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Dov Shinar
Media Peace Discourse: Constraints, Concepts and Building Blocks
Normative, professional,
and academic premises steer the discussion of the importance and the absence
of a peace discourse in the media, and of the need and possibility to
invent one. Among the possible points of departure are that the media
should be involved in the promotion of peace; that peace coverage is hindered
by the absence of a peace discourse in the professional media repertoire;
and that 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 employed by
the media to cover peace; the competition in the media among dominant
and alternative frames, in which news-value is the measure of success;
and the concept of constitutive rhetoric the creation,
change and legitimization of realities through texts, rhetorical constructs
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; Trivialization;
and Ritualization suggests that the latter fits this conceptual
framework better than the others, and thus is more suitable for the 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; narrative techniques; and
performance styles; and concepts such as master-frames and
super-texts major motifs, composed of many smaller
frames 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 adapting the 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; on devising professional policies that
might reduce media self-manipulation and similar pressures; and on creating
and marketing a media peace discourse with satisfactory news
value based on innovative projects, and on the appropriate application
of existing findings.
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On the author:
Dov Shinar, Dean, The School of Media Studies, College of Management, Tel
Aviv; Professor, Department of Communication Studies and Head, The Burda
Center for Innovative Communications, Ben Gurion University, Israel; Professor
Emeritus, Concordia University, Montreal. His fields of interest include
the socio-cultural dimensions of communication technologies; international
communications; media in war and peace; media and development, emphasizing
collective 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, Beer Sheva 84105.
eMail: shinard@bgumail.bgu.ac.il |
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