Peace journalism has been developed from research that indicates that often news about conflict has a value bias toward violence. It also includes practical methods for correcting this bias by producing journalism in both the mainstream and alternative media and working with journalists, media professionals, audiences, and organizations in conflict.
This concept was proposed by Johan Galtung[2] Other terms for this broad definition of peace journalism include conflict solution journalism, conflict sensitive journalism,[3] constructive conflict coverage, and reporting the world.[4]
War journalism is journalism about conflict that has a value bias towards violence and violent groups. This usually leads audiences to overvalue violent responses to conflict and ignore non-violent alternatives. This is understood to be the result of well documented news reporting conventions. These conventions focus only on physical effects of conflict (for example ignoring psychological impacts) and elite positions (who may or may not represent the actual parties and their goals). It is also biased toward reporting only the differences between parties, (rather than similarities, previous agreements, and progress on common issues) the here and now (ignoring causes and outcomes), and zero sums (assuming that one side's needs can only be met by the other side's compromise or defeat).[5]
Peace journalism aims to correct for these biases. Its operational definition is "to allow opportunities for society at large to consider and value non-violent responses to conflict".[6] This involves picking up calls for, and articulations of, non-violence policies from whatever quarter, and allowing them into the public sphere.
Peace journalism follows a long history of news publication originating in non-sectarian Christian peace movements and societies of the early 19th century, which published periodicals.[7] Sectarian organizations also created publications focused on peace as part of their proselytizing in the 19th century, as did utopian communities of the period. From the 20th century, a prominent example of sectarian journalism focused on peace was Dorothy Day's Catholic Worker.[8]
Besides being an element in the histories of pacifism and the social movement press, peace journalism is a set of journalism practices that emerged in the 1970s. Norwegian sociologist, peace researcher and practitioner Johan Galtung proposed the idea of peace journalism for journalists to follow to show how a value bias towards violence can be avoided when covering war and conflict.[9] Christian organizations such as The World Council of Churches and The World Association for Christian Communication also practice peace journalism.
Peace journalism aims to shed light on structural and cultural causes of violence, as they impact upon the lives of people in a conflict arena as part of the explanation for violence. It aims to frame conflicts as consisting of many parties and pursuing many goals rather than a simple dichotomy. An explicit aim of peace journalism is to promote peace initiatives from whatever quarter and to allow the reader to distinguish between stated positions and real goals.
Peace journalism came about through research arguing there's something wrong with typical conflict reporting. Research and practice in peace journalism outlines a number of reasons for the existence and dominance of war journalism in conflict news.
Firstly, given relatively little weight is the notion that commercial and political interests of media elites always act to preserve their favored status quo. Shared characteristics of the socio-economic class, who heavily influence the production of journalism, are important. For example, their shared ideological pressures, perceptions, attitudes, and values form the basis of a "dominant reading" of facts that are selected to appear in news. These can then act to fix and naturalize meaning and hide the actual creation of meaning.[10]
However, even in the presence of powerful elite media interests against war, war journalism often dominates conflict discourse. Lynch and McGoldrick show examples from Britain/Ireland, Georgia, and Iraq (where war journalism dominated coverage despite key influential media interests against war).[11]
Therefore, not only political and economic, but also social and cultural factors have contributed to the dominance of war journalism in conflict reporting. With the growth of mass media, especially from the 19th century, news advertising became the most important source of media revenue.
Whole audiences needed to be engaged across communities and regions to maximize advertising revenue. This led to "Journalistic objectivity as an industry standard…a set of conventions allowing the news to be presented as all things to all people".[12] And in modern journalism, especially with the emergence of 24 hour news cycles, speed is of the essence in responding to breaking stories. It is not possible for reporters to decide "from first principals" every time how they will report each and every story that presents itself.[13] So convention governs much of journalism.
The rise of journalistic objectivity was part of a larger movement within western academia to a more empirical "just report the facts” epistemology and research paradigm. By the 1890s was focused on the ideal of “objectivity”.[14] And even though it came into fashion around the same period, Journalistic Objectivity must of course be distinguished from the Scientific Objectivity. For example the experimental sciences use:
While it is arguable whether these provide “true objectivity”, in the absence of these safeguards journalism around conflict relies on three conventions to maintain its own form of "objectivity" ( also see journalistic objectivity), which therefore is distinct from the objectivity of empirical science.
