Peace Journalism

Abstract

Although there has been much attention given to the media’s relationship with conflict, it is noticeable that this attention has not generated a comparable level of concern about the media’s relationship with peace. However, consideration of this interaction has taken shape through a small, but significant body of work which looks at how a peace-oriented journalism might develop and what it might bring to public understanding in terms of conflict causes, varying approaches to conflict interpretation, and the articulation of a dialogue which proposes constructive solutions to division. One of the earlier studies which recognizes the shortcomings of journalism in this regard is the UNESCO-funded MacBride Report Many Voices, One World, which set out to highlight inequalities in the ‘new information and communication order’ (1984: 18): The pupose of the study was to advocate recommendations for a communications order which would be adaptive and reflexive in order to meet a need for ‘more justice, more equity, more reciprocity in information exchange, less dependence in communication flows, less downward diffusion of messages, more self-reliance and cultural identity, more benefits for all mankind’ (ibid.).