Promouvoir la communication pour le changement social
| Is Peace Front-Page-Worthy? |
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There are no translations available. Report on the WACC-North American Peace Monitoring Project, 2008 Executive Summary by Birgitta Schroeder
Based on Peace Journalism as its analytical framework, it seeks to compare reference to the frequency of the characteristics of news coverage from the point of view of violent conflict and wars contributing to a culture of violence (War Journalism – WJ), and news coverage from the point of view of building culture of peace (Peace Journalism – PJ). The two-pronged approach of this study relates audience response to content such as calling for different news when a conflict is not contextualized or the article does not include any voices for peace. Furthermore, the findings of this action-oriented study seek to open up opportunities in dialogue as to the desired directions of change in news coverage and strategies for intervention and reform. Media play a substantial role in society: one of their primary undertakings is to inform of events and current issues in their communities, countries and the rest of the world; media also have the task of ensuring that we have adequate knowledge to participate in the democratic political processes. In particular, in times of conflict, whether on an international scale (war) or local violence, citizens and residents rely on media to enable them to participate in the transformation of conflict towards peaceful solutions and reconciliation. In short, media are participants, not detached observers, in conflict situations Peace Journalism, pioneered by Johan Galtung and further developed by Jake Lynch and Annabel McGoldrick (2005) , challenges the journalistic principle of ‘balanced reporting’ (objectivity) that sees the journalist as a detached and unbiased mirror of reality. Conventional (war – conflict escalating) journalism is indicated by four key elements, namely coverage that highlights violence, propitiates propaganda, focuses on elites and emphasizes victory and defeat. This form of journalism can potentially exacerbate conflicts, however unconsciously, through learned journalistic conventions. Many journalists portray a simplified, two-sided and violent coverage as a result of several factors, including organizational and ideological influences and pressures. Peace Journalism, as a research methodology, seeks to identify what is missing from what is told by interested parties including the recognition that violence is never wholly its own cause, non-violent responses are always possible, there are more than two sides to a conflict and every party has a stake. As such, it focuses on peace initiatives, resolutions and reconciliation, acknowledges and reports on the range of stakeholders involved in most violent conflicts (rather than presenting the conflict as a ‘tug-of-war’ between two parties in which one side’s gain is the other’s loss). Peace Journalism is truth-oriented, people-oriented and solution-oriented and seeks to humanize all sides of a conflict and further investigate the alternative narratives, such as non-violent solutions and bridge building initiatives. Furthermore, Peace Journalism provides a much more holistic account of conflicts, giving the audience a more accurate representation of the complexity of the issues and its impacts. As Philip Lee writes “[Peace Journalism] is an effort to transcend the bounds of established practice to open up public mediated discourse to a more inclusive range of people, ideas, and visions that includes space for voices of peace”. Under the directive of the Peace Monitoring Guide the volunteer participants monitored 505 articles placed on ‘page one’ of 108 newspapers, weekly community papers, (news) magazines and internet-based versions thereof on and around September 11 and the International Day of Peace, September 22, 2008. The Peace Monitoring Guide Includes a code sheet and detailed code book; ten indicators of conflict-escalating journalism (WJ) and ten indicators of Peace Journalism (PJ) were operationalized and constitute the analytical framework for exploring articles covering violent conflict. Monitors also provided their reactions to and perceptions of the content of the stories they monitored. While the findings of this pilot study must be regarded as very preliminary, for several reasons , it does offer an idiosyncratic snapshot of U.S. news coverage on violent conflict published on the prestigious page one and its impact on readers. The most important findings of this two-pronged action-oriented Peace Monitoring Project are: • The International Day of Peace was only covered on four of 90 front pages monitored on September 22, 2008. • While participants did not perceive articles covering violent conflict to be particularly hawkish or PJ oriented, they also did not find them to be conducive for collectively finding peaceful solutions. Based on the ten indicators for War Journalism and ten indicators of Peace Journalism, a WJ and a PJ scale was created ranging from 0 – 10. The WJ average of 4.94 and PJ average of 4.57 suggests that there is a lot of room for improvement when reporting on violent conflict. As well, 70.8% of the monitors reported that the story caused a negative impact or emotion, and for 43.1% of the articles covering violent conflict, participants called for different, more contextualized and informative coverage. • In 251 of 337 articles that had a gender denoted to the first source or actor quoted or paraphrased in a story, journalists used men belonging mainly to the political and civilian elite as the first actor. This imbalance is even more present in articles reporting on violent conflict than for regular news: in 76.7% of articles covering violent conflict men belonging to the political elite were the first source used by journalists. In short, the findings of this study support the endeavours of Peace Journalism. In particular, it suggests reforming the conventional reliance on male elite sources and broadening the context in articles reporting on violent conflict. As well, rather than focusing on negative aspects, journalists should endeavour to include peaceful efforts and motivate readers to participate in deliberations for solutions, resolutions and transformations of conflicts. Lastly, the perception of editors that Americans are not interested in international news and perpetual lack of providing informative accounts thereof needs to change. In order to act and work towards a culture for peace on a local level, we also need to keep the ‘global’ in mind. Download the study guide and data analysis report below: Monitoring Peace, A Study Guide Peace monitoring project and data analysis
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