Conflict and Communication in the Global South: A Peace and War Journalism Perspective

Introduction

Media is indispensable in today’s world. Its effects vary from individual to groups and nations to globalisation. Mass media’s content is the vital source of eventual changes in individuals’ as well as community’s preferences about foreign policy and relations among nations. On one side, the mass media are the prime channel between community and policymakers. Policymakers also consult media content on public opinion, and the media are the people’s major source of information on the activities of policymakers (Soroka, 2003). This triangulation makes the media a strong stakeholder in influencing both the public and the policies. From the publishing of the seminal work “Public opinion” to this day, much work has been done to understand the relation between the mass media and the public opinion about the events happening far away from the locale of the reader, as Lippmann (1922) rightly said that “the press makes the images of the outer world in the heads of people; they perceive the outer world through press”. Also, Ross (2006) says that, media play a decisive role in international affairs and conflicts because the people are dependent on the mass media to give timely and trustworthy information about distant events.

Journalists (as media practitioner) are key players in influencing both the public opinion and public policies. Charles (2019) argues that people always turn towards the media for news about what is happening outside, and this desire for news denotes a longing to participate in public life and news content befits the vehicle through which people seek to perform their citizenship.

Here the focus is towards a specific yet vital beat of the journalists which is too often reported and discussed in our media: conflict reporting. Conflicts are happening everywhere if we talk about the international scenario and journalist reports them every single minute for their audience (Ahmed et al., 2018). One of the major methods to report conflict is peace and war journalism. Therefore, it can be deduced that conflict reporters are leaders of public opinion in the matters on which they are reporting (Macassi, 2019). This chapter deals with the crossroads of journalism and peace studies in the emerging perspective of war and peace journalism, both in inquiry and practice. The practitioners of the paradigm of peace journalism forward the idea of revisiting norms (framing) of conventional journalism that until now support violence and/or conflict; and to develop new norms (frames) that favour communal harmony and address common grounds (Galtung, 1998, 2000, 2010, 2011; Lynch, 1998, 2010; Kempf, 2007; Nassanga, 2007, 2008; Lee, 2008, 2010; Birungi, 2009; Shinar, 2004, 2007; Lynch & McGoldrick, 2005, 2010Tehranian, 2002; Howard, 2003, 2009; Wolfsfeld, 2004; Lugalambi, 2006). The proponents of peace journalism’s claims based on historical facts, in addition to research pointing out the destructive capacity; although the potential for peace, of human beings in which, as a social institution, media play an important role (Thompson, 2007; UNDESA, 2005; OECD 2001; Dallaire 1997, 2003, 2007; Chalk, 1999, 2007).