"How do peacebuilding organisations communicate about peace online and offline? Narrative competency must be a fundamental aspect of our work as peacebuilders in the modern age, as we confront the challenges posed by social media, divided on-line communities, growing political polarisation globally
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and more easily-ready manipulation tactics within public discourse. The term narrative is ubiquitous today and commonly used interchangeably with story. Indeed, storytelling is widely recognised now as an important skill within the social sector, a needed tool for social change that is woven into traditional conceptions of strategic communications, fundraising and awareness-raising on important societal issues. There is currently a lack of understanding within the peacebuilding field, however, of the concept of narrative fundamentally as a cognitive framework that resides at the level of our unconscious minds, which allows human beings to make meaning of the world. Several powerful philanthropies like Ford Foundation, Atlantic Philanthropies and the Open Society Foundation have recognised this deficit of understanding and are investing in narrative change platforms and resources for social justice and equality. Narratives are clearly much more than a passing fad. Our current strategic communications practices are siloed; organisational-level storytelling is no longer enough to confront these evolving conflict dynamics. Instead, the field of peacebuilding must commit to a more profound understanding and engagement at the level of societal narratives (meta-narratives or dominant narratives) that get to the heart of underlying attitudes, beliefs and actions that affect a peacebuilding agenda. While much has been written about how activists can address narrative change, peacebuilders have a special calling to engage with narratives in a way that is self-reflective, curious, seeks complexity and constructs meaning with others." (Executive summary)
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"This article presents a general framework for deconstructing and classifying conflict news narratives. This framework, based on a nuanced and contextual approach to analyzing media representations of conflict actors and events, addresses some of the weaknesses of existing classification schemes, fo
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cusing in particular on the dualistic approach of the peace journalism model. Using quantitative content analysis, the proposed framework is then applied to the journalistic coverage in the Israeli media of three Middle-Eastern conflicts: the Israeli–Palestinian conflict, the conflict surrounding Iran’s nuclear program, and the Syrian civil war. The coverage is examined in three leading news outlets – Haaretz, Israel Hayom, and Ynet – over a six-month period. Based on hierarchical cluster analysis, the article identifies four characteristic types of narratives in the examined coverage. These include two journalistic narratives of violence: one inward-looking, ethnocentric narrative, and one outward-looking narrative focusing on outgroup actors and victims; and two political-diplomatic narratives: one interactional, and one outward-looking. In addition to highlighting different constellations of points of view and conflict measures in news stories, the identified clusters also challenge several assumptions underlying existing models, such as the postulated alignment between elite/official actors and violence frames." (Abstract)
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"This Research Paper aims to analyse in depth the global propaganda strategy of the so-called “Islamic State” (IS) by looking at the methods through which this grand strategy is carried out as well as the objectives that IS wants to achieve through it. The authors first discuss IS’ growth mode
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l, explaining why global expansion and recruitment of foreign fighters are pivotal to IS success. Having in mind this critical role, the authors then explore the narratives and themes used by the group to mobilise foreign fighters and jihadists groups. Third, the paper analyses how IS deploys its narratives in those territories where it has established a foothold. Fourth, it outlines IS’ direct engagement strategy and how it is used to facilitate allegiance of other jihadist groups. The final section of the paper offers a menu of policy options that stakeholders can implement to counter IS’ global propaganda efforts." (Abstract)
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"The aim of this article is to further knowledge of the explanatory processes of narrative persuasion in the field of health communication, using data obtained in a research study of entertainment-education based on audiovisual fiction. Participating in the study were 208 young persons between the a
