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conflict & communication online, Vol. 3, No. 1/2, 2004 Media Peace Discourse: Constraints, Concepts and Building Blocks
Kurzfassung: Normative, fachliche und akademische Voraussetzungen bestimmen die Diskussion sowohl über die Wichtigkeit als auch überdas Fehlen eines Friedensdiskurses in den Medien ebenso wie über die Notwendigkeit und die Möglichkeit, einen solchen Diskurs anzusto-ßen. Die Ausgangspunkte dafür bestehen darin, dass die Medien in die Friedensförderung einbezogen werden müssen, dass die Friedens-berichterstattung durch das Fehlen eines Friedensdiskurses im normalen Repertoire der Medien behindert wird; und dass die Installation,die Entwicklung und die Vermarktung eines Friedensdiskurses in den Medien in die aktuellen Forschungsaufgaben einbezogen werdensol ten.
Die Entwicklung eines friedensorientierten Mediendiskurses kann durch drei konzeptuelle Elemente unterstützt werden, (1) durch von denMedien bereits verwendete Strategien der Friedensberichterstattung, (2) durch den Wettbewerb zwischen dominanten und alternativenFrames, für welchen der Nachrichtenwert den Maßstab des Erfolges darstellt, und (3) durch das Konzept einer "konstitutiven Rhetorik" -das Erschaffen, die Legitimierung und die Veränderung von Wirklichkeit durch Texte, rhetorische Konstrukte und die Manipulierung vonSymbolen - als diskursschaffender Maßnahme.
Die Forschung bezüglich der drei Hauptstrategien, welche die Medien in der Friedensberichterstattung verwenden - (1) Framing der Frie-densberichterstattung in einem Kriegsdiskurs, (2) Trivialisierung und (3) Ritualisierung der Berichterstattung - lässt darauf schließen, dassdie letztgenannte Strategie besser als die beiden anderen in diesen konzeptionellen Rahmen passt und für die Entwicklung eines Friedens-diskurses in den Medien besser geeignet ist.
Einige Erkenntnisse und Modelle der Medienforschung können konzeptionell genutzt werden um paradigmatische Frames und Variablenbereitzustellen. Gute Beispiele hierfür bieten das Konzept des Medienereignisses und die verschiedenen Ansätze der Textanalyse, die sichauf narrative Techniken, Darstellungsstile und Konzepte wie jene des "Master-Frames" oder des "Super-Texts" beziehen -Strukturprinzi-pien, auf die zurückgegriffen werden kann, um mögliche Inhalte eines Friedensdiskurses in den Medien zu inspirieren.
Bezüglich der Forschungs- und Entwicklungsanstrengungen auf dem Gebiete der Friedensberichterstattung wird schließlich angeregt: (1)Die machtvolle Stellung der Medien bei der Gestaltung der internationalen Beziehungen muss benutzt werden, um negative Einstellungenzum Frieden zu überwinden. (2) Es ist wichtiger, den Nachrichtenwert der Friedensberichterstattung zu optimieren als missionarische Ver-suche zu unternehmen, die Strukturen der Medien und ihre professionellen Verfahrensweisen zu verändern. (3) Es muss nachgedachtwerden über eine professionelle Politik, die die Selbstmanipulation der Medien und ähnliche Zwänge reduzieren könnte. (4) Es muß darangearbeitet werden, einen Friedensdiskurs zu entwickeln, der über hinreichend hohen Nachrichtenwert verfügt. Dafür kann auf bereits vor-handen Erkenntnisse und innovative Projekte aufgebaut werden.
Abstract: Normative, professional, and academic premises steer the discussion of the importance and the absence of a peace discoursein the media, and of the need and possibility to invent one. Among the possible points of departure are that the media should be involvedin the promotion of peace; that peace coverage is hindered by the absence of a peace discourse in the professional media repertoire; andthat the creation, development, and marketing of a media peace discourse should be included in the current research agenda.
The development of a peace-oriented media discourse can be assisted by three conceptual elements, namely, the existing strategies em-ployed by the media to cover peace; the competition in the media among dominant and alternative frames, in which news-value is themeasure of success; and the concept of “constitutive rhetoric” – the creation, change and legitimization of realities through texts, rhetoricalconstructs and the manipulation of symbols – as a discourse-building device.
Research on the three major strategies used by the media in the coverage of peace – Framing Peace Coverage in War Discourse; Trivi-alization; and Ritualization – suggests that the latter fits this conceptual framework better than the others, and thus is more suitable forthe development of a media peace discourse. Some findings and models of media research can be used for conceptual leverage by providing paradigmatic frameworks and variables.
