"Exploring the ways in which language and conflict are intertwined and interrelated, this book examines the changes that have taken place in the public discourse of the Ukraine and Russia since 2014 and the beginning of the 'Ukrainian Crisis.' Through analysis of the narratives constructed by differ
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ent social groups in Ukraine, Language of Conflict shows how discourse can illuminate the competing worldviews and the conflicting positions of the various stakeholders in this conflict. Through critical discourse analysis and multimodality, this book explores the prevalent narratives and the linguistic features of the salient discourses surrounding this conflict. Using Russian- and Ukrainian-language texts from traditional and social media, contributors from Ukraine, Russia and beyond investigate discourses surrounding the most important topics of the crisis: its causes and goals, the sides, and the values and ideologies of the opposing parties. Highlighting the ways in which the stress produced by social discord, economic hardship and violence, is reflected in verbal aggression, slurs, insults and profane language of extraordinary linguistic creativity, Language of Conflict provides insight into the ways people think about, respond to and experience the reality of conflict in their everyday communication." (Publisher description)
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"Wie können digitale Ansätze zu Frieden und Sicherheit beitragen? Die technische Revolution macht es erforderlich, dass die wichtigsten Akteure vor Ort und weltweit zusammenarbeiten, um dafür Lösungen zu entwickeln, auszuprobieren und zu verbreiten. Gleichzeitig geht es auch darum, damit verbund
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ene Risiken zu erkennen und zu verringern. Smart Prevention stellt beispielhafte Ansätze und Instrumente aus der Entwicklungszusammenarbeit vor." (Seite 3)
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"This article traces how Yemeni artists have intervened in the representation of the conflict and war in Yemen since 2011. It analyzes the heterogonous artistic forms, contents, and representational strategies that Yemeni artists and filmmakers have employed to express their collective concerns over
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war and destruction. The constraints and limitations imposed by the conflict have also shaped the creative expressions of Yemeni wartime artists, especially in terms of sharing their work both with their own communities and with the wider world. While their creative work manifests the suffering of a nation, it also constitutes a refusal to live under weakness and lack of hope for the future. The concepts of tactical and participatory media and socially engaged art are used to refer to the production and dissemination of a variety of creative responses to the ongoing crisis in Yemen, as illustrated through selected art media forms." (Abstract)
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"While the importance of visualization of war, conflict, and violence has gathered great momentum in disciplines such as International Relations (IR), far less has been said about the visualization of peace in IR, history, and even in Peace and Conflict Studies. As Maria Elena Diez Jorge and Francis
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co Muñoz Muñoz point out, "[v]iolence has received the attention, while peace and its entire semantic sphere have been left out of the spotlight". It is this relative blind spot that this special issue wants to address as it aims to reflect on the politics, policy, and pedagogy of visualizing peace. Among other questions, it will reflect on how peace is visualized in cultural artifacts and what these representations of peace (and their absence) do politically. In other words, what is presented in the picture of peace and what is left out? What consequences can this have for the construction of politics? In addition, the special issue considers how visual artifacts can contribute to real-world peace after violent conflict. How can visualization in film, photography, or documentaries help build peace and contribute to conflict resolution, reconciliation, transitional justice, and peace pedagogy? If we accept the argument of the cultural turn and believe in the co-constitution of culture and politics and in the idea that cultural artifacts such as movies take part in the construction of a dichotomous understanding of self and other, thereby contributing to the legitimation of violence and conflict, then this may also work the other way around: Cultural artifacts like movies can play an important role in peace processes." (Page 5)
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"This International Media Support report explores criminal justice and human rights mechanisms to protect journalists, media workers and human rights advocates in an effort to combat impunity in The Gambia. It is the culmination of an innovative approach to hold perpetrators of attacks, killings and
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disappearances of those exercising their right to free expression to account and accentuates the importance of robust, collaborative support to protect journalists and the commitment to end impunity. The heart of this report recognizes that responding to threats and attacks against journalists means being prepared to scrutinize investigations and the laws that govern them." (Back cover)