Firstly, to sell audiences to advertisers, reporting must appeal to as broad an audience as possible and therefore focuses on “facts” that are the least controversial. Conflict processes are often controversial, so coverage of them risks alienating potential consumers, who may be sensitive to the exposure of structural or cultural predisposing factors.[15]
Secondly, a bias in favor of official sources means that, while it may appear uncontroversial, as there is only one official representative for the government on any given issue [16] and since only the official government is usually allowed to wield legal, sanctioned force within its territory [17] coverage will tend to privilege violent responses to conflict over non-violent, social-psychological, context-informed responses.[18]
Journalists Annabel McGoldrick and Jake Lynch argue that non-critical reporting of official sources is often rewarded by those sources. Through "information transactions", these same official sources allow uncritical journalists privileged access to information in the future.[19] In addition, journalist's non-critical reporting of official sources is often rewarded: through information transactions these same officials allow privileged access to these journalists in the future to reward and encourage uncritical reporting of their positions.[20]
Lastly, dualism is another manner in which journalistic objectivity can be biased towards violence: "A decision to tell a story in that [bipolar] way can slip past, unnoticed, without drawing attention to itself because of its close resemblance, in shape and structure, to so much of the story-telling we already take for granted".[21]
These conventions also form “gates” by which “gatekeepers” in journalism include or exclude various aspects of reality in final publication.[22]
In this way, proponents of peace journalism argue that in the media meaning occurs according to: “a set of rules and relations established before the reality or the experience under discussion actually occurred”.[23] In war journalism the objectivity conventions serve this purpose, but are shadowy and unacknowledged.[24] “Gatekeeping” is therefore likely to be secretive and/or haphazard. This means they distort, but also fix meaning in conflict coverage and obfuscate the production of meaning.[25]
A recent example demonstrates how peace journalism evaluative criteria might be applied to show how much conventional conflict reporting is biased in favor of violence and violent groups. The example used here is the coverage leading up to the September 2009 meeting between Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, and US President Barack Obama.
Reporting was highly reactive and focused on the visible effects of the conflict such announcements and public disagreements between official spokespeople which appeared to disrupt peace efforts.[26]
Coverage was elite-oriented with little mention of non-official peace efforts by individuals and groups such as the Hand in Hand network of schools, the Israeli/Palestinian The Parents Circle Families Forum, Peace Now, Breaking the Silence, Physicians for Human Rights, Machsom Watch, and Checkpoint Watch, Hanan Ashrawi (non-violent activist for human rights, founder of the Palestinian Initiative for the Promotion of Global Dialogue and Democracy, and member of the Palestinian Legislative Council), We Will Not Obey, Sheikh Jarrah Solidarity Movement.
Also ignored were programmes that promote cultural exchange, for example The Peace Team (Israeli-Palestinian Aussie Rules football team) (see here for official 2011 team details) which played in the 2008 and 2011 AFL International Cups. Another is the current programme of Palestinian children's visits to the Old Yishuv Court Museum in the Jewish Quarter of Jerusalem. Events demonstrating non-violent responses to the conflict were also ignored, a new example being the March 12, 2011, Conference on Civil Disobedience in the West Bank marking the centenary of International Women's Day.[27] Projects working for peace among Arabs and Israelis lists further organizations working for peace in the region, whose activities are generally excluded from news on the Conflict.
Reporting leading up to the September 2009 meeting between Netanyahu, Abbas and Obama focused almost solely on highly divisive issues such as Israeli illegal settlements in the West Bank and Jerusalem, and the diplomatic/official status of Jerusalem. Coverage was also differences-oriented with a focus on the here and now. Potential benefits in physical, economic, and social security of peaceful relations were ignored and “progress” towards peace was portrayed as having to come with one or more parties compromising and surrendering their positions on key issues, which is of course a zero sum orientation.[28] Coverage generally ignored the background or context of positions. These positions were therefore presented as unchangeable conditions on any peaceful settlement rather than the public "face" of unmet needs that often drive violent conflicts but because of distrust between parties are often not honestly expressed publicly.[29]
Thus a pattern of war journalism emerges, largely stemming from the objectivity conventions applied to conflict reporting. Peace journalism argues that this is likely to have important and consistent effects on the way audiences understand a conflict.
In war journalism, violence is typically presented as its only its own cause, ignoring the possibility of structural or psychological causes. And since violence is assumed as having no cause or explanation for example in the deprived needs of parties, conventional conflict reporting may leave viewers to conclude that the only “natural” or reasonable response to violence is more violence.[30] That “more violence –‘the only language they understand’-is an appropriate remedy” and that non-violent responses are irrelevant or "unrealistic".[15]
This focus on only physical violent behavior is an example of what leading Conflict Analyst and Peace Researcher, Johan Galtung identifies as a major flaw in responses to inter-communal conflict: the “Conservative Fallacy”.[31]
This bias towards prioritizing violent actors with coverage is then expected by violent groups, through what has been called the Feedback Loop of cause and effect.[32] This acknowledges that parties to a conflict often actually try to use the media to advance their positions, rather than being passive subjects, unaware of observation as is assumed in the sciences where humans are not the subjects. Therefore, parties may react differently in the presence of certain media patterns, journalist and journalism Associate Professor Jake Lynch noting that "it is not the influence of news on public opinion as such, but assumptions by parties to conflict about its likely or possible influence, that condition their behaviour".[33]
In this way war journalism is an example of the role of power in representation and the media trying to fix meaning, in this case about violence and its causes, for “it to become naturalized so that is the only meaning it can possibly carry…where you cannot see that anybody ever produced it."[34]
Thus, war journalism is understood as reporting on conflict in a way which imposes an artificially confined closed space and closed time with causes and exits only in the conflict arena.[35] Peace journalism can then be understood as journalism that avoids this outside imposition, to more objectively assess the possibility of conflicts taking place in open space, open time with causes and exits anywhere.