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ges of 14 and 20, randomly distributed to three different groups. Each of the groups was exposed to a different episode of the Colombian television series Revelados, desde todas as posiciones. The results showed that greater identification with the main character of the episode transmitting a prevention message was associated with greater cognitive elaboration, which in turn led to more favorable attitudes toward the topics addressed. However, counterarguing was not observed to play a significant mediating role. The findings of this study allow us to conclude that getting people to think and reflect can help persuade them, which suggests that narrative persuasion models and dual models of rhetorical persuasion can be compatible in certain contexts, such as when messages are designed in such a way that characters make explicit arguments that endorse a prosocial message through dialogues." (Abstract)
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"The starting point of this innovative book is that it is unsatisfactory either to consider conflict within a singular concept or alternatively to consider each conflict as entirely distinct and unique; Narrating Conflict in the Middle East explores another path to addressing long-term conflict. The
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contributors set out to examine the ways in which such conflicts in Palestine and Lebanon have been and are narrated, imagined and remembered in diverse spaces, including that of the media. They examine discourses and representations of the conflicts as well as practices of memory and performance in narratives of suffering and conflict, all of which suggest an embodied investment in narrating or communicating conflict." (Publisher description)
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"The anti-Taliban discourse during the Swat military operation, as mediated by the Pakistani state in its propaganda campaign, was aimed at maligning the Taliban militants in order to build support and legitimacy for the military offensive. The dominant trends in the analysis of state’s propaganda
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narratives in Pakistan’s two mainstream newspapers reveal that the main ideological discourse (Islam and national security) of the state remained unchanged during the conflict. In fact, the state tried to build its anti-Taliban narrative on the same ideological discourse. Since the meta-narrative of the state did not undergo any transformation, the post-9/11 anti-terrorism narrative of the state remains a superficial discourse. The discourse analysis of Pakistani state’s anti-Taliban narratives reveals this temporality and superficiality. The state, through its propaganda campaign, portrayed the Taliban as evil, as anti-state actors, who needed to be eliminated in the interests of the country. However, the state ideology supports a pro-Taliban narrative. The only conflict is operational and temporary. Thus, the state propaganda is not directed towards all Taliban, and it is event-specific and time-specific. The state has not abandoned the Islamic ideology and its so-called strategic discourse. The Islamic ideology and the national security discourse, on the basis of which Pakistan supported the Taliban in the 90s, suit more a pro-Taliban discourse. That is why the state’s anti-Taliban propaganda kept clashing with the ideology of the state." (Conclusion, page 23)
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"This collection of seventeen contributions provides a small but significant window into some of the themes that, in our view, will define research on narrative in the coming years. Some of these themes have already started taking center stage— for example, the diversification of methodological to
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ols, concepts, and contexts in the study of identities in narratives. Others are relatively new, such as the investigation of how mediated communication has changed storytelling practices and our conception of narrative. Yet other questions were already central to narrative research but have taken new directions—for instance, the study of how narratives participate in the construction of the moral order, and the different roles that truth and deception play in varying social practices. What emerges from the chapters in this book is a common emphasis on contexts and practices, a close attention to differences rather than an assumption of homogeneity. These elements confirm a welcome opening up of the field to the realities of postmodern societies." (Introduction, page 5-6)
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"Jenseits von Kulturkritik und Rechtfertigungsrhetorik untersucht Joachim Michael die Telenovela als Ergebnis des medialen Umbruchs der lateinamerikanischen Kulturen. Er zeigt, dass die Telenovela mehr als nur ein Format ist – sie markiert eine spezifische Kultur, deren eigentümliche Faszination
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sich aus dem televisionären Blickregime des Genres speist. Zudem ist sie in der lateinamerikanischen Moderne und ihrem Begehren nach nationaler Emanzipation verwurzelt. Hierin finden sich die Voraussetzungen für die allabendliche ›Tele-ImagiNation‹ der Gattung." (Verlagsbeschreibung)
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"Neste livro, José Roberto Sadek mostra que as telenovelas são uma maneira moderna de contar histórias. O autor baseia-se em estudos consagrados sobre as narrativas do cinema clássico e os aplica às telenovelas, mostrando ângulos pouco conhecidos. Na primeira parte do livro, traça um breve hi
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stórico da telenovela; na segunda, compara a estrutura dramática do cinema clássico com a das telenovelas; na terceira parte, aborda os personagens principais e secundários; por fim, trata do tempo na narrativa e do espaço em que as cenas se desenvolvem." (Ccontratapa)
