Some years ago I attended a conference outside London run by a Buddhist organization who wanted to know why the Western media had dozens of war correspondents on their staffs but not a single peace correspondent. It was a simple, fair and important question and although we argued about it for hours no satisfactory answer emerged. As far as I know the Buddhists are still looking.
They will be greatly helped by a new academic study published in “Media, War and Conflict” (Sagepublications.com) which draws on a six country study of viewers of CNN International, BBC World and Al-Jazeera English to see whether broadcasters foster cross-cultural understanding or a clash of civilizations. War or peace?
The study was carried out by Shawn Powers of the University of Southern California, and Mohammed el-Nawawy, of Queens University of Charlotte, NC, USA.
They are not impressed with the job that war correspondents have been doing. “Media coverage of contemporary conflict has been dominated by a style of ‘war journalism’ that is more likely to further international tensions between global publics,” they write.
They quote other findings by academics that suggest that the mass media are both structurally and institutionally inclined to concentrate on escalation of conflict rather than on solutions.
The journalists’ professional standards have grown to thrive on drama, sensationalism and emotion and are therefore more compatible with war than peace. “War provides visuals and images of action. It is associated with heroism and conflict, focuses on the emotional rather than on the rational and satisfies news values demands—the present, the unusual, the dramatic, simplicity, action, personalization and results.”
The authors quote “Promoting Peace through the News Media” by G. Wolfseld to explain why peace principles and media principles are contradictory. “A peace process is complicated; journalists demand simplicity. A peace process takes time to unfold and develop; journalists demand immediate results. Most of the peace process is marked by dull, tedious negotiations; journalists demand drama.”
Further, the continuous demand for news in an environment that is dominated by 24/7 satellite television has led to sensationalization and trivialization of often complex stories and a temptation to highlight the entertainment value of news.
The authors say that in times of war today’s mainstream media tend to tailor their coverage in ways that reinforce what they perceive to be the attitudes and opinions of their target audiences. They feel that it is in their best commercial interests to give their viewers what they want, or what they believe their viewers want.
The media snapped up Samuel Huntington’s theory of an inevitable clash of civilizations because it offered an explanation for the emergence of a new and uncertain international order and, more importantly, an explanation that was ideologically and structurally similar to the much-missed Cold War.
Western journalists had again the simple us-versus-them narrative that had been so effective at mobilizing Western (particularly American) public opinion during the Cold War.
But the risk of dependence on international media that tends to foster attitudes of fear and hate must be a serious threat to peace in the globalised world of the 21st century, the authors conclude.
But they have some good news. The appearance of Al-Jazeera English offers, they say, a tremendous opportunity for a new direction in the discourse of global news flow. With a potential audience of over one billion English speakers, it could have the power to change “war journalism” into “peace journalism”.
The indicators are good. The authors’ survey found that the more months a viewer had been watching Al-Jazeera English the less dogmatic they were in their thinking. For instance, viewers who were dependent on BBC World and especially on CNN International were more supportive of US foreign policy generally.
This is an area that has been crying out for examination and now that these academics have set the ball rolling those Buddhists I met years ago might yet get the answer they were seeking.
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