The emotional effects of war journalism also make it more difficult for audiences to be aware of this biased presentation of conflict. War journalism takes advantage of the emotional “high” humans can get from fear from evolutionary psychological mechanisms.[37] In a similar way, war journalism appeals to "lower order" needs such as security and belonging. [38] Indeed the pre-frontal cortex, governing working memory, rational attentive functioning, and complex thought is inhibited by activation of the brain’s fear centre, the limbic system. [39]
Audiences are therefore also deprived of cognitive resources by which to recognize the role of fear in encouraging war journalism consumption. This cognitive deprivation also further fixes meaning and increases the role of “automatically activated attitudes” which according the cognitive psychology: "guide attention toward attitude-consistent information, provide a template with which to interpret ambiguous information, and…guide behaviour in a relatively spontaneous fashion". [40] Therefore viewers are primed to pay most attention only to future information which is consistent with the automatically activated attitudes formed by war journalism. Research into ever present framing in the media supports this conclusion: “Certainly people can recall their own facts, forge linkages not made explicitly in the text, or retrieve from memory a causal explanation or cure that is completely absent from the text. In essence, this is just what professors encourage their students to do habitually. But Zaller (1992), Kahneman and Tversky (1984), and Iyengar (1991), among others, suggest that on most matters of social or political interest, people are not generally so well-informed and cognitively active, and that framing therefore heavily influences their responses to communications”.[41]
Research also indicates that war journalism can have negative emotional impacts in audience members. These include feelings of hopelessness and powerlessness, compounded by increased anxiety, mood disturbance, sadness and a sense of disconnection with physical and social environments. Research by Galtung and Ruge’s (1965) finding of negativity bias in foreign news has also been confirmed more recently by Nohrstedt and Ottosen (2008). [42] This can impact both reactions towards both the conflict itself and audience’s own general psychological wellbeing, contributing to a view of the world as excessively chaotic, serious anxiety and emotional difficulties, and a sense of disempowerment and disconnection. [43] Vicarious traumatisation can influence these negative effects, where "even ‘normal’, intelligent, educated individuals can be highly suggestible towards violent acts in formerly unexpected contexts".[44]
Therefore these negative emotional states may discourage audience members from critically engaging with and challenging the bias information presented through war journalism. These may appear to be "someone else’s problem" and best left to "experts" who alone have the necessary knowledge, time, and emotional endurance. These negative emotional responses may also discourage creative engagement with the conflict and conflict parties. This is especially troubling considering the critical role of creativity in conflict resolution and peacebuilding.[45]
Peace journalism analysis also proposes that typical news on conflict, with its value bias towards violence and violent groups, has important effects on conflict parties. Firstly, peace journalism proponents argues that the bias in favour of publicity for violence and violent actors, "plays into" violent actors interests to intimidate and disrupt peace processes.[46] This is an important example of the Feedback Loop effect: "it is not the influence of news on public opinion as such, but assumptions by parties to conflict about its likely or possible influence, that condition their behaviour".[33] This bias also weakens and punishes non-violent groups effected by a conflict, with less publicity for their lack of violence. Nohrstedt and Ottosen (2002) note: "if traditional media themselves are unable to transmit alternative perspectives and voice the danger is that those … that feel marginalised will turn to terror in order to make a difference in the media agenda".[47]
The most visible actions of a group one is not a member of (and outgroup) are often considered representative of that group’s behaviour (an effect called the “availability heuristic”).[48] Therefore war journalism's over-selection of violent compared to non-violent responses to conflict may actually foster a misperception of excessive threat between parties. This is then generally exaggerated by other inter-group social-cognitive biases within war journalism. These include biases towards: seeing an outgroup as more homogeneous (with less internal variety) than it really is, ignoring the variety of attitudes towards the conflict [49] seeing ambiguous situations or negative outgroup behaviour as playing out internal and stable, outgroup characteristics rather than external variable circumstances,[50] favourable ingroup/outgroup comparison to increase collective self esteem,[51] members of groups who perceive themselves to be under threat to be more pressured internally to conform with and reinforce dominant group norms.[52] premature and immediate resistance to ideas on positive responses to violence offered by members of outgroups.[53] Indeed Dr. Louis Kriesberg, a sociologist at Syracuse University, and expert on conflict resolution points out that: "conventional thinking among partisans in a fight generally attributes destructive persistence in a conflict to the enemey's character, asseting that the enemy is aggressive by nature, has evil leaders, or adheres to a hostile ideology".[54] And Professor of World Religions, Diplomacy and Conflict Resolution, Marc Gopin agrees with the importance of psychological factors in escalating conflict: "being hated normally generates deep injury amd corresponding anger in most recipients is what I call a "conflict dance" of action/reaction".[55]
