Communication for peace: beyond the media and messages

Book Chapters of The 1st Jakarta International Conference on Social Sciences and Humanities (JICoSSH), 2019

Civil society is considered to be the arena of voluntary and collective action among shared interests, purposes and values that strengthens the social foundations of democracy in a state. As a part of the civil society, media enable every layer of the society to access free and open information. In other words, media with its journalistic products has become a free market to every element of the society to promote their ideas. Media will fight for influence, claim for the truth, and perform their own version of social reality. Not only as a channel, media can also place itself as a doer in defining social reality and pick any important and relevant issues. The content of mass media cannot be separated from news about conflict, especially those related to human rights. The term “Bad news is good news” seems to be the perspective use by reporters in their writings. News on conflict always becomes major headlines in many world newspapers, including Indonesia. Hard to deny that media, u...

Informing the mass is one of the fundamental roles of the media universally. This role becomes more essential during conflicts and wars because their interventions are either in de-escalating or in escalating the violence and situation in the volatile areas. Many scholars agree conflict is inevitable and now becoming parts of life. The problem will be when the conflicts do not go on to the predetermined directions. In changing the conflict either of the direction (good or bad result), media play their own role. Peace-oriented scholars described that the responsible journalists in media institutions are aspiring to play the positive role in transforming conflicts to resolution. However, these journalists are facing internal and external challenges. This essay is therefore attempts to discuss the media intervention in conflict situations and their challenges in peacebuilding and peace promotion. By exploring the challenges of the media in conflict reporting, there can be large possibility to use the media for the maximum advantage. While the role of the media in various aspects (including war and conflicts) has been the subject of the discussion on a numbers events and papers, scant attentions have been given not only for the role of the media in conflict transformation\peace promotion, but also in identifying their challenges in the attempts of intervening in peace building.

2009

MASS MEDIA'S ROLE IN CONFLICTS: AN ANALYSIS OF THE WESTERN MEDIA'S PORTRAYAL OF TERRORISM SINCE SEPTEMBER 11, 2018

All around the world, various groups resort to acts of violence against civilians to foster fear and suspicion. Governments take advantage of the tragedy to convince average citizens to generate public support for their agendas and purposes. As such, in the post-September world the media has become the biggest handicap to achieve peace and dialogue because it vigorously fuels the conflict between the West and Islam. Since the media is at the heart of this issue, it is critical to reflect on how the media may be inadvertently contributing to perpetuation of conflicts and rift between Islam and the West. The present study analyzes the Western media's coverage of Terrorism since September 11 attacks. The news coverage of recent terrorist events appears to reveal a double-standard and a thematic pattern of terrorism coverage. Media portrays Muslims as working all together against a 'Christian West' while local terrorism is casted as a minor threat that occurs in isolated incidents by troubled individuals. Therefore, understanding how terrorism is presented in media can help to realize how media coverage increases fear and anxiety and supports the ''clash of civilizations,'' and ultimately affects international relations and public policy. The study adds to our understanding of media coverage of terrorism in the West and highlights religious differences that contribute to a Islamophobia in the West while enhancing a culture of fear of Muslims and Islam, creating a climate of fear that holds a culture and government hostage until their next act.

[TO CITE THIS WORK: Baú, V. (2009) Media Relations and Democracy - An analysis of communication through media relations practice and its role in liberal democratic societies, eCivicus, No.456, http://www.civicus.org/media/Media-Relations-and-Democracy.pdf] Whilst most academic writing on media focuses on the role that the media play in influencing society, this paper explores how media content is itself shaped by the practice of media relations, and the impact this has on society. Through a theoretical discussion reviewing different approaches to the role of the media, the meaning and purpose of the media institutions within liberal democratic societies are examined. In particular, two models are analysed in order to understand its relationship with society. The first proposes a view of the media as constructors of our values; this makes clear their direct effect on our actions. They act as a mirror of society and can be used as a tool to understand its functioning. The second model suggests that the media do not directly affect society but they rather reflect its realities, values and norms (O’Shaughnessy and Stadler, 2008). After an introduction to the main ideas stemming from different communication models, media relations is then reviewed through a discussion of the main theories surrounding its practice. These mainly refer to the concepts of framing, information subsidies and agenda-building, which highlight the close relationship that links journalists to media relations agents. Finally, two case studies are discussed to illustrate the impact that media relations can have when effectively practiced. The first one highlights the requirement for the media to comply with the standards of news production, and describes how Greenpeace succeeded in bringing a complex environmental issue onto the media agenda. The second makes obvious the importance that the practice of media relations has in democracy building processes through its goal of conveying specific messages via the media. In particular, this example recounts how NGOs in post-conflict Bosnia have successfully engaged civil society in processes of reconstruction and reconciliation through the use of mass media as a communication channel.

2009

2008