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"If the dominant media stereotype portrays perpetrators as monsters, as ‘Prime Evil’, then the dominant academic image is the opposite. It paints them as ordinary people (gender ignored, but assumed as male) diligently under sway of modern bureaucratic compartmentalisation (the banality of evil
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thesis), or as obedient to authority and conforming to social pressures (the situationist thesis). No monsters here, just ordinary people under rather extraordinary circumstances. The moral message: we co uld all potentially become perpetrators, depending on the situation. There is a competing view: the perpetrator as a willing, even eager, executioner driven by strong negative emotions against the ‘other’. The scholarly world presents us with antagonistic perspectives. What picture do we get from narrative approaches, from stories told by those actually responsible for politically-related violence? First, there are only a few narrative studies. Second, they also paint competing pictures. On the one hand, is a picture of the perpetrator as a victim – of organisational routines, hierarchies, pressures and secrecy, and of dominant ideologies, as well as brutal initiation rites which instil the practice of obedience to authority. These narrative studies support the situationist and ordinary person line of explanation. They also correct the erstwhile neglect of gender issues by placing emphasis on masculinity as an important ingredient. On the other hand, the South African storytelling studies by Marks (2001), Straker (1992) and Campbell (1992) throw up a different picture. While victims in one sense – of Bantu education, poverty and violence at the hands of both state security agents and older vigilante groups – they are also action-oriented moral crusaders in defence of their communities and in politically-minded offensive against the apartheid state and its allies. Once again, we have contrasting and competing pictures of those responsible for political violence. In these particular storytelling perspectives, differences are partly due to the different positions of protagonists across the dividing line of power: state security personnel on the one hand and resistance activists on the other. Apart from the conflicting images from varying epistemological perspectives and different theoretical angles, the very label or category of a ‘perpetrator’ is more muddied, contested and problematic than a first glance would suggest. We described seven grey areas which challenge or disrupt the dominant binaries of victim-perpetrator and the triangular view of dramatis personae: perpetrator – ‘victim’ – bystander/observer. Moreover, in Chapter 4, we raise a number of moral quandaries or dilemmas in the study of those responsible for violence, which again dislodge the simple and tidy categories. Therefore a central component of the present study aims to problematise and disrupt the complacency of the very label and category of ‘perpetrator’. What should be done? In the face of these competing images and explanations we carve out a ‘third space’ beyond, or perhaps better, between the theoretical antagonisms of situationism versus agency (willing killers); among the grey areas between category labels of victim/perpetrator/bystander. Rather than this being seen as an alternative position, it should be read as an attempt at synthesis. Instead of the oppositional pairing of ‘either-or’, it should be seen in terms of the inclusive pairing ‘both-and’ (Foster, 1999).We argue that those responsible for violence should be regarded as potentially both victim and perpetrator, as well as both subject to circumstances/influences and active initiators." (Conclusion, page 321-322)
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"The second edition of this already-classic text has been completely revised to reflect the metamorphosis of communication in the last 15 years and the ubiquity of visual communication in our modern mediated lifestyle. 13 major theories of communication are defined by the top experts in their fields
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: perception, cognition, aesthetics, visual rhetoric, semiotics, cultural studies, ethnography, narrative, media aesthetics, digital media, intertextuality, ethics, and visual literacy. Each of these theory chapters is followed by an exemplar study or two in the area, demonstrating the various methods used in visual communication research as well as the research approaches applicable for specific media types. The Handbook of Visual Communication is a theoretical and methodological handbook for visual communication researchers and a compilation for much of the theoretical background necessary to understand visual communication. It is required reading for scholars, researchers, and advanced students in visual communication, and it will be influential in other disciplines such as advertising, persuasion, and media studies. The volume will also be essential to media practitioners seeking to understand the visual aspects of how audiences use media to contribute to more effective use of each specific medium." (Publisher description)
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