A peace journalism perspective also highlights another effect of typical conflict journalism on the groups engaged in a conflict: war journalism's common focus on the human drama and tragedy of violence. Hamber and Lewis (1997) note war journalism "often involves painting doomsday scenarios of victims who are irreparably damaged and for whom there appears to be no solution and no future".[56] This creates an increased impediment for the victims of unreported crimes. And the positive experiences of those who have embarked upon a process of recovery is often ignored in war journalism.[57] For example in Israel/Palestine victims of suicide bombing, house demolition, land and house theft, are often portrayed as defenceless, disempowered victims with no prospect of healing or positive response to their predicament.[58] Effective non-violent bridge building between communities such as the Hand in Hand Arab/Jewish school network in Israel, are routinely ignored in war journalism coverage. Non-violent initiatives illustrate what can be possible through peaceful responses to conflict but this information is artificially "filtered out" through the coverage biases of war journalism.[59] Parties are therefore presented with a bias picture of the entire conflict favouring violent responses to the conflict. Parties are led to believe that that violence is the only way their needs can be met, thereby reinforcing and escalating cycles of dangerous retaliation between groups. Peace journalism would also charge that this pattern of conventional conflict reporting submerges the emotional cost of violent conflict and therefore makes the psychological aspects of cycles of revenge subtle and so more difficult to prevent.[60] All of this missed information on the ground could represent crucial movement away from violence as the only option for threatened groups, towards peace. But only if they are not hidden by journalistic assumptions that they are irrelevant and should not be covered. This is especially concerning given that the collective trauma suffered by a population and the fear that this generates, which it is argued, is exacerbated by war journalism, can lead to reduced capacity for decision making and action in political and peace processes.[61]
In response to war journalism’s value bias in favour of violence, peace journalism promises two key benefits: for those concerned with objectivity in journalism, it aims to avoid and counteracts the persistent bias of valuing violence and violent parties. Secondly, as all journalism must in some way appeal to the values of their audiences, for those who value the promotion of peace and social justice over violence, it provides a practical methodology for this.
The fixation of meaning in war journalism is often hidden by the “scattered opposition facts” that often occur in its coverage. However these do not actually allow for “challenging a dominant frame” of pro-violence: Framing researcher Entman recommends: "If educated to understand the difference between including scattered oppositional facts and challenging a dominant frame, journalists might be better equipped to construct news that makes equally salient-equally accessible to the average, inattentive, and marginally informed audience-two or more interpretations of problems."[62]
Hence, peace journalism is anchored in Conflict Analysis and Peace Research “to map out solid ground beneath our feet; to declare, in advance, that we intend to use it, to assign meanings and draw distinctions.”[63] Decisions on which of the almost infinite stories and facts to report can be made openly and systematically. Lynch (2008) shows how these two disciplines are important anchors for conflict journalism in that they employ the academic rigor of the social sciences including: "openness about – and prepared to justify – starting assumptions for both observation and interpretation; and peer review. Built into social science, moreover, is an allowance for the participant-observer effect – as soon as you start to observe something, you cannot avoid changing it."[64]
As such peace journalism considers the effect it has on audiences and parties with regard to it own “objectivity”. Lynch and Galtung (2010) elaborate on how this operates in conflict journalism: "'It is an important distinction in this context because journalism itself may be part of the extended pattern of conflictual relationships, in which parties and their shared relations find themselves embedded – if only by bringing an audience to the ringside. Tillett comments: 'In some situations, individuals (or groups) will ‘fight to the death’ (even when obviously losing all that they claim to be seeking) to avoid being seen to ‘back down’ or ‘lose face' ' (1999, p. 29). In a conflict, he continues, "the presence of an audience generally makes it more likely that the protagonists will want to be seen to win, and that they will be less prepared to resolve than to fight'. Schattschneider goes as far as to argue that spectators are 'an integral part of the situation for, as likely as not, the audience determines the outcome of the fight'(1960, p.2)."[65]
Conflict Analysis also provides guidance on mapping the hopes, needs, and fears of all parties to a conflict, including outwardly “impartial” third parties; and acknowledges the potential role of creativity, rather than assuming as war journalism does, that the positions of elites, power gradients and the struggle for power are the most important determinants of a conflict.[66]
These can then be assessed empirically as to their role in the conflict and potential resolution, rather than being ignored from the outset by journalists, as often is the case in war journalism. Therefore the importance in peace journalism of being willing to consider conflict as “open in space and time, with causes and exits anywhere”.[67] Lynch and Galtung (2010) present an important example of this in the case of North and South Korea, indicating that journalists should not ignore the grassroots people that endure this conflict, and that comparisons and input for the reunified Germany may be helpful (but should not be pushed too much), as could consideration and dialogue with the larger cultural geographical context that is East Asia.[68] The aim here is not to impose definite “answers” (Conflict Analysis and Peace Research often elicit useful perspectives from those involved in the conflict) but to put forward empirical questions which can then be tested by the “investigative” in journalism.