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"Social media platforms are taking down “terrorist and violent extremist content” more and more quickly, often in response to the demands of governments, but in a way that prevents the content from being used to support investigations into serious crimes, including war crimes. “Video Unavailab
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le”: Social Media Platforms Remove Evidence of War Crimes, examines the value of social media content in human rights investigations and the impacts that content takedowns are having for international and national investigators, civil society organizations, and the media. Human Rights Watch is calling for a broad consultative process with all relevant stakeholders, including social media companies, to develop a mechanism to preserve potential evidence of serious crimes that was posted publicly online and make it available to support national and international prosecutions, as well as investigations by civil society organizations, journalists and academics." (Back cover)
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"Guided by the Framing Theory, this paper presents the final results of a content analysis performed on a group of news from three cases of environmental popular consultations in Colombia, aiming to find the main generic frames on them to understand how the debate was shaped within the Andean countr
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y during 2017. The context of those consultations was that they took place on the first year without armed confrontation, after the peace agreement was signed, with former FARC guerrilla and when the national debate shifted from the war itself to social justice issues. Results showed that all of the collected stories had, at least, three frames that were mainly human interest, focused on portraying the human side of actors involved; conflict, displaying the disagreement between pro and con sides as well as proclaiming winners and or losers; and attribution of responsibility, putting responsibility on actors and groups involved, and offering solutions such as relying on congress or the highest courts to fill the legal gap. These findings confirm that environmental conflicts constitute a new form of crisis in the post-conflict Colombia." (Abstract)
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"Covering war conflicts may compromise the psychological and physical health of journalists because chronic exposure to these environments has been related to depression, memory dissociative processes, and post-traumatic stress disorder; however, acute effects have not been studied yet. Thus, a comb
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at simulation was carried out replicating actual warfare scenarios, including personnel and equipment. Psychophysiological response, memory, and information-processing were analysed of 40 professional soldiers (21 males and 19 females) and 19 journalists (12 males and 7 females) with international experience in current conflict areas such as Afghanistan, Iraq, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Kosovo, in relation to their experience of a combat intervention. A significant increase (p < 0.05) in metabolic, muscular, cardiovascular, and cortical and psychological anxiety response, as well as a decrease in memory accuracy directly after and 24 h and 72 h post-combat were found; these modifications were modulated by the nature of the stimulus. Journalists presented higher cognitive and memory impairment than soldiers, resulting in a press reporting of real events accuracy of only 27%." (Abstract)
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"We have identified a great diversity of projects organized by local media producers, often in an alliance with other sectors of civil society that are interested in generating information offers from and for the Amazon. In general terms, the most promising initiatives for fostering democratic discu
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ssions in the region are those that take into account the following criteria: they work together with grassroots social processes in their respective localities; they strengthen cultural diversity and value the identity of individuals and collectives; they search for technological solutions adapted to the conditions of each place; they seek to form alliances. The objective of this study was, in the first place, to identify the difficulties for communicating in the Amazon, but also to make proposals for change. In the different forums established in the context of this research, as well as during the fieldwork, it was possible to become acquainted with projects that seek to improve the participation of regional inhabitants in communication, information, and dialogue networks. Some of these projects have existed for years, while others are still in development. These proposals can be systematized according to their contribution to the creation of solutions for socioenvironmental conflicts from a communications perspective. We have thus identified four main areas: cultural diversity and biodiversity; participation and sustainable development; managing communication autonomously; forging alliances to increase the visibility of socioenvironmental conflicts." (Conclusions, page 51)
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"Die Digitalisierung hat nicht nur zu tiefgreifenden Veränderungen der Lebens-, Arbeits- und Wirtschaftswelt geführt, sie hat auch massive Auswirkungen auf die internationale Politik. Diese Auswirkungen, so Yvonne Hofstetter, stellen die Sicherheitspolitik der Staaten vor massive Herausforderungen
