"By peace we mean the capacity to

transform conflicts with empathy."

PEACE JOURNALISM
SEOW TING LEE
 INTRODUCTION
Peace Journalism was first introduced in the 1970s by
Norwegian peace studies founder Johan Galtung. Who
envisioned it as a self-conscious, working concept for
journalists covering war and conflict.

Peace Journalism According to Lynch and

McGoldricks: peace journalism is when editors and
reporters make choices of what stories to report and
how to report them- that create opportunities for
society to consider and value non-violent response to
conflict.
PEACE JOURNALISM
By taking an advocacy, interpretative approach, peace journalism
concentrates on stories that highlight peace initiatives; tones down
ethnic, and religious differences prevent further conflict, focus on
the structure of society and promote conflict resolution,
reconstruction and reconciliation.

Traditional War Journalism is modeled after sports

journalism, with a focus on winning in a zero-sum game.

The reporting of peace negotiation is modeled after

court journalism. Galtung visions , peace journalism is
modeled after healthy journalism.
TWO NEWS VALUES: OBJECTIVITY AND CONFLICT

War reporting is shaped by two major

journalistic values: Objectivity and Conflict

Objectivity: Sees the journalist as a detached and

unbiased mirror of reality. journalist struves for
detachment from internal biases and external
influnces while striking a midpoint between
competing viewpoints through eyewitness accounts
of events, and corroboration of facts and multiple
sources to achieve balance.
 Objectivity And Conflict
According to Iggers (1988), few journalists still defend objectivity,
it remains one of the greatest obstacles to their playing a more
responsible and constructive role in public life."

"Responsible journalism should be about INTERVENTION"

- Lynch and McGoldricks (2000).

If journalism is about INTERVENTION, then what you you do

with your intervention to enhance the prospect of PEACE?
 PEACE JOURNALISM

TWO MISCONCEPTIONS ABOUT PEACE JOURNALISM

Peace journalism does not rely on actions that are unconscious, informal or aimed not
only in avoiding harm. The principle of peace journalism of “doing no harm” rests upon
a lower moral foundation when compared to the principle of “doing good” that peace
journalism aspires to do.

Galtung disguises between “negative peace” and “positive peace."

Negative peace: refers to the absence of organized violence between nations

or religions, racial and ethnic groups.

Positive peace: is defined as a pattern of cooperating and integration.

 OBJECTIVE JOURNALISM

Objective journalism 's respect for the prevailing social standard of

decency and good taste likely mutes reportage of the brutality of
wars. and the suffering of victims, helping to turn war into
watchable spectale rather than an unsufferable obscenity.

In war reporting, objectivity is use to justify journalists' disinterested

moral autonomy from being swayed bythe parties involed in a
conflict.
 Objectivity And Conflict
Objective reporting focus on facts and overts events :
devalues ideas and fragments experiences, thus making
complex social phenomena more difficult to understand.
Factual reporting of war is a chimera; The ingredients of
war-patriotism, national interest, anger, censorship, and
propaganda- conspire to prevent objective and truthful
accounts of a conflict.
 Objectivity And Conflict
War reporting is grounded in the notion of conflict as a significant

news value. war reporting is often sensational and a mirror device

to boost circulation and ratings. Galtung himself was skeptical of

the claim that violence sells

“ To say that violence is the only thing that

sells is an insult to humanity."
- GALTUNG
 Peace Journalism
- subscribes to nonviolence and respect for human dignity, which
many journalists have cast aside in the pursuit of what they consider
to be far worthier goals- professional values of objectivity and
newsworthiness.

Journalists often ignore peace negotiation unless the

proceedings are accompanied by violent or verbally explosive
slideshows.
 PEACE JOURNALISM

Like public journalism in development journalism,

peace journalism is grounded in communitarian
philosophy, namely the commitment to the idea of
civic participation, the understanding of social justice
as a moral imperative, and the view that the value

and sacredness of individuals are realized only

through communities.
 TRANSCEND
In August 1993, Galtung founded “TRANSCEND” a non-profit
organization to advance his ideas of peace including peace
journalism.