These processes demonstrate that conflict is not static and intractable. These insights challenge the psychological tendencies of war journalism noted above to present negative outgroup behaviour as the result of stable group characteristics. Indeed the non-linear cycle of violence outlined by Elworthy and Rogers (2002), proposes that the key stage to prevent a cycle of revenge, is before the anger becomes bitterness.[69] And peace journalism can allow for the consideration that “bitterness can be thought of as anger + memory…storing away trauma in a ‘trauma bank’ and, eventually, withdrawing it as ‘glory’ through further violence”.[70]
Through reporting which does not automatically ignore causes and a non-linear cycles of violence, peace journalism can help expand the cognitive and emotional space for peace initiatives that contribute to physical, political, psychological and socio-economic security and peacebuilding.[71]
The Feedback Loop of cause and effect in the media could then support the creation and continuation of peaceful process-structures .[72] This would involve demonstrating a pattern of coverage that leads present and potential peace actors to predict that their efforts will be remitted into the public sphere by journalists to “create opportunities for society at large to consider and value non-violent responses to conflict”.[6] This in turn could reduce negative inter-group social-psychological tendencies. This may be particularly important for projects such as the examples in Israel/Palestine of the Hand in Hand network of schools, Peace Now, Breaking the Silence, Physicians for Human Rights, Machsom Watch and Checkpoint Watch, which as mainly grassroots initiatives are generally more fragile than mid level or upper level peace activities.[73]
Workshops on peace journalism often use pairs of war journalism and peace journalism reports to illustrate how the same story can be reported in either style, and that there is the potential to produce peace journalism within the time and travel constraints of typical conflict journalism.
For a peace journalism/war journalism pair on conflict in the Philippines see Peace Journalism in the Philippines. The transcripts of this report pair, along with an outline of a course in peace journalism can be viewed at A course in peace journalism.
For a pair of reports covering Israel/Palestine plus a link to practical tips for avoiding journalism that is biased towards violence and violent actors, see The Middle East—War Journalism and Peace Journalism The documentary News from the Holy Land also contains another pair of reports on the Israel/Palestine conflict.
The free Reporting the World publication contains pairs of peace journalism/war journalism news reports on Macedonia, Democratic Republic of Congo, Iraq,and Indonesia.
An example from the Hindustan Times, showing how peace journalism can also operate through awards and commendations publicizing and supporting the work of non-violence and cooperative conflict resolution: Afghan, Palestinian win UN award in honour of Gandhi
Peace journalism can also take the form of the public dissemination of research on the successful conditions for conflict resolution and negotiation such as: Unequal Partners Can't Negotiate
For an example in Australia see this report on the protests of the 2009 US and Australian military exercises, Talisman Sabre.
The Feedback Loop of cause and effect[75] is a useful reference point here for conceptualising the various “entry points” for peace journalism in the wider phenomenology of news. Peace journalism has been applied in training and dialogue with journalists in a variety of settings.[76] However peace journalism has also been applied in a number of other sectors.
These interventions are extremely varied and in addition to the examples noted above, include international NGO work with local partners and networks in areas of conflict,[77] the promotion of communication rights, participatory processes and community-based communication approaches for development, social change and peacebuilding (for example see Current Projects-Communication for Social Change & World Association for Christian Communication programmes and further reading sections below); creation of new people centred peace media outlets[78] and work with organisations who may themselves become sources for peace journalism.[79] Government and inter-governmental approaches have also operationalised peace journalism in preventing media manipulation and promoting people centred media in post-conflict societies and through the United Nations.[80] Likewise upper level editors and media organisation managers have also included in peace journalism workshops and seminars.[81]
Peace journalism has encountered a number of debates and criticisms from some scholars and journalists. Should the substance of a criticism not be addressed in the present article, please add it to this section so that it may be noted and if appropriate responded to.