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. So haben etwa im letzten US-Wahlkampf die sogenannte Russland-Affäre oder der Skandal um die Datenauswertungen von Cambridge Analytica gezeigt, welch schädlichen Einfluss digitale Techniken auf demokratische Systeme haben können. Diese liefen, so die Autorin, Gefahr, durch autoritäre Akteure mit ihren eigenen Waffen geschlagen zu werden, da der freie Verkehr von Informationen auch zur Manipulation demokratischer Prozesse missbraucht werden kann und überdies sicherheitspolitische Konzepte ins Wanken bringt. So wandelt sich auch die Natur zwischenstaatliche Konflikte in Zeiten von künstlicher Intelligenz, Hackerangriffen und neuen Propagandastrategien. Die demokratischen Staaten, so Yvonne Hofstetter, müssten sich in der digitalen Sphäre wappnen, um Sicherheit, Stabilität und Liberalität für ihre Bürgerinnen und Bürger auf Dauer gewährleisten zu können." (Klappentext)
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"Hemos constatado que existe una gran diversidad de proyectos organizados por comunicadores locales, muchas veces en alianza con otros actores de la sociedad civil, que están interesados en desarrollar ofertas de información desde y para la Amazonia. En términos generales, las iniciativas más pr
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ometedoras para fomentar la discusión democrática en la región son aquellas que toman en consideración los siguientes criterios: están enlazadas con procesos sociales de base en los respectivos lugares; fortalecen la diversidad cultural y valoran la identidad de las personas y los colectivo; buscan soluciones tecnológicas adaptadas a las condiciones de cada lugar; buscan la formación de alianzas. El objetivo de este estudio se centraba por un lado en señalar las dificultades para comunicar en la Amazonia, pero también en delinear propuestas de cambio. En los diferentes foros realizados en el marco de esta investigación, así como en las visitas de campo, se pudieron conocer proyectos que se proponen mejorar la participación de los habitantes de la región en redes de comunicación, información y diálogo. Algunos de estos proyectos llevan a sus espaldas años de experiencia, otros todavía están en desarrollo. Estas propuestas se pueden sistematizar de acuerdo con su contribución a la formulación de soluciones a los conflictos socioambientales desde el campo de la comunicación. En esto hemos identificado cuatro áreas: diversidad cultural y biodiversidad; participación y desarrollo sostenible; gestión autónoma de la comunicación; visibilizar los conflictos socioambientales trabajando en alianza." (Conclusiones, página 51)
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"This book explores the media and conflict relationship in the age of social media through the lens of China. Inspired by the concepts of medialization of conflict and actor-network theory, this book centers on four main actors in wars and conflicts: social media platform, mainstream news organizati
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ons, online users and social media content. These four human and non-human actors associate, interact and negotiate with each other in the social media network. The central argument is that social media is playing an enabling role in contemporary wars and conflicts. Both professional media outlets and web users employ the functionalities of social media platforms to set, counter-set or expand the online public agenda. Social media platform embodies a web of technological and human complexities with different actors, factors, interests, and power relations. These four actors and the macro social-political context are influential in the medialization of conflict in the social media era." (Publisher description)
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"In this edited volume, authors seek to document and analyze how state and non-state actors leverage digital rhetoric as a twenty-first-century weapon of war. Rhet Ops offer readers a chance to focus on the human dimension of rhetorical practice within mobile technologies and social networks: to ref
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lect not only on the durable question of what it means to conduct oneself ethically as a speaker or writer, but also what it means to learn the art of rhetoric as a means to engage adversaries in war and conflict." (Publisher description)
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"This study analyzes the scholarship on the classification of war and peacemaking potential of media in the conflict-ridden milieu of Pakistan. Borrowing from peace studies and the existing journalistic practices in the country, the researchers present and empirically test a new model for evaluating
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conflict journalism in terms of its escalatory and de-escalatory trends. For this purpose, news stories telecasted in two leading TV channels (PTV and Geo News) relating to seven deadly conflicts were analyzed. We found support for our model—the higher the intensity of a conflict, the higher the escalatory trends in coverage. Patriotic and elite-controlled media produced more escalation as compared to conflict in which journalists were using relatively free media. Despite the dominance of escalatory coverage, we also found some traces of peace journalism in the reporting of conflicts. The study recommends that to promote peace journalism in Pakistan and elsewhere, the local context of a conflict and the journalistic environment should be studied. A mere replication of Western scholarship on peace journalism in non-Western settings would render it an impracticable ideal in real conflict scenarios." (Abstract)