Most of the work of peace journalism is

philosophical or normative outlining its benefit
of detailing how it can be implemented.
 Operationalizing
Galtungs Idea

He was introduced to peace journalism by Filipino media scholar

Maslog C. Crispin who developed a module in peace journalism as part
of the courses in international and intercultural communication.

Maslog is also the author of Manual on peace reporting in

Mindanao(1990). Collaboration Resulted in several publications.
The Journal of Communication
 The Journal of Communication study is
the first one to offer a quantitative
contribution to a topic that has
received mostly normative and
anecdotal discussion

Galtung's classification of war/peace journalism. The study focused on four

Asian conflicts:Kashmir dispute between India and Pakistan, the Tamil
tiger uprising in Sri Lanka, the Aceh and Maluki civil wars in Indonesia, and
the Mindanao separatist movement in the Philippines.

Peace Journalism is supported by framing

theory. Framing theory refers to the process
of organizing news stories.
To frame is to select some perceived reality
and make more salient communication.

Tankard describes the media frame as the

central organizing of ideas for news content.
McCombs, Shaw and Weaver(1997)argued
that the concept of agenda-setting and
framing represents a convergen ce
 WAR AND PEACE

Galtung views peace and war journalism as two competing

factors.
His classification of peace and war journalism is based on
four broad practices and linguistic orientations.
Peace/Conflict, truth, people, solutions.
Peace journalists hope to create a setting in which the
cause of and possible solutions to the conflict become
transparent.
WAR AND PEACE
War journalist plays up conflict as an arena where
participants are grouped starkly into two opposing
sides (them vs. us) in a zero-sum game, and focuses on
the visible effects of war.

In contrast war journalism is viewed as propaganda,

violence, elite and victory.
WAR AND PEACE
B for blur

Other journalism approaches include preventive

C for confetti

advocacy stance like editorial and column.

D for a drumroll

O for bubbles
Galtungs explanation about war and peace
journalism was expanded by McGoldrick
Q for quiet and
Lynch(2000) X to close

Any number from 0-9 for a timer

 PEACE JOURNALISM IN COVERAGE
OF ASIAN CONFLICTS

According to Lee & Maslog (2005), a

news frame is defined as an interpretive
structure settles a specific event within

context.
a comprehensive
 PEACE JOURNALISM IN COVERAGE
OF ASIAN CONFLICTS
According to Galtung’s classification about war & peace journalism,
Lee & Maslog’s(2005) study posed two research questions:

1. Does the coverage of the four Asian

Conflicts reflects war journalism and
war journalism frames, and are there
differences in framing with different
conflicts?
2. What are the noticeable
indicators of war/peace journalism
manifest in the news coverage of
these conflicts?
The 1,338 stories about war/ journalism were
harvested from the 10 English Language
newspaper from five Asian countries:

Times of India (122 stories)

Hindustan Times (137 stories)
Statesman (91 stories)
Dawn (131 stories)
Pakistan News Service (261 stories)
Philippine Daily Inquirer (122 stories)
Philippine Star (61 stories)
Jakarta Post (189 stories)
Daily News & Sunday observer (145 stories)
Daily Mirror (79 stories)
The coding categories involved 13 indicators of war journalism and
13 indicators of peace journalism.

These indicators used to elicit from the body text of each story
which frame war or peace journalism dominated the narrative,
comprised two themes: approach and language.

The approach-based criteria included:

The language-base criteria focused on
language that was:
Reactivity
Visibility of effects of war Demonizing
Elite orientation Victimizing
Differences Emotive
Focus on here and now
Good and bad dichotomy
Party involvement
Partisanship
Winning orientation
Continuity of reports
 A DOMINANT WAR
JOURNALISM FRAMING

Of the 1,338 stories and 749 stories (56%) were framed as war journalism,
compared to 478 stories (35.7%) framed as peace journalism, and 111 neutral
stories (8.3%).

Overall in the sample, the war journalism frame was more dominant and higher
quantity than peace journalism or neutral frames.