Some opponents characterise peace journalism as "activist" new writing and production that while being socially engaged to promote peace, is unlike mainstream objective or balanced news coverage that seeks to remain impartial or above the fray.[82]
This raises the important question of how objective and impartial is peace journalism. From a peace journalism perspective the claim “we just report the facts” must include the facts of how and according to what principals these “facts” came to meet the reporter, and how the finished coverage came to meet the facts. The Press Institute of India’s conflict reporting guidelines point out: "Factual accuracy in a single story is no substitute for the total truth. A single story, which is factually accurate can nonetheless be misleading".[83]
As such peace journalism is generally more objective than war journalism, with its inclusion of implications for international law, positive developments in both elite peacemaking and capacity building, and non-elite perspectives and peacebuilding initiatives. This objectivity, unconstrained by Objectivity Conventions, highlights the truth-orientation of peace journalism: to “expose untruths on all sides”.[67]
In doing so peace journalism aims to de-naturalise meaning by highlighting the creation of war journalism dominated meaning in conflict. Indeed Hall (1997) recommends that the unfixing of meaning: “is often a struggle to increase the diversity of things which subjects can be of-the possibility of identities which people have not seen represented before…you have to intervene in exactly that powerful exchange between image and its psychic meaning…with which we invest images [and] expose and deconstruct the work of representation which the stereotype is doing”.[84]
And many international negotiation experts and peace practitioners note the importance of non-violent confrontation and the equalisation of power before effective negotiation and dialogue between parties can take place.[85] In this same way, through reporting on grassroots and local voices for peace, the power of these voices is increased as they become "reality checkers" for often contradictory statements of elite representatives involved in violence. Through this non-violent “ideational confrontation” then audiences and parties may be more able to negotiate their own meaning outside of fixed elite narratives. Thus “mounting anomalies may expose contradictions, and herald a paradigm shirt” as local pro-peace perspectives previously consigned to zone of “deviance” become “legitimate controversy”.[86]
In a recent example, during the lead up to the Presidential election of 2009 in Afghanistan, the counter-insurgency approach advocated by US commander General McCrystal contains elements of relationship building to a degree that is unusual among military approaches in Afghanistan.[87] In the lead up to the Presidential election in Afghanistan in mid 2009 an unusual example of this relationship sensitive approach to counter-insurgency applied by US troops stationed was in Nawa district, in the Helmand province. However the overwhelming majority of attention that Nawa district has received in 2009, the year that this new strategy was first applied, is on reports of violence there, principally throughout early-to-mid July endured, of that year: during intensified US led military operations. For example in 2009, seven out of ten articles of the Washington Post online tagged under the key word “Nawa” focus almost exclusively on violence and US combat operations in the region, with similar ratios appearing in online coverage from the Guardian, the Independent, and the New York Times.[88] This contrasts sharply with the success over violent methods that relationship building has had with “hearts and minds” in Nawa, Afghanistan, but also on a larger scale in Iraq.[89] Researchers also note the importance of relationship building for: vertical and horizontal integration in peacebuilding [90] to support the sustainability of institutional reform [91] and promoting peace with justice and respect for human rights.[92]
Peace journalism thereby aims retain the role of observer of in journalism about conflict, instead of functioning like war journalism which intervenes in conflict to increase the influence of violent actors and violent actions. Peace journalism by presenting “anomalous” local perspectives which contradict violence exacerbating war journalism, it may help to expose these violent group’s attempts to fix and naturalise meaning and take advantage of this meaning to promote their violence.[93] Indeed exploration of new types of relationships between Afghan locals and the international community contradicts assertions made at the time with the benefit of war journalism by insurgents and the US government, that the negative effects of foreign occupation could only be ended with violent expulsion, or that 40,000 more combat troops were the most critical component for sustainable peace in Afghanistan.[94]
This criticism can be represented by neo-conservative proponent Richard Perle , that one must “decontextualise terror…any attempt to discuss the roots of terrorism is an attempt to justify it. It simply needs to be fought and destroyed”.[95] Whilst this may be a common response to journalism advocating context, it is also an example of many of the social-cognitive inter-group biases noted above, and exemplifies what social psychologist Phillip Zimbardo (of the Stanford Prison Experiments) calls Fundmanetal Attribution Error: “the tendency to explain observed behaviour by reference to dispositions, while ignoring or minimizing the impact of situational variables”.[96]
The notion of human needs driving violence and being significantly effected by violence(borrowed from Conflict Analysis and Peace Research)[97] and insight into the stratified nature of reality (borrowed from Critical Realism),[98] highlight why an explanation of violence is not the same thing as a justification for it. Critical Realism understands reality as existing in a number of levels of strata. Each strata deals with larger and more complex phenomena than that ones below it. These strata might begin from physical mechanisms at the most basic level, followed by chemical mechanisms, then biological, followed by psychological and finally social. Activity at each lower strata contribute to but can never fully explain the new mechanisms that develop in higher strata, in a process called “emergence” from the upper strata. For example competing theories of sub-atomic structure (perhaps at the physical level) influence but cannot fully explain the outcome of the reaction 2Na+2HCl = 2NaCl + H2 (at the chemical level). Likewise the individual psychologies of a land lord and tenant cannot fully explain their relationship in the social strata which is also influenced by other things that operate at the social stratum including laws and culture.[98] Structural and cultural explanations for violence generally deal with the social strata: that is relationships between people and groups so an explanation of this violence is not the same as ignoring the role of individual choice and psychology: the violence that “emerges” at the social level is the result of a complex interaction of influences from lower strata (individual choices and psychology) and structures which exist primarily at the social strata (such as laws and culture). So to give cultural or structural explanations of violence is not the same as saying that these social influences override the role the individual choice (which is located in a lower stratum and therefore occurs under different conditions). Take the case of where an individual’s anger (brought on from previous trauma) becomes bitterness which is followed by their own violence, following Elworthy and Rogers (2002) cycle of violence noted above.[69] An individual has still made a choice to deprive the victim of their violence of their human needs (probably safety and security) even though their own human needs have also been violated earlier. The point is not that they must be seen as either a innocent victim or an evil perpetrator. The practical point is prevention of violence and recovering of all those whose needs have been violated.