Good examples include the media events and the textual analysis genres, as they are particularly related to professional effects; narrativetechniques; and performance styles; and concepts such as “master-frames” and “super-texts” – major motifs, composed of many smallerframes or sub-texts – to suggest the potential contents of a media peace discourse.
Finally, it is proposed that research and development efforts of media peace coverage along these lines should include work on adaptingthe current powerful status of the media in international relations to overcome negative peace-related attitudes; on increasing the news-value of peace coverage rather than undertaking missionary efforts to change media structures and professional codes of conduct; ondevising professional policies that might reduce media self-manipulation and similar pressures; and on creating and “marketing” a mediapeace discourse with satisfactory news value based on innovative projects, and on the appropriate application of existing findings.
conflict & communication online, Vol. 3, No. 1/2, 2004 Media Peace Discourse: Constraints, Concepts and Building Blocks Premises
The importance and the absence of a peace discourse in the media and of the need and possibility to invent one are ana-lyzed on the basis of normative, professional, and academic premises acquired from previous work on the topic ( Shinar,2000).
The normative premises are that the media should use the considerable powers they have acquired in international com- munications – as active participants, catalysts, mediators, and messengers (in addition to the traditional roles of observersand reporters) – in order to promote peace (Shinar, 2003; Lynch, 1998); and that the media should be involved in thepromotion of peace, regardless of: Conservative objections to an alleged loss of objectivity linked with the promotion of peace; Theoretical and practical questions about what version of peace should be promoted; and, Economic and political institutional constraints built into the media structure, including the notions of media “intran-sitivity”, “speech without response”, and “non-communication”, in which the style and discourse do not allow for crit-ical dialogue (Baudrillard, 1972, 2001).
Objections about the loss of objectivity can be countered with the argument that the transition of media roles from reporter/observer to participant and catalyst in international relations are part of the ongoing erosion of a mythical “objectivity” andof the acceptance of subjective reality construction concepts. Questions of what version of peace should be promoted canbe settled by demanding that free speech, professional integrity and ethics be guaranteed, just as in the coverage of crime. Institutional constraints can be countered by elaborating concepts, practical rules and field procedures, such as reportingbased on peace, facts, people, and solutions, rather than on war, propaganda, elites, and victory (Lynch, 1998). The normative premises require the media to produce persuasive symbols of security, alternatives to those of war. Themedia should create a plausible sense of change in the roles played by archenemies once they become peacemaking part-ners. Finally, they should act as participants and catalysts in psychological adjustment – including the reduction of disso-nance, paranoid feelings, etc. – to the unknown environments created in peace processes, since these traumatical ycontradict a long-term climate of war.
The professional premises are: The code-of-conduct that calls for media responsiveness to social change also calls on themedia to join in peacemaking efforts. Criticisms of media performance in the recent wars in the Middle East and elsewherecall for new ways to encourage peace journalism, in the spirit of the work done by Lynch (1998, 2003), Kempf (2003) andothers. Final y, peace coverage is limited by professional preferences for war and violence and by the absence of a peacediscourse in the professional media repertoire. Based on competition, high news-value and ratings, the current economic structures of the media entail a preference forwar. Together with instant-transmission technologies, these structures impose ethical constraints on the accuracy of infor-mation and on crosschecking practices. Such structural constraints do not necessarily exclude the promotion of peace fromthe media repertoire, as they do not involve structural changes, and as under certain circumstances the news-value ofpeace might be increased. What is involved is an appropriate execution of wel -defined professional policies and a moreattentive professional attitude in media practice.