The strongest war journalism framing was found in the Kashmir coverage by
Pakistani and Indian newspapers, followed by Indonesian, Philippines, and Sri

Lankan papers’ coverage of their respective conflicts.

The strongest peace journalism framing was from Sri Lanka, followed by the
Philippines, Indonesia, India, and Pakistan
Indian-Pakistan (Kashmir)

- There was a significantly higher proportions of war journalism frames

observed in Pakistani papers (74.2 %) than for Indian papers (63.7%).

- The distribution of war/peace/neutral stories also differed among the five

newspapers.

- The strongest war journalism framing is seen in the Pakistan News

Service; nearly 80% of its stories were framed as war journalism, followed
by the Statesman (67%), Hinduston Times (66.4%), Pakistan Dawn (65.6%),
and Times of India (59%). The Pakistan News Service, a national news
agency, has the highest number of war journalism frames among the 10
news outlets examined in the content analysis.
 Indonesia

- There was a significant difference in the distribution of war/peace/neutral/ fames in the Jakarta Post;
48% of its stories were framed as war journalism, compared to 41.8% framed as peace journalism,
and 10.1% neutral stories.

- The Jakarta Post published 110 articles on the Free Aceh Movement, and 79 on the Maluku conflict.

- Comparing the Aceh and Maluku conflicts, however, 37.31% of articles about Aceh were framed as
war journalism compared to 54.5% peace journalism, and 8.2% neutral.

- In contrast, the Maluku stories showed a more salient and noticeable war journalism frame (63.3%)
compared to 24.1% of peace journalism, and 12.7 neutral. Clearly, the Jakarta Post’s coverage of the
two conflicts did not share the same framing pattern.
 Sri Lanka
- The LTTE (Liberation tigers of Tamil Eelam) coverage by Sri Lankan papers showed the strongest peace
journalism framing.
- Of the 244 stories, more peace journalism stories were observed 58% compared to 30.8% war journalism
stories, and 11.2% neutral stories.

- There was a significant difference between the two papers, with more peace journalism frames in the Daily
Mirror than in the Daily News & Sunday Observer.

- There was also a significant difference before and after the December 2001 ceasefire between the Sri
Lankan government and the LTTE.

- Prior to the ceasefire, the two papers demonstrated (Daily Mirror and Daily News & Sunday Observer) a
significant framing difference.
 Sri Lanka
- Before the ceasefire, the Daily News & Sunday Observer produced 51.5% of war journalism stories, compared
to 38.4% of peace journalism stories, and 10.1% neutral stories.

- After the ceasefire, its war journalism stories dropped to 4.3% while peace journalism stories increased to
89.1%.

- Before the ceasefire, the Daily Mirror published 20.4% war journalism stories, 59.3% peace journalism stories,
and 20.4% neutral stories.

- After the ceasefire, its war journalism stories remained at 20.0% while peace journalism stories increased to
76.0%.

- As a result of an increase in peace journalism stories, there was no significant difference in the post-ceasefire
distribution of war/peace journalism stories between the two papers.

- With the ceasefire, there was a change from war journalism to peace journalism framing in the Daily News &
Sunday Observer but the change was less obvious in the Daily Mirror because it had a strong peace journalism
framing prior to the ceasefire.
 Philippines

- The framing of war/peace journalism stories was less clear. Although the
newspaper produced more peace journalism stories compared to war
journalism stories, statistical significance was absent.

- There was a significant difference in the distribution of war/peace/neutral

frames between the Philippine Daily Inquirer and the Philippine Star, with
more peace journalism stories in the Philippine Daily Inquirer compared to
the Philippine Star.

 Indicators of War Journalism and

Peace Journalism
The three most salient indicators of war journalism were: A focus on the here-and-now,
an elite orientation, and a dichotomy of the good and bad.
A here-and-now perspective, the war journalism
stories confined a conflict to a closed
space and time, with a little exploration of the causes and long-term effects of the conflict.
Reporting only on the here-and-now is a common journalistic practice focusing on only
what is happening.
An elite orientation tends to focus on elite political

leaders and military officials as actors
and sources.

good guys involves casting simplistic moral
Dichotomizing between the bad guys and the
judgments about the parties involved and assigning blame to the party who started the
conflict.

