Journalism in Conflict –Affected North-east: Editors and Professional Roles By Amina Yaguda,Documentary Producer and an Instructor at the Communications and Multimedia Design Department AUN, Yola

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  • Posted by: Imoh Robert

What is the character of the North East

  • African Resilience ?
  • Elasticity, the capacity to continue projecting the self into the future in spite of experiences of trauma, crisis, and emotional pain.

Adamawa

  • Cultural motif
  • Cameroon, Chad,
  • Multi-ethnic, Religious diversity
  • 80 -90 languages
  • As a microcosm of the NE, its been traumatized, bashed and battered
  • Freud says childhood trauma

Peace Journalism

  • Peace journalism appeared in the mid 1990’s as a trans-disciplinary field in the conflict –media nexus.
  • The experiences of conflicts globally brought to the fore the role of journalism and the media in political processes.
  • Peace studies seeks to understand the negation of violence through conflict transformation, cooperation and harmony by drawing from many disciplines.
  • Disciplines include psychology, sociology and anthropology, political science, economics, international relations, international law and history.
  • This raises the problem of the complementarity, coexistence and integration of different systems of knowledge.
  • Lynch and McGoldrick (2005) define peace journalism as a set of conceptual and practical  tools intended to equip journalist for better public service
  • It is an intentional strategy towards accurate  reporting of conflict in a socially conscious manner without escalating tensions or inciting violence.

  Lynch (2013)  Peace journalism is solution oriented,    highlighting peace initiatives, and in the aftermath of violence, efforts to promote resolution, reconstruction and reconciliation.

  • Peace journalisms urges reporters and audiences to pause, question and critically examine their response to  conflict reportage.

Peace Journalism

  • Can the absence of war signal peace?
  • Passive aggressive?
  • Simmering
  • Open, inclusive , public spaces, question authority without fear

Peace

  • Positive peace (Attitudes , institutions & structures that create and sustain peaceful society)
  • Negative peace (Absence of violence or fear of violence

Conflict

  •  Coser (1956) defines conflict as the struggle over values and claims to scarce status, power and resources.
  • Violent conflicts in Nigeria today, validate this definition. From herders farmers conflicts to kidnapping and banditry, IPOB agitations, political conflicts etc.
  • It is highly unlikely that conflicts will cease to exist in the world as they occur as a result of human differences in values, beliefs and traditions.
  • Conflicts occurs and progresses in stages. Lynch and Galtung (2010) argue that conflict can also be a good thing, an opportunity for human progress, finding new ways, imaginative creative and transformational without violence.

Conflict

  • There’s  often conflict before violence breaks out.
  • Violent cultures legitimize violence, like machismo;
  •  Violent structures exploit, repress and alienate people;
  • Violent actors, bullies with no concern for the hurt and harm they cause;
  • These combine to form basic conflicts that are left unattended.

Life Cycle of Conflict

  • Conflict appears, reaches an emotional, even violent climax, then tapers off, disappears and often reappears.
  • There is a logic behind this, since individuals and groups (such as nations and states) have goals:
  • Goals may be incompatible and mutually exclusive, like two states wanting the same land, or two nations wanting the same state;
  •  When goals are incompatible, a contradiction, an issue, is born;
  •  The more basic the goal, such as basic needs and interests, the more any actor or party with unrealized goals feels frustrated;
  • Frustration may lead to aggression, turning inwards as attitudes of hatred, or outwards as behaviour of verbal or physical violence;
  •  Hatred and violence may be directed towards those who hold the goals and stand in the way, but it is not always that ‘‘rational’’;
  • Violence is intended to harm and hurt (including oneself) and may breed a spiral of counter-violence in the form of defense and/or revenge;
  • This spiral of violence becomes a meta-conflict (like a cancerous metastasis), going beyond the goals of preserving and destroying.