Coverage of the Rumanian revolution and the Gulf War (Shinar and Stoiciu, 1992) teach that the absence of well-definedpolicies might increase manipulation and enhance “self-manipulation” – the priority given by international news editors(more than their field reporters) to incoming items that fit their own state-of-mind, psychological predispositions and news-value expectations, rather than to accept evidence from the field. In the coverage of the Rumanian revolution and the GulfWar, self-manipulation has produced myriad myths (conspiracy, “the monster”, spontaneous reaction, national and inter-national unity, and “clean” techno-ecological warfare (op. cit., 248-250)). When editorial expectations are not fulfilled, themedia tend to voluntarily act as loudspeakers for war and violence, and to disseminate news based on unverified officialbriefings, rumors, false information, and editors’ wishful thinking. A stronger emphasis on professional attitudes and pre-occupation with the ethical constraints produced by new technologies might moderate “demonization” and fortify the hu-manization of media images, make the coverage of violence less sensationalistic and “yel ow” and help overcome accuracytraps. The academic premises are that the invention, development and marketing of a media peace discourse should be included in the current research agenda. Important as they may be, social commitment, wel -defined policies and professional atti-tudes are not sufficient to allow the media to make significant contributions to peace. Without adequate attitudes and prop-er tools, journalism is impaired in the performance of this service. One such crucial tool, media peace discourse, is currentlymissing in the journalistic repertoire. Thus an improved agenda for research on peace journalism and discourse should bedirected at recommending ways to overcome the customarily negative (or at least indifferent) media attitude towards peaceand to increase the news-value of peace coverage. conflict & communication online, Vol. 3, No. 1/2, 2004 Media Peace Discourse: Constraints, Concepts and Building Blocks Conceptual Building Blocks
The development of a peace-oriented media discourse can be assisted by at least three conceptual building blocks.
2.1 Identifying Strategies
The first building block concerns the existing strategies employed by the media to frame peace stories. Together with anembryonic peace discourse that can be detected sporadically, and with the experimental demonstration of certain forms ofpeace discourse (see Lynch 1998), peace is usual y framed in strategies designed to increase its news-value, such as thediscourses of war, of ‘trivialization’, and of ‘ritualization’ (Shinar, 2000). Framing peace in the discourse of war is the most frequently used coverage strategy (Shinar, 2000), as it adapts the ter-minology of war and violence to peace coverage (see Table 1), to symbolic clichés, and to direct quotations of leaders’military discourse.
WAR/VIOLENCE JOURNALISM
PEACE/CONFLICT JOURNALISM
Focus on conflict arena, 2 parties, 1 goal (win), Explore conflict causation, x parties, y goals, z issues Closed space, closed time; causes and exits in arena, Open space, open time; causes and outcomes anywhere, also in “Us-them” journalism, propaganda, voice, for “us” Giving voice to all parties; empathy, understanding See “them” as the problem, focus on who prevails in war See conflict/war as problem, focus on conflict creativity Dehumanization of “them”; more so the more frightening the weapon Humanization of all sides; more so the more devastating the Reactive: waiting for violence before reporting Proactive: prevention before any violence/war occurs (trauma and glory, damage to structure/culture) Expose “their” untruths “Our” cover-ups/lies Expose untruths on all sides / uncover all cover-ups Focus on “our” suffering; on able-bodied elite males, being their mouth- Focus on suffering everywhere; on women, the aged, children, piece Conceal peace-initiative, before victory is at hand Highlight peace initiatives, also to prevent more war Focus on treaty, institution, the control ed society Focus on structure, culture, the peaceful society Leaving for another war, return if the old flares up Aftermath: resolution, reconstruction, reconciliation Table 1: A Characterization of War Journalism and Peace Journalism (suggested by Galtung's Analysis). Adapted from Jake Lynch (1998), The Peace Journalism Option, Conflict & Peace Forums/TRANSCEND In the absence of a peace discourse that satisfies dominant news-value demands, trivialization is the process whereby gos-sip, trivial information, colorful human-interest stories, and media personalities are upgraded to become news. Ritualizationis the adoption, by the media, of ritual elements typical of peacemaking negotiations and ceremonies that enjoy high news-value. This discourse appears both in isolated cases and in the coverage of entire rituals such as ‘media events’ (Dayan andKatz, 1992). Isolated elements include the use by the media of symbols of loss and suffering; symbolic transition (from warto peace, from enemy to partner); a time dimension (duration of the conflict and of negotiations, marathon sessions); last-minute crises; and public opinion measurements (Shinar, 2000).
conflict & communication online, Vol. 3, No. 1/2, 2004 Media Peace Discourse: Constraints, Concepts and Building Blocks 2.2 Evaluative Strategies
The second conceptual building block is the evaluation of the strategies used by the media to cover war and peace in thecontext of their unequal news value. The use of dominant war discourse to cover peace shows an adaptive acceptance bythe media of the lower news-value of peace stories. This does not encourage the development of alternative frames, rhet-oric or imagery. Nonetheless, research on this strategy helps to contextualize it among the dominant discourses – such asthe “discourse of state leaders” and the “discourse of the victims” (Bruck, 1988) – and to question other types of mediarhetorical structures, such as “specialized political discourse”, “expert strategic discourse” and “scientific public discourse”(Meyer, 1995), “bureaucratic technical discourse” and the “discourse of survival” (Bruck, 1989).