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"Several scholars have raised concerns that the institutional mechanisms through which transitional justice is commonly promoted in post-conflict societies can alienate affected populations. Practitioners have looked to bridge this gap by developing ‘outreach’ programmes, in some instances commi
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ssioning comic books in order to communicate their findings to the people they seek to serve. In this article, we interrogate the ways in which post-conflict comics produce meaning about truth, reconciliation, and the possibilities of peace, focusing in particular on a comic strip published in 2005 as part of the Sierra Leone Truth and Reconciliation Commission Report into the causes and crimes of the 1991– 2002 Civil War. Aimed at Sierra Leonean teenagers, the Report tells the story of ‘Sierrarat’, a peaceful nation of rats whose idyllic lifestyle is disrupted by an invasion of cats. Although the Report displays striking formal similarities with Art Spiegelman’s Maus (a text also intimately concerned with reconciliation, in its own way), it does so to very different ends. The article brings these two texts into dialogue in order to explore the aesthetic politics of truth and reconciliation, and to ask what role popular visual media like comics can play in their practice and (re)conceptualisation." (Abstract)
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"Most of Iran’s urban population experienced the war with Iraq (1980–1988) through the burden of privation and the fear of possible airstrikes. Thus, state-produced media on national television became the main apparatus through which they connected their daily lives to the national conflict. Rav
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ayat-e Fath [The Narrative of Triumph] was one docudrama, comprised of five seasons that the state produced at different intervals between 1984 and 1987. Although Ravayat-e Fath has been presented and received as a journalistic work, it enters the realm of fiction to fulfill its objective: To recruit soldiers. Through a collage of mythical stories, epic narratives, dramatic cinematography, mourning songs accompanied by reports from war fronts, and live interviews with soldiers, the series tells a story of a promised triumph through martyrdom. Through studying Ravayat-e Fath, the most important state-supported television production of the Iran-Iraq war era, this article investigates the ways in which war propaganda in general, and the concept of martyrdom in particular, generated tools like shaming to control the population during and after the war." (Abstract)
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"This review seeks to inform United States Agency for International Development (USAID) evaluation of countering violent extremism (CVE) programming in Asia and globally by exploring two research questions: 1. Under current conditions, is it possible to develop a model or methodology to test the rel
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ationship between CVE programming and extremist violence? 2. What high-level outcomes other than violence reduction might be linked to CVE programming? What approaches could be used to measure such outcomes? USAID defines violent extremism (VE) as “…advocating, engaging in, preparing, or otherwise supporting ideologically motivated or justified violence to further social, economic, and political objectives.” In practice, the threat posed by religiously motivated violent extremist groups has drawn primary concern. Violent religious extremism can and often does function in combination with aggrieved ethnic identity groups pursuing communal advantages. VE’s defining elements include a desire to reorder society in line with a given ideology and the interests of the group proclaiming the ideology, pursuit of sociopolitical and economic objectives, and a willingness and capacity to use violence as a tactic to pursue these objectives. How individual and community incentives and risk factors, structural conditions, enabling factors, and external triggers interact to produce extremist beliefs, support for VE actors and actions, recruitment into a violent extremist organization (VEO), or violence itself is not fully understood. Correspondingly, CVE programs occur in diverse settings and encompass a variety of interventions and intermediate outcomes. The amount of USAID financial investment in CVE programming in a given country is often small relative to the scale and complexity of the VE problem and its drivers, limiting the change to which a program can aspire and for which it might reasonably be held accountable." (Executive summary)
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"Los artículos del CAC162 “Narrativas de paz: voces y sonidos” surgen de la mesa de debate homónima presentada en el marco del X Congreso Internacional Latina de Comunicación Social, realizado en la Universidad de La Laguna (Tenerife) en 2018. Nueve textos sobre los retos que afrontan dichas
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narrativas y sobre los espacios que abren en los distintos escenarios donde han emergido. Reflexiones acerca de la forma en que la ciudadanía aborda sus propias historias para conformar narrativas de paz que confronten los efectos de la violencia armada y estructural. Escritos que exploran las experiencias de vida de quienes no se resignan a callarlas, sino que buscan transformarlas en una memoria ejemplar, una que, como señalaba Benjamin, pueda relampaguear en momentos de nuevo peligro." (Resumen)
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