Galtung on Peace

  • Direct  violence is intentional with an actor
  • Structural violence is often not intended but committed by an act of omission
  • Cultural Violence is driven by legitimization of harmful ideas

Father of Peace

Norwegian sociologist Johan Galtung is     considered the father of pace & conflict studies

  • Galtung and Ruge (1965) in their analysis of foreign news war coverage  describe the counter paradigm of peace journalism as oriented towards peace processes against violent events

Galtung on Peace

  • Peace is the absence or reduction of violence of all kinds
  • Peace is non violent and creative conflict transformation
  • The true test of peace is the ability to handle conflict without recourse to violence

Cardinal points of Peace Journalism

  • Peace, truth, people, solutions
  • At the core of peace journalism is the supremacy of truth  over negative propaganda.
  • People over elite
  • Solution over victory

Role of  Media in Peace Journalism

  • To provide timely and credible information
  • To alert audiences to emergency services
  • To report conflict neutrally

Hindrances

  • Government pressure
  • Political influences
  • Negative propaganda
  • Foreign Policy
  • Private business interests
  • Indigenous cultures and traditions

Framing

  • McCombs and Shaw (1972)
  • Audiences learn how much importance is attached to public issues based on the level of  media emphasis on issues. Framing and agenda setting of the news affect the process of formation of public opinion. Framing also reflects the perceptions and prejudices of journalists
  • Framing can help influence public opinion towards resolving conflict  .
  • Avoid use of language that frames the stories in a provocative or stereotypical manner.
  • Lynch and McGoldrick (2005) suggest journalists avoid using words like genocide, it means wiping out an entire people. In UN terms, it is the killing of more than half a million people.
  • Deep meanings, root causes, social contexts
  • Find news in peace

Positive Perspectives

  • Even though the journalistic ideal is for objectivity, when pitched between perpetrator of conflict and agent of peace, there should be no contest about where the loyalty of a journalist should be.
  • However, peace journalism should never be misconstrued for peace advocacy.

Reporting Conflict

  • Peace , Truth, People,  solution
  • People Oriented
  • Context
  • Solutions oriented
  • Proactive reporting
  • Context is vital to understanding the outbreak of a conflict (which should not be      seen as an isolated event).
  • Causes, issues and goals can often be traced back through history. By focusing only on the ongoing conflict, reporting is more likely to fuel further violence
  • Culture can also be an important factor, by allowing room in news reporting for a greater understanding of the cultural context, what had originally seemed like ‘strange’ behavior from one party may become more understandable.
  • Culture defines people’s identity.
  • Language, religion, ethnicity and nationality, can be an important source of conflict between individuals and groups.
  • Huntington (1993) posits that cultural factors are more likely to cause violent conflict than other factors since actors are less likely to compromise on such issues
  • People fight to maintain their own cultural identity or to remove others, and various

Conflict

  • There’s  often conflict before violence breaks out.
  • Violent cultures legitimize violence, like machismo;
  •  Violent structures exploit, repress and alienate people;
  • Violent actors, bullies with no concern for the hurt and harm they cause;
  • These combine to form basic conflicts that are left unattended.

Life Cycle of Conflict

  • Conflict appears, reaches an emotional, even violent climax, then tapers off, disappears and often reappears.
  • There is a logic behind this, since individuals and groups (such as nations and states) have goals:
  • Goals may be incompatible and mutually exclusive, like two states wanting the same land, or two nations wanting the same state;
  •  When goals are incompatible, a contradiction, an issue, is born;
  •  The more basic the goal, such as basic needs and interests, the more any actor or party with unrealized goals feels frustrated;
  • Frustration may lead to aggression, turning inwards as attitudes of hatred, or outwards as behaviour of verbal or physical violence;
  •  Hatred and violence may be directed towards those who hold the goals and stand in the way, but it is not always that ‘‘rational’’;
  • Violence is intended to harm and hurt (including oneself) and may breed a spiral of counter-violence in the form of defense and/or revenge;
  • This spiral of violence becomes a meta-conflict (like a cancerous metastasis), going beyond the goals of preserving and destroying.

