Expanding Peace Journalism

This major new text explores and interrogates peace journalism as a significant challenge to this hegemonic discourse, which has been advocated and elaborated over the recent years in journalism, media development and academic spheres.

Peace Journalism explains how most coverage of conflict unwittingly fuels further violence, and proposes workable options to give peace a chance.

Journalism a ‘Peacekeeping Agent’ at the Time of Conflict offers a critical analysis media’s role on peace-making and conflict-resolution.

Peace Journalism, War and Conflict Resolution draws together the work of over twenty leading international writers, journalists, theorists and campaigners in the field of peace journalism. Mainstream media tend to promote the interests of the military and governments in their coverage of warfare. This major new text aims to provide a definitive, up-to-date, critical, engaging and accessible overview exploring the role of the media in conflict resolution. Sections focus in detail on theory, international practice, and critiques of mainstream media performance from a peace perspective; countries discussed include the U.S., U.K., Germany, Cyprus, Sweden, Canada, India, Pakistan, Papua New Guinea and the Philippines. Chapters examine a wide variety of issues including mainstream newspapers, indigenous media, blogs and radical alternative websites. The book includes a foreword by award-winning investigative journalist John Pilger and a critical afterword by cultural commentator Jeffery Klaehn.

Amid the ongoing and volatile debate over the nature and potential of peace journalism, this volume presents visionary insights from some of the most prominent scholars in the fi eld. Th e signifi cant empirical studies included here will provide foundation data for communication studies. Th e contributors broaden the purview and terrain of peace journalism to include new media, and off ers essays on the eff ects and the content of global communications. In sum, the thirteenth volume of Peace and Policy deepens our empirical knowledge of the nature and eff ects of confl ict, while underscoring the increase in numbers of participants and breadth of communications.

Shaw argues that journalism should focus on deconstructing the underlying structural and cultural causes of political violence such as poverty, famine and human trafficking, and play a proactive (preventative), rather than reactive (prescriptive) role in humanitarian intervention.

In exploring the dynamics and narratives of peace in journalism, this book explains the media's impact on the transformation of the conflict between Israelis and Palestinians. It discusses the perspectives of peace activists who have been involved in grassroots action since the first Intifada, and examines how their relation with the mainstream media has evolved over time. It compares these views with those of professional journalists who have been covering the conflict, and their sense of the difficulties inherent in practicing a different kind of journalism. The interviews included in this study contribute towards the model of Peace Journalism, with a view to facilitating its successful application to this conflict. Highlighting both the obstacles and opportunities associated with this endeavour, Tiripelli offers suggestions for the strategic application of this model.

Setting out multiple perspectives from media and journalism scholars, this collection addresses the implications that today’s technological, socio-political, and economic conditions have for relations between journalists, sources, audiences, and wider publics. Applying an inclusive concept of ‘conflicted societies’ that goes beyond those affected by violent conflict to include traditionally ‘stable’ but increasingly polarised democracies, such as the UK and the USA, contributors engage with longstanding questions and new challenges surrounding concepts of responsibility, trust, public service, and public interest in journalism. The unique span of studies offers international scope, including societies often overlooked in media and journalism studies, such as Northern Ireland, Turkey, Cyprus, Pakistan, The Democratic Republic of Congo, and the Central African Republic. Chapters also feature contemporary case studies, such as the COVID-19 pandemic, as a route into understanding the pertinent issue of fake news, and the ‘local turn’ in journalism. Responsible Journalism in Conflicted Societies is not only a valuable resource for those studying conflict reporting and international journalism but will also appeal to scholars working at the intersection of media, journalism, communication, peace, conflict, and security studies.