"The paper explores how peace journalism has been applied in Uganda basing on an assessment of findings from a survey on the media coverage of the conflict in northern Uganda. The paper analyses the findings from the print media coverage of 2 newspapers for 3 years that were used as sample. The anal
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ysis considered several quantitative and qualitative variables including: frequency, type of stories (news vs non-news), authors of stories (journalists vs non-journalists), placement/prominence of story, balance in the story, information sources, language and tone, focus, peace initiatives and use of photographs. The introduction gives an overview of the concept of conflict and why we continue to have conflicts in society. The paper posits that since all people in society cannot have the same definition of a situation all the time, especially regarding the distribution of power and resources, disagreements and conflicts arise, which in extreme cases escalate into armed conflicts or wars. The paper looks at the major causes of conflicts in Africa and gives a background to the conflict/war in Northern Uganda, where the fighting has been going on since 1986, when President Museveni took over power. A synopsis of the findings showed that most of the coverage on the war was done by journalists in the form of news stories, with a few feature articles. This implies that journalists are largely responsible for what people get to learn about the war. Depending on the way journalists report about the conflict, people's perceptions will be influenced accordingly. The analysis showed that the government paper was largely biased towards government and confrontational in its reports, while the private paper used a more conciliatory tone and was more balanced by using various sources for their stories. There was fair coverage of peace initiatives, although this focused most on government efforts. An evaluation of the coverage showed that this had its strengths and weaknesses. While the media had helped in raising awareness about the war, there was self-censorship amongst the journalists, partly due to the Anti-terrorism Act, which makes it a capital offence if a journalist gives information that can aid terrorism. The paper looks at some obstacles that prevent journalists from giving objective reports when reporting on conflicts/wars. The paper concludes with some recommendations on how peace journalism can be consciously applied to contribute more meaningfully to the peace building process in Northern Uganda." (Abstract)
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"Isis International-Manila welcomed the suggestion of Min-WoW to collaborate on a project on engendered peace journalism and community radio. Thus, the project, “Women Making Airwaves for Peace,” was conceptualized based on the media experiences of Min-WoW and Isis’ experience on community rad
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io in Asia Pacific. Canada Fund for Local Initiatives provided the necessary financial support to implement the project. This primer “Engendering Peace Journalism: Keeping Communities Whole” combines the two organizations’ expertise in monitoring and analyzing media from a Southern feminist perspective together with experiences of the women from the three training activities conducted in North-Western Mindanao, Philippines in 2006-2007. Practitioners from both mainstream and community and independent media, women’s and peace NGOs and grassroots organizations attended the training." (Preface)
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"[This handbook] introduces you to the various kinds of courts in which war crimes are tried; gives an outline of the history of the courts; explains the body of international law under which the courts operate; details how war crimes trials work; and explores the actual process of reporting both in
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the courts and on the ground. The handbook is designed either to support formal training sessions with humanitarian law experts and experienced journalist trainers or to be used on its own for independent study and review. The boxes in each chapter are intended to make the sometimes complex information easier to digest. Extended appendices provide basic humanitarian law documents and suggested online resources for further study and research. The purpose of this book is to support countries emerging from war by improving public understanding of international and other justice processes." (Introduction)
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"Journalisten, die über Konflikte und Kriege berichten, sehen sich von jeher vielfältigen Anforderungen ausgesetzt. Damit nur schwer zu vereinbaren scheinen die in jüngerer Zeit entwickelten Modelle einer konstruktiven Konfliktberichterstattung, die zu Prozessen der Deeskalation und der friedlich
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en Konfliktlösung beitragen kann. Nicht wenige Medienschaffende sehen in solchen Konzeptionen denn auch bloße akademische Gedankenspielerei, die im journalistischen Alltagsgeschäft ohne Realisierungschancen bleibt. Deshalb steht die Frage der Praxistauglichkeit friedensjournalistischer Modelle im Mittelpunkt dieses Buches. Anhand einer systematischen Analyse des Produktions-prozesses von Konfliktberichterstattung diskutiert der Autor sowohl Hindernisse als auch vorhandene Ansätze für eine friedensorientierte Berichterstattung. Die Nähe zur journalistischen Praxis wird durch die empirische Grundlage der Analyse gewährleistet: Ausgangs- und Bezugspunkt sind mehr als 30 Experteninterviews mit erfahrenen Konfliktberichterstattern aus den Bereichen Hörfunk, Fernsehen und Printmedien. Konstruktive Konfliktberichterstattung erweist sich als zukunftsfähiges Projekt, das eine größere Breitenwirkung jedoch nur durch eine nachhaltige Veränderung spezifischer journalistischer Routinen, Einstellungen und Kompetenzen erzielen wird." (Verlagsbeschreibung)
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"This study engages in the examination of the role of journalism in a time of violent conflict and explores the discourse that has come to be known under the umbrella term “peace journalism.” Through a case study of the Open Broadcast Network (OBN) coverage of the Bosnian conflict, the study ana
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lyzes the initial lessons learned from one of the original implementations of peace journalism precepts in violent conflict. As demonstrated by the fleeting and partial success of OBN, the news media can play a role in transformation of conflict but the feasibility and accomplishments of such practice depend upon a variety of variables." (Abstract)
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"Media have contributed significantly to the escalation of violent conflicts, but also have a strong potential for contributing to peace building and conflict transformation. The sooner the first steps are taken towards changing the existing media the cheaper and more efficient this process will bec