The informal touch of trivialization – and its more reputable versions, such as the “journalism of attachment” (Bell, 1996),“victim journalism” (Hume, 1997), “justice journalism” (Messman, 2001) or “engaged journalism” (Lynch, 2003) – mightadd some appeal and news-value to peace framing. But this strategy is useful only with regard to some specific aspects.
As human-interest stories can easily detract from deeper analysis, this strategy does not allow for a treatment of peacebeyond a superficial level. Thus it can be no more than a secondary feature of a peace-oriented discourse. Nevertheless,judging from a news-value point of view, its human story and tabloid gossip style make the trivialization strategy importantin the total consideration of a media peace discourse, and thus research on this strategy should be encouraged. At present, it seems that the ritualizing process lends itself to alternative framing better than other strategies. The use anddevelopment of this strategy in peace-oriented coverage, particularly in media events, might enhance the legitimacy ofpeace rituals and celebrations, and integrate them into the dominant media discourse.
Moreover, the repetitive, performative and representational qualities of media events (Dayan and Katz, 1992) might helpto create a discursive mechanism that enhances the psychological immediacy and social insulation necessary for the mo-bilization and regularization of behavior aimed toward given goals (Geertz, 1973), such as the transition to a climate ofpeace.
2.3 Constitutive Rhetoric
The third conceptual building block is the discursive mechanism known as “constitutive rhetoric” – the creation, changeand legitimization of realities through texts, rhetorical constructs and the manipulation of symbols. The application of “con-stitutive rhetoric” to the construction of a media peace discourse is based on the premise that the assignment of meaningis a central feature in the symbolic role of the media. Through this process, normative choices are introduced into the socio-cultural agenda, showing the world as an organized universe of meaning (Turner, 1977). The assignment of meaning bythe media often takes the form of ritual action that stores meaning “in symbols which become indexical counters in subse-quent situational contexts (ibid. 63). This approach is applicable to media rhetoric and imagery in many areas, includingthe coverage of peace. Constitutive rhetoric is thus a mechanism that assigns meaning to new symbolic entities or processes through the combi-nation of social or historical narratives with ideological objectives. Charland (1987) illustrates this mechanism with the in-vention of the term “Quebecois” – an alternative ideological frame created in 1967 to chal enge the hitherto dominant“French-Canadian” (Charland, 1987). Shinar mentions the invention of terms in the Jewish Zionist and Palestinian nationalmovements in order to mobilize and activate their members (Shinar et al., 1990). Examples of the Israeli and Palestinianconstitutive rhetoric include: Constructed in every sense, such value-laden connotative discourse legitimizes and integrates organizational and politicalmyths into social structures, creates “reference publics” (Lipsky, 1970), and calls “audiences into being” (Charland, 1987).
Thus, together with supplying peace narratives through journalistic practices, the ideological orientations of peace journal-ism – towards conflict rather than war, fact rather than propaganda, people rather than elites, and solutions rather than conflict & communication online, Vol. 3, No. 1/2, 2004 Media Peace Discourse: Constraints, Concepts and Building Blocks victory – can serve as bases for creating the constitutive rhetoric of a media peace discourse. Creating a Media Peace Discourse
Together with work conducted directly on the deconstruction of war discourse and the construction of peace discourse(Kempf, 2003), some paradigmatic frameworks and variables taken from media research can be used for additional con-ceptual leverage. Examples refer to style, as demonstrated in media events research (Dayan and Katz, 1992), and to con-tent, as displayed in the textual analysis genre (Snow and Benford, 1992, Browne, 1984). 3.1 Style of Peace Journalism and Discourse: Media Events
Media events research is particularly related to professional effects, narrative techniques and performance styles; it pro-vides the following style variables: 3.1.1 Redefining the Rules of Journalism: New Styles
Media events redefine the rules of journalism. One classic example is the public pledge made by British newspapers follow-ing Princess Diana’s funeral to moderate media interference with the private lives of the Royal Family. Media events em-phasize the integrative and consensual dimensions of journalism, add credibility and respectability to journalistic work andprovide media organizations with opportunities to test new formats, to revive journalistic enthusiasm and to restore a senseof professional achievement (Dayan and Katz, 1992). These can be important contributions to both a change in media at-titudes in favor of peace journalism and to the creation of a media peace discourse. Such qualities reduce the ‘adversarial’and ‘challenger’ images in discourses inherited from the Cold War and increase the news-value of peace. The creation of new peace-coverage formats might also help to reduce the role-conflict linked to the need journalists feelto use reverential rhetoric in their self-ascribed ceremonial roles when covering media events.
