Max Weber) Situation before the Iraq war Situation after action logic of the situation (context) actors‘ framings (cf. qualitative evidence) logic of selecting specific practices actors‘ practices logic of aggregation (effects) individual effects collective effects © U. Dirks Searching for evidence of claims

27. A Taxonomy of Security Literacy (cogn. Sociolinguistics) © U. Dirks Strategies of de-/ encoding Meaning Indicators & Practices of Security Literacy Description of the situation & its history Taking account of the situation‘s inner conditions : indiv. frames & scripts, identity & of its outer conditions : cultural frames, material resources, institutional rules. Interpretive understanding I Re-/construction of actors‘ framings: how did they define the situation (cf. ‚covert action‘)? Why? e.g. COHESION of X/Y IS UP Interpretive understanding II Re-/construction of actors‘ scripts: which practice(s) have they chosen to enact (cf. ‚covert action‘, Schütz 1971)? Description of practices Which practices (orally, written) can be observed or reconstructed? Description of effects Which effects (changes of the prior situation) can be observed? Interpretive Explanations Create causal-functional connections betw. the effects & relevant context factors trying to explain the collective effects, i.e. the explanandum.

28. A Framework for ‚Interpretive Explanations‘ (cf. Max Weber) Situation before the Iraq war Situation after action logic of the situation (context) actors‘ framings logic of selecting specific practices actors‘ practices logic of aggregation (effects) individual effects collective effects (explanandum) © U. Dirks Searching for effect-related context factors

31. IC-members‘ Estimates: Focus on elliptic social realities? Situation: outer /inner? conditions collective effects? logic of the situation (context) actors‘ framings? logic of selecting specific practices process of acting? logic of aggregation (effects) probable individual effects? © U. Dirks

33. The CIA‘s New Rules (cont.) © U. Dirks „ Estimates of Likelihood: Because analytical statements are not certain, we use probabilistic language to reflect the Community‘s estimates of the likelihood of developments or events . Terms such as probably, likely, very likely or almost certainly indicate a greater than even chance. The terms unlikely and remote indicate a less than even chance that an event will occur; they do not imply that an event will not occur. Terms such as might or may reflect situations in which we are unable to assess the likelihood, generally because relevant information is unavailable, sketchy, or fragmented. Terms such as we cannot dismiss, we cannot rule out, we cannot discount reflect an unlikely, improbable, or remote event whose consequences are such that it warrants mentioning.” (very careful language use when assessing factive attributes to information & its sources)

34. The CIA‘s New Rules (cont.) © U. Dirks Estimates of Likelihood – a chart for proper terms in an hierarchical order (cf. epistemic modals): “ Remote very unlikely unlikely even chance probably/likely very likely almost certainly. ” Literature : National Intelligence Estimate. Iran: Nuclear intentions and capabilities. Washington D.C., Nov. 2007, p. 5

35. Net of Metaphors I: FAZ; partly WP, NYT © U. Dirks ‚ Priming‘: Frame Alignment w . sit.-def. by US-Government POWER IS UP / UN AS FORCE POLITICS AS ACTION TIME AS A MENACE/ TIME AS NO RESOURCE COHESION of Germany & the USA IS UP WESTERN NATIONS AS VULNERABLE BODIES SECURITY AS A FRAGILE CONTAINER DIPLOMACY AS A DEADEND SADDAM HUSSEIN (the ‚oriental other‘?) AS ANIMAL trying to devour us / AS RULEBREAKER POLITICS AS STORY TELLING

36. Net of metaphors II: SZ; partly WP, NYT © U. Dirks Frame-Alignment vs. construction of heterogeneous counter realities (hardly primed) UN RULES ARE UP / WAR IS DOWN / MORAL IS UP TIME AS A (LIMITED) RESOURCE COHESION of the UN & the EU IS UP DIPLOMACY AS A JOURNEY SADDAM HUSSEIN (the ‚oriental other‘?) AS RULEBREAKER, HUNTER of weapons POLITICS AS STORY TELLING

37. The Genre „Front Page Article“ © U. Dirks What is a genre? A textualized, habitualized, potentially hybrid struc-ture- & agency complex (here: texts of the press) that offers its users situation-bound, meta-/linguistic orientations when searching for communicative solutions that suit specific social demands. Hence, genres comprise the communicative chan-ces & obstacles „of constructing, maintaining & changing social order.“ (Luckmann 1986: 205; cf. Bakhtin 1996, Volosinov)