IS PEACE JOURNALISM POSSIBLE? THREE FRAMEWORKS FOR ASSESSING STRUCTURE AND AGENCY IN NEWS MEDIA

Abstract

Amongst practitioners and scholars of journalism, a movement towards "Peace Journalism" is gaining momentum, and attracting controversy.[i]  Its proponents see it as an expression of, and/or improvement upon, the best practices of actually-existing journalism, as well as a means of ameliorating conflicts and opening up new opportunities for their peaceful resolution (Lynch and McGoldrick 2005).  Peace Journalists regard conventional international news coverage -- its typical emphasis on violence, conflict as a two-sided win/lose struggle, government and military sources, and "our" suffering versus "their" villainy -- as comprising War Journalism.

By contrast, the opponents of Peace Journalism (henceforth, PJ), raise a number of objections: PJ is an unwelcome departure from objectivity and towards a journalism of attachment; it mistakenly assumes powerful and linear media effects; it is a normative model, rooted in the discipline of peace research, that fails sufficiently to take into account the constraints imposed by the actual dynamics of news production (including professional values and organizational imperatives), and hence, may have little to offer journalists in practice (Hanitzsch 2004a; 2004b). 

[i]. I am assuming that most readers of this journal are already familiar with the basic concepts of Peace Journalism.  Briefly, as outlined by Lynch and McGoldrick (2005), PJ draws upon the insights of Conflict Analysis to look beyond the overt violence which is the stuff of news (especially television) and calls attention to the context, of Attitudes, Behaviour and Contradictions, and the need to identify a range of stakeholders broader than the "two sides" engaged in violent confrontation.  If War Journalism presents conflict as a tug-of-war between two parties in which one side's gain is the other's loss, PJ invites journalists to re-frame conflict as a cat's cradle of relationships between various stakeholders.  It also calls on journalists to distinguish between stated demands, and underlying needs and objectives; to identify and attend to voices working for creative and non-violent solutions; to keep eyes open for ways of transforming and transcending the hardened lines of conflict.  And it calls attention to expanding our understanding of conflict beyond the direct physical violence which is the focus of War Journalism, to include the structural and cultural violence that may underlie conflict situations (Hackett 2006a).