Galtung on Peace

  • Direct  violence is intentional with an actor
  • Structural violence is often not intended but committed by an act of omission
  • Cultural Violence is driven by legitimization of harmful ideas

Father of Peace

Norwegian sociologist Johan Galtung is     considered the father of pace & conflict studies

  • Galtung and Ruge (1965) in their analysis of foreign news war coverage  describe the counter paradigm of peace journalism as oriented towards peace processes against violent events

Galtung on Peace

  • Peace is the absence or reduction of violence of all kinds
  • Peace is non violent and creative conflict transformation
  • The true test of peace is the ability to handle conflict without recourse to violence

Cardinal points of Peace Journalism

  • Peace, truth, people, solutions
  • At the core of peace journalism is the supremacy of truth  over negative propaganda.
  • People over elite
  • Solution over victory

Role of  Media in Peace Journalism

  • To provide timely and credible information
  • To alert audiences to emergency services
  • To report conflict neutrally

Hindrances

  • Government pressure
  • Political influences
  • Negative propaganda
  • Foreign Policy
  • Private business interests
  • Indigenous cultures and traditions

Framing

  • McCombs and Shaw (1972)
  • Audiences learn how much importance is attached to public issues based on the level of  media emphasis on issues. Framing and agenda setting of the news affect the process of formation of public opinion. Framing also reflects the perceptions and prejudices of journalists
  • Framing can help influence public opinion towards resolving conflict  .
  • Avoid use of language that frames the stories in a provocative or stereotypical manner.
  • Lynch and McGoldrick (2005) suggest journalists avoid using words like genocide, it means wiping out an entire people. In UN terms, it is the killing of more than half a million people.
  • Deep meanings, root causes, social contexts
  • Find news in peace

Positive Perspectives

  • Even though the journalistic ideal is for objectivity, when pitched between perpetrator of conflict and agent of peace, there should be no contest about where the loyalty of a journalist should be.
  • However, peace journalism should never be misconstrued for peace advocacy.

Reporting Conflict

  • Peace , Truth, People,  solution
  • People Oriented
  • Context
  • Solutions oriented
  • Proactive reporting
  • Context is vital to understanding the outbreak of a conflict (which should not be      seen as an isolated event).
  • Causes, issues and goals can often be traced back through history. By focusing only on the ongoing conflict, reporting is more likely to fuel further violence
  • Culture can also be an important factor, by allowing room in news reporting for a greater understanding of the cultural context, what had originally seemed like ‘strange’ behavior from one party may become more understandable.
  • Culture defines people’s identity.
  • Language, religion, ethnicity and nationality, can be an important source of conflict between individuals and groups.
  • Huntington (1993) posits that cultural factors are more likely to cause violent conflict than other factors since actors are less likely to compromise on such issues
  • People fight to maintain their own cultural identity or to remove others, and various

Story telling

  • Narrative is a fundametal way in which humans make sense of the world. (Origin stories,myths etc)
  • A chain of events in cause-effect relationship

Character Arc

  • A compelling character arc has a character facing fears and overcoming challenges as the story unfolds, usually resulting in the character’s personal growth.
  • A character arc is simply a summary of the journey of a character over the course of a story.
  • The Character’s journey leads to resolution.
  • Character arcs usually are  in line with  the traditional three-act story structure. 
  • Most start with the inciting incident that sets up the stakes and central conflict facing this character.

Transformational arc : Acharacter goes from being a regular person at the beginning of the story to a hero over the course of the story. eg: epic stories and the archetypal hero’s journey story structure

  • Cinderella

Positive change arc: Similar to a transformational arc  usually not  as dramatic. A character experience positive change over the course of a story.

  • Character starts out with a negative outlook or characteristics and develop a positive worldview by the end of the story. 
  • Example: In A Christmas Carol, Ebenezer Scrooge starts out as a rich old miser consumed by greed. Over the course of our story, he comes to change his views and becomes a benevolent and charitable person.

Negative change arc: Michael Corleone

Author: Imoh Robert

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