3.1.2 Narrative Styles: New Options
Media events studies offer three types of narratives – Conquests, namely the live broadcast of rare events where a “hero– facing insuperable odds – enters the enemy camp unarmed …,” such as Anwar Sadat’s journey to Jerusalem; Contests,“rule-governed battles of champions in sports and politics, such as the World Cup or presidential debates”; and Coronations, ceremonial parades, featuring the “ritual transformation of the hero from one status to the next, such as the Kennedy,Rabin, or King Hussein state funerals (Dayan and Katz, 1992, 27-29).
Such narrative styles can be further explored and combined in a media peace discourse. Although Dayan and Katz dovaguely recognize that these styles can be combined, their basic premise is that these categories are mutually exclusive.
A more flexible approach can depart more explicitly from a Weberian ideal-type classification, in order to accommodate thevarious combinations possible in media events related to peacemaking and peacekeeping. Thus the Barak-Arafat “gentle- men’s dispute” over who should precede whom in going through a door at Camp David, or the hugs and kisses of Israelisand Palestinians at the Geneva talks in 2003, illustrate the presence of a symbolic ritualizing discourse. Touches of dramacan thereby be introduced into the joint appearance of contest, confrontation and coronation formats, thus increasing their news-value. Conquest and coronation are also combined in the geography of peace coverage, focusing on sites where ne-gotiations occur and peace treaties are signed, such as, in the Middle Eastern case: Cairo, the Arava desert (where theJordanian king crossed the border), Tel Aviv, the Gaza Strip, Oslo and more recently Geneva.
3.1.3 Performance Styles: New Dimensions
Research on media performance styles can enrich peace coverage. In the case of media events, they include motifs of equalaccess, humanization, dramatic coherence and the interpretation of contexts and symbols (Shinar 2000).
Equal access is a structural feature of media events. It is well illustrated in the Israeli daily Yediot Aharonot by a captionthat accompanied a photo of the ceremony at which the Israeli-Palestinian agreement was signed: “Even those who didnot own a TV set wanted to see the making of history yesterday. In Gaza, they crowded into appliance stores and did notforget to applaud at the right moments” (Yediot). Humanization concerns the multi-faceted, “humanized” and sometimes-trivialized pictures induced by the “puzzle effect”made possible by television technology. In peacemaking ceremonies, for example, global audiences can witness, in additionto formal gestures, the handshakes, the military bands and the soaring balloons, presidents wiping away tears, vice-pres-idents’ wives taking souvenir snapshots with pocket cameras and ministers drinking bottled mineral water. Dramatic coherence is a style component that shapes a story into a form familiar to the audience, as in sports coverage conflict & communication online, Vol. 3, No. 1/2, 2004 Media Peace Discourse: Constraints, Concepts and Building Blocks clichés. In reporting peacemaking events, the Israeli press has often recurred to Shakespearean metaphors such as “TheTaming of the Shrew,” with reference to Arafat, or the story of Romeo and Juliet, with reference to the secret Jordanian-Israeli talks that led to the peace agreement.
Interpretation of contexts and symbols is a function performed particularly during breaks and “low points” in live broadcastsof media events.
Some Middle Eastern examples include insights provided by media personalities on their memories of contacts with foreignleaders, on the history of the sites chosen for peacemaking ceremonies, or on protocol items, such as the seating plans atofficial peacemaking banquets.
3.1.4 Contents of Peace Journalism and Peace Discourse: Framing Techniques
While media events research can contribute to the stylistic development of a media peace discourse, research on majormotifs, composed of many smal er frames or sub-texts, such as in ‘super-texts’ (Browne, 1984) and ‘master-frames’ (Snowand Benford, 1992), can suggest the potential contents of such a discourse. Research on the application of these techniquesto peace-related symbolic and ritual media coverage – such as peace processes in the Middle East; Northern Ireland; theIntifada; the 9/11 attacks on the USA; the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq – has yielded significant variables and strong in-dications of enhanced news-value. The coverage of such events as super-texts produces a symbolic language that com-bines spontaneous popular reactions with strategies of media coverage. They illustrate a possible analytical framework inwhich “super-texts” or “master-frames” include smaller peace-related frames. The following observations on peace-relatedsymbolic and ritual behaviors in media coverage – of Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin’s assassination in November 1995and of Sir Elton John’s ‘Peace Concert’, held in Belfast in May of 1998 to celebrate the peace agreement in Northern Ireland– feature master frames that can be considered as preliminary categories of a possible analytical framework for definingthe news-value criteria for peace-related events. These categories include peace-related sites and occasions, rituals andproducts.