The three most salient indicators of peace journalism were: Avoidance of demonizing
language, non-partisanship and multi-party orientation.

 Indicators of War Journalism and

Peace Journalism
In avoidance demonizing language, the journalists provided precise titles or descriptions
to players.

By being non-partisan, stories were not biased for one side or another.

gave a voice to the many parties involved,
In pursuing a multi-player orientation, stories
treating them with dignity.

The Kashmir coverage showed the most salient war journalism framing.

It consists of the indicators of focus on the here-and-now with 15.4% percentage, the use
of elites as actors and sources with 14.1 percent, a partisan approach (11.0%) and the
emphasis on the differences with 9.7% percentage.
The Sri Lankan newspapers’ coverage of the
Tamil Tigers, exhibited the strongest peace
journalism framing.

It consists of avoidance of good-bad label (13.5%), a non-partisan focus (12.9%), a multi-

party orientation (10.4%), and a win-win approach (10.1%)
 Others Findings of Interest

Foreign wire stories contain more war journalism frames and fewer peace journalism frames than
stories produced by local sources. One explanation is that reporting by foreign wire services is less
involved and more detached. Of the stories produced locally, 96.2% were written by newspapers'
own correspondents, compared to 1.3% sourced from national news agencies and 2.4% contributed
by freelancers, academics, and the public.

One explanation is that foreign wire services' reporting is less involved and detached (as evidenced
by the shorter stories; local sources' stories are much longer than international wire services'
stories).
Foreign governments' acts are more likely to be reported by US media when they are linked to
violence and war than other sorts of news. War journalism framing was more prevalent in foreign
wire content than in local copy, which is unsurprising. We broadened our investigation into the
coverage of the Iraq War and vernacular newspapers after our study on Asian newspaper coverage
of regional crises.
 The Iraq War
Newspapers from the non-muslim countries except the
Philippines have a stronger war journalism framing that

supports the (American/British vs. Iraqis).

Stories from foreign wire services have a stronger war

journalism framing consistent to the earlier findings.

Stories written by papers have their own correspondents.

The Iraq War
Maslog, Lee,kim (2006) examined how the coverage of
war in Iraq was framed according to Galtung's
Principle of War and Journalism.

The findings based on 442 stories from eight

newspapers suggest a slight peace of framing.

Religion and sourcing are the two main significant

factors in conflict and support for the war.
Comparing Asian Conflicts and the Iraq War
The coverage of Iraq war and Asian conflicts by eight Asian
newspapers is compared to different levels of conflict -
international and local, that Lee, Maslog and Kim examine in
(2006).
1,558 stories of a content analysis from India, Pakistan,
Philippines and Indonesia are on the war in Iraq and having own
local conflicts revealed that the Asian press used a war journalism
frame in covering local conflicts that Asian press used a war
journalism frame in Iraq.
The framing of hard news was dominated by war journalism,
whereas features and opinion pieces were shaped by peace
journalism
The foreign - sourced stories from wire services had both more
war journalism frames and fewer peace journalism frames than
locally produced stories written by the papers' own
correspondents, corroborating the findings of the previous two
peace journalism studies.
 The Vernacular Press

According to Kim, Lee, and Maslog (2009), the first three studies
discussed above focused on English - language Asian newspapers but
the fourth study was focused on Asian newspapers.

English - Language papers continue to be viewed as status symbols

with strong circulations and advertising revenues despite the stiff
competition from their vernacular counterparts.

