Peace Through Media

Leara D. Rhodes

Peace Through Media

PETER LANG

New York • Bern • Frankfurt • Berlin

Brussels • Vienna • Oxford • Warsaw

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Rhodes, Leara.
Title: Peace through media / Leara D. Rhodes.
Description: New York: Peter Lang.
Includes bibliographical references.
Identifiers: LCCN 2015023826 | ISBN 978-1-4331-3024-3 (pbk.: alk. paper)
ISBN 978-1-4539-1685-8 (ebook pdf)
ISBN 978-1-4331-4096-9 (epub) | ISBN 978-1-4331-4097-6 (mobi)
Subjects: LCSH: War—Press coverage.
Social conflict—Press coverage.
Mass media and peace.
Journalistic ethics.
Journalism—Political aspects.
Classification: LCC PN4784.W37 R495 | DDC 070.4/333—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2015023826
DOI 10.3726/978-1-4539-1685-8

Bibliographic information published by Die Deutsche Nationalbibliothek.
Die Deutsche Nationalbibliothek lists this publication in the “Deutsche
Nationalbibliografie”; detailed bibliographic data are available
on the Internet at http://dnb.d-nb.de/.

© 2018 Leara D. Rhodes

Peter Lang Publishing, Inc., New York
29 Broadway, 18th floor, New York, NY 10006
www.peterlang.com

All rights reserved.
Reprint or reproduction, even partially, in all forms such as microfilm,
xerography, microfiche, microcard, and offset strictly prohibited.

About the author

LEARA D. RHODES holds a Ph.D. in international communication from Temple University, Philadelphia and is currently Associate Professor in the Grady College of Journalism and Mass Communication at the University of Georgia. She is the recipient of honors and awards that include Fulbright to Haiti and several diversity awards. Her two previous books are Democracy and the Role of the Haitian Media and Ethnic Media: Reshaping the American Dream.

About the book

This book equips students and practicing journalists with information on why and how to implement a course of action for Peace Journalism. Secondary literature and primary examples are used within all chapters to offer a personal examination of the importance of applying concepts of Peace Journalism in the field as journalists cover conflict. Peace Through Media also identifies how journalism and political science are merging in areas related to conflict resolution. By understanding how both the journalists and the political scientists think about Peace Journalism, collaboration may follow and the benefits of finding peaceful resolutions to conflicts may be a possibility.

This eBook can be cited

This edition of the eBook can be cited. To enable this we have marked the start and end of a page. In cases where a word straddles a page break, the marker is placed inside the word at exactly the same position as in the physical book. This means that occasionally a word might be bifurcated by this marker.

contents

Preface: Why Peace and Why Media

Acknowledgments

Chapter 1. Search for Peace: Why Peace Journalism Is Needed Today

Chapter 2. Peace Journalism: Definition and History

Chapter 3. Peace Journalism: Theoretical Approaches

Chapter 4. Populations Affected by Conflict

Chapter 5. Violence: Nature of Contemporary Warfare and Media’s Contribution to Covering Violence

Chapter 6. Journalists Learn to Work with Citizen Journalists

Chapter 7. How to Search for Truth When There Are Lies, Bias, and Propaganda

Chapter 8. Activism and Social Media

Chapter 9. How Governments Use Media During Conflict

Chapter 10. Action Plan: Teaching Peace Journalism

Chapter 11. The Future: Dialogue

Appendix←vii | viii→ ←viii | ix→

Preface

Why Peace and Why Media

Within these chapters, I hope to demonstrate that peace journalism can be taught and successfully implemented to keep the values that journalists have used for decades. Contorting these values currently are the stressors for journalists of adding new social media platforms, working with the fragmentation of traditional media, and including citizens, often activists who are not trained to use journalistic values of truth telling and transparency of information. With these stressors, journalists are trying to find ways to tell truthful stories that contribute to a continued democracy.

This book is a companion to standard journalism reporting texts; students need to know what it takes to work internationally especially with the global use of social media. The goal of this book is to argue that teaching peace journalism along with basic reporting skills is a way to facilitate peace, a basic human need. The people who play such a large role in creating how and what a community thinks about are journalists and they can help facilitate peace. In helping journalists understand how they are uniquely empowered to facilitate positive peace, this text defines peace journalism (Chapter 2); places the term in a theoretical concept (Chapter 3); introduces populations affected by conflict (Chapter 4); defines violence and introduces the nature of contemporary warfare and media’s contribution to covering violence (Chapter 5); ex←ix | x→ amines journalists’ work environment and how they are working with citizen journalists (Chapter 6); identifies how to search for truth when lying, bias and propaganda are so prevalent (Chapter 7); explores how activists are using media to cover conflict (Chapter 8); identifies how governments and institutions are using media during conflict (Chapter 9); proposes an action plan with examples on how to implement peace journalism (Chapter 10); and facilitates a dialogue to motivate journalists and conflict-sensitive training professionals to work together (Chapter 11) to continue humankind’s efforts to find a more peaceful world through the work of a perfectly placed legion of professionals.←x | xi→

Acknowledgments