Sites and OccasionsIn the coverage of the Rabin assassination and in its aftermath, peace-related sites and occasions included the coverageof symbolic sites and moments, such as the Square of the Kings of Israel (site of the assassination, later symbolical y re-named Rabin Square), Rabin’s house, and his tomb. Dramatic footage, such as Rabin’s last moments before the shooting,granddaughter Noa’s eulogy and Arafat’s expression of condolence was broadcast repeatedly, and an “industry of publicremembrance rituals” flourished in which Rabin’s name was given to streets, squares, medical centers, research institutes,schools, railway stations and restaurants. In the case of Northern Ireland, Elton John’s Peace Concert was held at a criticalmoment in the peace process, and the coverage emphasized sites such as Stormont Castle, Belfast and the like.
RitualsIn the coverage of the Rabin assassination, the media showed peace rituals that included young people, later called ‘thecandle kids’, sitting in circles in the square, lighting candles, singing and drawing graffiti on themes of peace; crowds wan-dering around the square, many of them watching the full media coverage of the official funeral on large TV screens, thusbecoming both participants and coverage items for the crews on the site. In the Elton John Peace Concert, lighting candlesand body language emphasized ritualistic features.
ProductsIn the coverage of the Rabin assassination, peace-related products included the evocative phrase ‘Shalom Haver’ (Goodbye,Friend), used by President Clinton in his eulogy, later printed on bumper stickers by Israeli peace movements, and by theiropponents, who used variants of the same phrase to react; also videocassettes, posters and photo exhibits are included inthis category.
Peace-related products in Elton John’s Peace Concert included Elton John himself, peace-related songs, CDs and other me-mentos sold on the spot that may have enhanced the news-value of that peace event. Conclusions
Communications research can be useful in devising an inventive and flexibly updated agenda that explicitly recognizes andcopes with the challenges posed by new developments. Our analysis and discussion leads, first, to offering a media framingdimension for the characterization of war and peace journalism and discourse, as described in Table 2.
conflict & communication online, Vol. 3, No. 1/2, 2004 Media Peace Discourse: Constraints, Concepts and Building Blocks Experimental demonstrations of peace discourse Redefining Rules of JournalismAdapting Narrative styles: conquests, contests, coronationsAdapting Performance Styles: equal access, humanization, dra-matic coherence, interpretation of contexts and symbols "master-frames," "super-texts" made of peace-related sites and occasions, peace-related rituals and peace-related 'products'.
Assignment of meaning to new symbolic entities/processes (i.e. peace), through reality construction and combination of social and historical narratives with ideological objectives Table 2: Adding a Media Dimension To Galtung’s Characterization of War Journalism and Peace Journalism. Peace- And War-Oriented Me-dia Framings Secondly, research and development efforts to create media peace-coverage along these lines could produce an updatedmedia research and development agenda directed at: Adapting media values and practices to current realities, in which the newly acquired higher status of the media ininternational relations can be used to overcome negative media peace-related attitudes and peace-coverage tech-niques inherited from the Cold War; Increasing the news-value of peace coverage in the media frame contest, rather than conducting missionary attemptsto change war-oriented media structures and professional codes of conduct; Devising wel -defined professional policies, whose proper execution might reduce media self-manipulation and exter-nal pressures; Creating and ‘marketing’ a media peace discourse with satisfactory news value based on the appropriate applicationof the available findings of innovative research. Baudrillard, J. (1972): “Requiem for the Media”. In: For a Critique of the Political Economy of the Sign, trans. Charles Levin, St. Louis: Baudrillard, J. (2001): “The Masses: The Implosion of the Social in the Media”. In: Mark Poster (ed.) Jean Baudrillard: Selected Writings, Stanford: Stanford University Press.
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On the author: Dov Shinar, Dean, The School of Media Studies, College of Management, Tel Aviv; Professor, Department of CommunicationStudies and Head, The Burda Center for Innovative Communications, Ben Gurion University, Israel; Professor Emeritus, Concordia Univer-sity, Montreal. His fields of interest include the socio-cultural dimensions of communication technologies; international communications;media in war and peace; media and development, emphasizing col ective identities, institutional change, media education, and minority/community media. Address: Department of Communication Studies, Ben Gurion University of the Negev (www.burdacenter.bgu.ac.il), P.O. Box 653, BeerSheva 84105. eMail: [email protected]

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