Waslekar (1995), the vernacular press is percieved as less

metropolitan and sophisticated, and it is frequently excluded from
the mainstream media.
The Vernacular Press

Most English Language newspapers in Asia are influenced by

communal feelings to the point of inciting violence through
irresponsible reporting at the national level which examined
three Asian conflicts through the lens of peace/war journalism
and these are: Kashmir, the Tamil Tiger movement, and the civil
wars in Aceh and Maluku.
 The Vernacular Press
Here are the findings from the content from 864 stories that support
the results of the previous studies:

First: War journalism framing dominated conflict coverage, the

strongest of which is the case of Kashmit, which generated the
strongest war journalism framing among four regional conflicts analyzed
in a study of ten English - Language newspapers.

Second: Peace journalism included the avoidance of emotive language,

demonizing language, people orientation, and non partisanship, whereas
most sailent indicators of war journalism included a focus on the here
and now, a dichotomy of good and bad, an elite - orientation, and focus
on differences.
 The Vernacular
Press
Lastly, there are significant relationships between war or peace
jounalism framing and story attributes. Stories that are longer
written as features and opinion pieces rather than shorter and
hard news are more likely to be framed as peace journalism.
 Implications and Directions for
future research
It is hoped that the findings and subsequent work can help mass
media training institutions to customize peace journalism
programs and and build the case for offering such courses as well
as generate hypotheses for examining the framing effects of war
peace journalism on public opinion and policy making.
 Implications and Directions for
future research

In this study that compared the framing of local and international the asian newspaper relied
on war journalism framing to cover local conflicts but used peace journalism framing to cover
THE IRAQ war. considerably, the coverage of a local conflict reflected its government stand, be
it in a war against another country or against rebels within the country's borders.

despite assertions of objectivity

among journalist, cover interest we
obstacles of peace journalism. Certainly, the measure of a two piece
journalist and his work during a conflict not
after the conflict.
 Implications and Directions
for future research
What is clear is that media outlets within the same cultural and

political context do not frame the same event the same way.

similarly the higher number of feast journalism stories in the asian

newspapers coverage of iraq war was encouraging but peace journalism is
a self-conscious concept. the peace journalism framing of iraq war may be
more reflective of caution in reporting controversial military engagement
initiated by a super power in a distant land and genuine desire to promote
peace and seek solutions.
 JOURNALISM

Journalism and peace Journalism

journalism and peace journalism indicators reveals that peace journalism training is still
highly dependent on criteria of less interventionist nature for example and avoidance
of good bad labels, a nonpartisan approach, a multi-party orientation, and avoidance of
demonizing language.

"Truth journalism alone is not peace journalism"

For example:

Journalists often simplify storytelling by allowing only a set of valence and a

set of victims. The inclusion of a multi-party orientation is a significant step
forward in the peace journalism calculus but it does not take the story
significantly beyond reporting the facts or telling the truth .
 Journalism
In the controversy over piece journalism one the clash
between two different levels at values- universal and
professional, that is best captured by the fundamental
question; am i a human being first or a journalist first? Galtung’s characterization of peace
journalism as an advocacy and
interpretive approach oriented in peace
journalism avoid dichotomizing between the victim and the villain, and conflict, people, truth, and solutions.
emphasizing the differences between them. instead it refers to focus on
their common ground and sustainable relationship; the cause of setting
disputes ( Assigning blame, vilifying the wrongdoer, and righting wrong
with punitive actions) Are nearly short-term solutions that do not need
genuine reconciliation and lasting peace.
 Why does the war journalism frame
prevailed more info and wires services
copy than in locally produced copy?

Foreign news is preoccupied with conflict and

violence in which developing nations are

described as the scenes of disaster and
violence.

The relationship between story length and war/ peace journalism

suggest That with longer stories, journalist have more
opportunities to investigate an issue or event more fully and
faithfully. Longer story allow journalist to move beyond reporting
of facts into analysis and interpretation, and exploration of the
cause and alternative.
The practice of peace journalism requires
a significant amount of journalistic
reflection and analysis- elements typically
not found in breaking news.
 FRAMING
many studies have convey the concept of framing as
an unconscious act ( Safe by journalistic routines,
social norms, and values, time pressure, organ
organizational culture and constraints. but theoretical
e framing studies have neglected to explore framing as
a conscious act of journalist.