And this approach also does not assume what the best solution is for stopping individual violence the level where an individual makes a choice to act violently (which happens at the psychological level). In some cases punishment or imprisonment may be necessary. However Conflict Analysis and Peace Research do keep in mind that given the failure of the psychological, medical and social sciences (including education) to eliminate the persistent rates of psychotic tendencies in human groups (psychologists estimate that on average 3 percent of any population have psychotic tendencies)[99] a more promising approach may be looking at what social, economic, cultural conditions and what inter-group relations allow for individuals such as Hitler, Osama Bin Laden, Stalin and Pol Pot, to realise their desires for mass violence. Conflict Analysis and Peace Research does not primarily focus on understanding the individual psychology of these individuals (at the psychological stratum) but on how these individuals may be prevented from taking up a position in society where they are able to direct inter-communal violence (at the social stratum).
And indeed in peace journalism the role of individual agency is given a lot of importance. For example journalists are encouraged to in peace journalism workshops to work peace journalism into the existing media structures. And peace journalism urges journalists to investigate the possibility that even in violent situations there are always voices for peace and to search these voices out when reporting through the Objectivity Conventions might ignore from the outset.[100] Likewise the role of individual choice is not ignored in Conflict Analysis and Peace Research, and leading scholar-practitioner, Jean Peal Lederach notes that: “I have not experienced any situation in conflict, no matter how protracted or severe, from Central America to the Philippines to the Horn of Africa, where there have not been people who had a vision for peace, emerging often from their own experience of pain, Far too often, however, these same people people are overlooked and disempowered either because they do no represent ‘official’ power, whether on the side of government of the various militias, or because they are written off as biased and too personally affected by the conflict".[101]
Hanitzsche (2007) argues that “the failures of corporate journalism cannot be overcome by an individualistic and voluntaristic conceptualization of news making. To have any impact on the ways news if being made, and the critical discussion thereof, the advocates of peace journalism must address the structural constraints of news production…a peaceful culture is the precondition of peace journalism.[102] Structure is of course a key concern in peace journalism when considering the content pluralism in news that it involves.[103] And a number of projects that apply peace journalism (some of which are outlined above)demonstrate that peace journalism activism is not limited to journalists themselves. What’s more conflict media content analyses are important educational resources for audiences, NGOs and the journalists, being an example of how deficiencies in content can be used to campaign for more structural pluralism.[104] These varied approaches demonstrate that inroads have been, and are still being made in peace journalism activism in the areas the Hackett (2006) identifies as necessary to address challenges of structure and make “peace journalism possible”: reforming journalism from within, but also the creation of alternative media organisations, and intervention in the broader fields that journalism find itself: politics and social movements for example.[105]
Hanitszche (2007) criticises peace journalism, noting that media users are often “fragmented and active audiences instead of a passive mass…leading to a selective use of supplied products”.[106] Likewise Devereux (2003) notes that media audiences “may have different expectations of media genres”[107] and Turnbull (2002) argues that in media research a serious problem is just to limit and define audiences and therefore relevant media practices.[108] Indeed Hall (1997) notes that the meaning of media messages changes “as you move from one person to another, one group to another, one part of society to another.”[109] And Lynch (2008) points out, drawing from Hall (1980) that “the meanings of media messages are made, at least partly, at the point of reception, in a process influenced chiefly by the socio-economic position of the reader or viewer.”[110] As such Hall (1980) notes that in a negotiated or oppositional manner, meaning often: "contains a mixture of adaptive and oppositional elements: it acknowledges the legitimacy of the hegemonic definitions to make the grand significations (abstract), while, at a more restricted, situational (situated) level, it makes its own ground rules - it operates with exceptions to the rule. It accords the privileged position to the dominant definitions of events while reserving the right to make a more negotiated application to 'local conditions'".[111]
And indeed for peace journalists it is the visibility of 'local conditions' that allows for oppositional and negotiated meaning Lynch (2008)argues that “for audiences to produce oppositional or negotiated readings of media messages assumes they have enough directly relevant personal and social experience against which to measure them”,[112] And of course this is often not the case with international conflict. Indeed Hall’s(1980) own example of the negotiation of meaning is the case of an industrial factory worker willing to challenge official justifications in the media for an Industrial Relations Bill which limit his or her right to strike.[111]
In fact peace journalism analysis shows that the facts absent in audiences` understanding of conflict can closely mirror those neglected in war journalism. A notable example is Philo and colleagues’ research into media coverage of the Israel/Palestine conflict in the UK media.[113] With mainstream media neglecting the Palestinian narrative that Palestinian refugees lost their land and homes when Israel was established, audiences exhibited consistent ignorance about the basic facts of the conflict (for example where the bulk of refugees came from) and tended to perceive Palestinians as “starting the violence” and therefore Israeli authorities as forced to “respond” violently to prevent or contain this action which has no possible rationale and therefore no potential non-violent resolution.[114] Indeed five years earlier, when reporting results of the study, Philo (2004) noted that: "This pattern of reporting clearly influenced how some viewers understood the conflict…The gaps in public knowledge closely parallel those in the news. The Palestinian perspective, that they have lost their land and are living under occupation, was effectively absent. It is perhaps not surprising that some viewers believed that they were simply being aggressive and trying to take land from the Israelis".[115] This omission of the Palestinian perspective was so serious that Helen Boaden, Head of News at BBC concluded in an internal email: “we fail to give enough context and history to this highly charged story and that we neglect the Palestinian narrative…In our response, we’ve tried to come up with practical ways to remedy our weaknesses”.[116]
