In the Damascus suburb of Jdeidet al-Fadl, according to the Syrian regime media, all is well.
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Activists' accounts of the Syrian military's capture of the town over the weekend, which culminated in an alleged wave of summary executions and dismemberments, have placed the number of dead at anywhere from 80 to 500 people. But according to the official Syrian Arab News Agency (SANA), Jdeidet al-Fadl saw "a series of successful operations" in which the Syrian military "destroyed the terrorists' nests and gatherings." Forebodingly, SANA says that operations in Jdeidet al-Fadl "have neared their end."
This is the sort of victory that defines the worldview of the Syrian regime media. Television, radio, and print outlets controlled by the regime of President Bashar al-Assad articulate a single vision of the war: that the Syrian Arab Army is waging an unrelenting campaign against terrorists led by Jabhat al-Nusra, an affiliate of al Qaeda, who are the vanguard of a "universal" conspiracy against the Syrian people. But Syria will prevail, state media contend, and its people will build a new, better country founded on dialogue and openness -- an oasis of religious and ethnic tolerance.
This is the war Assad chooses to show, and more importantly, it is the war as the regime's supporters understand it. This narrative has been broadcast to the Syrian public for over two years now by the core of Syrian regime media: SANA; the newspapers al-Baath, Tishreen, and al-Thawra; the official Radio Damascus; the state's satellite television network and its sister news network, al-Ikhbariya; and the technically privately owned but staunchly loyalist al-Watan daily and Addounia satellite TV network. And in this narrative, the Syrian regime is winning.
The regime advances its understanding of the war most effectively through its daily battlefield reporting. These reports are nearly identical across all media, and they employ a set, limited vocabulary. The regime's Syrian Arab Army is "our brave army" or "our brave armed forces." The enemy consists of "terrorists" and "mercenaries," and the Syrian military typically "destroys" their "nests," "eliminates" them, and "leaves [them] dead and wounded." Often, state media give names for the militants killed in combat, and in keeping with the media's emphasis on foreign fighters among the rebels, their nationality is provided if they are not Syrian.
The regime's narrative robs the anti-Assad forces of any agency. The Syrian military is always "pursuing" or "targeting" terrorists, but it is never ambushed or attacked. The armed forces sometimes "clash with" or "repel" terrorists, but there are never regime casualties. The regime's enemies only have initiative when they murder and rob civilians due to those civilians' "rejection of the terrorists' crimes and refusal to harbor them." Terrorists' actions are "desperate" or "attempts to raise [their] morale" after significant losses.
The pro-regime media acknowledge no divisions among the opposition, painting the many factions as an undifferentiated bloc of militant fanatics. When coverage is more specific than simply "terrorists," militants are most often identified as belonging to Jabhat al-Nusra, though "the terrorist gangs belonging to the so-called 'Free Army'" make occasional appearances. When Jabhat al-Nusra publicly pledged loyalty to al Qaeda on April 10, regime coverage was nonplussed: The announcement was "nothing new," reported regime television; it was only something "the external opposition and their supporters had insisted on denying for appearances' sake" while secretly arming the group.
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