Peace journalism in marginally to moderately escalated conflicts: Conflict theoretical foundations, variables and reportage patterns

Abstract

‘Peace journalism’ was originally conceived in contrast to ‘war propaganda’. However, this does not do justice to the processuality of escalating conflicts. Above all in the beginning, thus in marginally to moderately escalated conflicts, de-escalation oriented journalism should react to the respective state of escalation of a conflict or respectively adapt to it. This necessitates a sensitive set of tools that makes it possible to recognize even minor deviations from peace, which here is defined with a range of ‘peace conditions’. In the course of a conflict’s escalation, specific ‘blind spots’ increasingly arise in the perception of the conflict constellation and in the perception of the other party, the ‘opponent’. De-escalation oriented reportage must identify these gaps in perception and counter them with a complete picture of the conflict.

Keywords

• Peace journalism
• marginally escalated conflicts
• moderately escalated conflicts
• de-escalation oriented conflict reportage
• conflict theory
• distorted perceptions
• content analysis