This is an important illustration of the consistent effect of war journalism across general audiences, that: “the pattern of misunderstanding almost exactly matching…missing elements from the story habitually presented in the mainstream media”.[117] General media audiences as a group is conceptualised within the Feedback Loop of cause and effect.[118]
Two peace practitioner/scholars, Jean Paul Lederach and Johan Galtung present two quite different models for conflict resolution and peacebuilding . Lederach (1995) presents an “Elictive Model” which is aims “primarily at discovery, creation, and solidification of models that emerge from the resources present in a particular setting and respond to needs in that context” and not impose third party knowledge from trainer to participant.[119] This approach, was applied in a dialogue in 2003 entitled “Reporting the Iraq: what went right? What went wrong?”. Included were Heads of News from the BBC and CNN, the editor of the Guardian, and several senior reporters who had also been reporting the war from Iraq.[120] Drawing on “the resources in the room” recommendations for the coverage of conflict included: 1.Do not report a ‘line’ from an official source without obtaining and citing independent evidence as to its reliability. 2.Acknowledge that the important job of testing arguments is best done if they are juxtaposed with, and weighed against, alternative, countervailing arguments. 3.All newsrooms genuinely interested in offering a service to the public must think long and hard about ‘conduit’ journalism and, in particular, whether their political correspondents are being used in this way.[121]
Galtung’s TRANSCEND approach in contrast, focuses on the role a third party to “unstick” violent conflicts and stimulate creativity. This is done by probing deeply into the nature of parties’ goals, expanding the spectrum of acceptable solutions, and opening up cognitive space for fresh potentialities not conceived of by conflict parties.[122] "In one-on-one conversation-style dialogues, the task is to stimulate creativity, develop new perspectives, and make the conflict parties 'ready for the table'".[123]
Lynch (2008) recounts a notable example of this approach during a peace journalism forum of Middle Eastern Journalists, in Amman, in 1999. Discussions often devolved into national groups blaming the journalists of the other countries for not confronting their governments’ lack of movement towards peace. Galtung himself challenged the participants to: “imagine a future Middle East they wanted to see, and start to think aloud, in cross-national groups, about how they might play a part in bringing it about”.[124]
A Galtungian perspective, as a foundation for much of peace journalism, insists that “the journalist focus on root causes of conflict such as poverty or prior abuse, and not merely focus on events associated with violent political encounters”.[125] Through this approach peace journalism could act to “disembed” seemingly immutable official positions from the greater context of a conflict by exploring background to a conflict, challenging propaganda, and making visible official and local initiatives for peaceful conflict resolution.
These two approaches differ not only in the "how" of Conflict Resolution but the "who". Lederach generally outlines a "middling out" approach where "the level with the greatest potential for establishing an infrastructure than can sustain the peacebuilding process over the long term appears to be the middle range".[126] He argues that grassroots approaches are generally the more fragile since their participants are often concerned with day to day issues of survival,.[127] Upper level approaches assume a high level of integration between elites and grassroots: that peace agreements reached there "are relevant to and capable of practical implementation at the local level [128] Galtung on the other hand argues that upper level leaders often actually feel excluded from facilitated peace processes with the modern focus on grassroots and civil society initiatives.[129] That the root of conflict is incompatible goals pursued by parties which result in violent attitudes and behaviours. It follows that "people are more able to discuss a root problem when they sense a solution somewhere. A glimmer of light at the end of a tunnel makes it considerably more easy [sic] to admit that we are in a tunnel".[130] In Galtung's work the most accessible way to influence these goals had been to work with those who officially define them and lead policy: upper level leaders.
The importance of accurate and complete Conflict Analysis for a given conflict highlights how these two approaches can be complementary. Practical Conflict Analysis is often aimed at identifying the easiest "peace levers" to pull within a conflict to "unstick" violent inter-group relations. This contrasts with intervening in a conflict with a pre-set idea of how a resolution will be found, and what specific level or group to begin working with.
Therefore Conflict Analysis may indicate which "entry points" may offer the most promising chance to transform the relations between parties. And from this it will follow which approach or combination of approaches are likely to work from that entry point (whether it be at the grassroots, mid level or upper level or a combination). This integrative approach is summed up by peace practitioner and researcher Wendy Lambourne: to rely on only one theoretical approach in peace practice risks being culturally blind[131]
Sometimes also called conflict solution journalism, conflict sensitive journalism,[3] and constructive conflict coverage. A similar approach is also found in preventive journalism, which extends the principles to social, economic, environmental or institutional problems. Peace journalism is one of several approaches and movements in journalism history, including advocacy journalism, development communication journalism, the new journalism, and public or civic journalism, which reject the universal or hegemonic claims to neutrality of professional journalism in the developed west.[132]