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ome. The need for boosting the rapid deployment is evident. The brief suggests the establishment of a rapid deployment facility bridging crisis-, mid- and long-term media and communication strategies. Whether the hosting organisation should be UNDPI, OCHA UNDP, UNESCO, or the secretariat of the new Peace Building Commission depends on a continued analysis and discussion among the stakeholders." (Summary)
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"I will define peace journalism as a normative theory claiming that the media ought to play a positive role in promoting peace. The basic premise of peace journalism is that if contemporary media tend to play a negative role in terms of increasing the tensions between and among the sides of a confli
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ct, they can also play a positive role by promoting peaceand reconciliation. Although it seems a good idea to promote peace journalism in journalistic circles, we should be aware of the formidable obstacles to this practice. I will outline these obstacles and comment on them. I argue that Journalists find easier to follow the official line, or to “index” themselves to the “official politics”. This protects journalists from criticism and helps them to “frame” conflict in a consensual manner. While this is the general trend, I will make some concluding suggestions to promote peace journalism as a suitable alternative to contemporary journalistic practices." (Abstract)
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"This book represents one step in explaining international efforts to promote independent media. It attempts to examine the nature and significance of media assistance, discussing the evolution of the field, the focus of various programming approaches, and the possible impact of such efforts. It pre
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sents case studies of media assistance programs in different countries. The book concludes with a set of recommendations for expanding and deepening media assistance for the international community. This book project grew out of a multi-country study that I directed in 2002–2004 to examine media assistance programs funded by the US Agency for International Development. The overall purpose of the study was to assess the nature and effectiveness of USAID programs and make policy and programmatic recommendations for the future. In writing this book I have mostly drawn from the massive information collected during two years of research and analysis. The book is based primarily on three sources of information. First are reviews of literature covering scholarly writings, project and program documents, and articles in popular magazines and newspapers on media assistance. Such reviews were country specific as well as global in nature. Because the academic literature is extremely limited and media assistance is hardly covered in magazines and newspapers except in high-profile cases such as Bosnia and Serbia, reviews largely relied on program documentation. I had the unique advantage of perusing thousands of documents that are not available to the public. Although mostly descriptive and often self-serving, they identified critical gaps in our knowledge and illuminated the challenges and achievements of international media endeavors. Second, my colleagues and I undertook extensive fieldwork in seven countries/regions—Afghanistan, Bosnia, Central America, Indonesia, Russia, Serbia, and Sierra Leone. In each of these cases, research teams conducted extensive discussions with international donor agencies, officials of host countries, project staff and contractors, and local media experts and journalists. Every possible effort was made to interview all those experts and managers who had intimate knowledge of the ongoing media assistance programs. Teams also examined locally available documents and reports and used translators to translate documents into English when necessary. In the absence of hard quantitative data, they largely relied on available documentation, indepth interviews, and their own knowledge of the media scene for their findings and conclusions. Finally, I organized a series of meetings in Washington, D.C., to discuss the findings of the country studies and explore new directions for media assistance programs. Such meetings helped to identify many problems and challenges facing media assistance programs and helped in formulating a set of recommendation for policymakers." (Chapter 1, page 10-11)
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"Tel est donc l’objectif de cet ouvrage : allier la réflexion théorique sur le rôle des médias dans les conflits et les processus de paix à des études de cas pratiques issus de l’expérience récente de neuf pays d’Afrique centrale. Cette recherche vise donc, d’une part, à mieux compr
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endre les dynamiques qui sont en jeu dans les paysages médiatiques de ces États et, d’autre part, à identifier des voies pouvant contribuer à les renforcer ou à les freiner. La documentation et la réflexion devant préparer l’action, ce livre ambitionne de fournir certains éléments d’analyse susceptibles d’aider à mieux comprendre et donc à mieux agir." (Introduction, page 8)
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"Während die Untersuchung von Kriegsberichterstattung und Propaganda auf eine lange Tradition in der sozialwissenschaftlichen Forschung zurückblicken kann, gibt es bislang erst wenige empirische Untersuchungen, welche die Berichterstattung über Nachkriegs- und Friedensprozesse zum Gegenstand habe
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n. Das vorliegende Buch untersucht diese Fragen unter einer dezidiert sozialpsychologischen Perspektive und enthält sowohl theoretische als auch empirische Arbeiten, in denen die Rolle der Medien in Kriegs- und Nachkriegssituationen aus drei Perspektiven beleuchtet wird: Produktionsbedingungen, Medieninhalt und Rezeption. Ausgehend von sozialpsychologischen Theorien und empirischen Befunden über Kriegsberichterstattung und Propaganda werden Konzepte einer konstruktiven Konfliktberichterstattung entwickelt und zu den Produktionsbedingungen von Journalismus in Beziehung gesetzt. Im Mittelpunkt des Projektes stehen vier empirische Untersuchungsfelder: (1) die Untersuchung der deutschen Presseberichterstattung über Frankreich von 1946 bis 1970, (2) die Untersuchung der deutschen, griechischen und serbischen Berichterstattung über Jugoslawien nach dem Sturz von Miloševiæ, (3) die Untersuchung der Akzeptanz deeskalationsorientierter Berichterstattung und ihrer Auswirkungen auf die mentalen Modelle der Leser, (4) die Untersuchung der Produktionsbedingungen von Konfliktberichterstattung." (Einleitung, Seite 7)
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