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In this riveting book set against the backdrop of the war that the United States waged in Iraq and its military interventions in Iran and Afghanistan, DiMaggio examines the role of media in supporting, legitimizing and building pro-war public opinion in support of America. In constructing this radical critique of these wars, DiMaggio invokes a variety of neo-Marxist media literature on the subject, chiefly the ‘propaganda model’ powerfully expounded by Edward Herman and Noam Chomsky. Contrary to what the introduction argues, this model has received much critical attention at least in the Global South. Gramsci’s seminal theorization of hegemony provides the essential lens through which to examine the constructivist notion of the news-making process that hides grotesque war propaganda under the fallacious veneer of the objectivity tradition of journalistic form and professional practice. Similar to much of the Leftist media scholarship and critical thinking, and of late, the political economic approach to linking media ownership to manifest content, When Media Goes to War, too examines how the military-capitalist state complex has carefully instituted a propagandist news media that primarily helps keep the propaganda state buoyant.