How media play a key role in the strategic planning of different actors within peace and conflict
How media play a key role in the strategic planning of different actors within peace and conflict
Media are important strategic channels for actors within conflict, peace, security and social processes – including governments, politicians, rebel groups, humanitarian aid organizations, and terrorists. Mass media, traditional media, digital media and ‘new media’ are platforms where actors try to harness media in their battle for winning 'hearts and minds'. But how do actors engage with their media environments? Do they see it merely as a platform? And how do media platforms affect social processes? Can media be a facilitator of change, or continuance? Of violence, or peace?
The Media research group seeks a holistic research approach that furthers critical debate on how media function as mediators, facilitators, and interpreters of conflict, crises and social dynamics, both locally and internationally. Our approach includes both traditional media (television, radio, digital and print) and 'new media' such as Facebook and Twitter. Our research includes the following themes:
National and international media landscapes both influence and are influenced by political agendas. Media play a role in shaping identities, and they contribute to inclusionary and exclusionary processes and social change. Methods for researching media are tools that enable researchers to understand such media ‘effects’. Regarding media as platforms for discourses is useful to observe agendas and discourses, be informed about societal events and processes, and analyze the interrelations between media and social dynamics.
Wars, conflicts, and crises are influenced by media – whether local, national, or international. Media can be used by conflict actors to sustain conflict or sell war rationales, or by non-violent peace activists in their attempt to end war. They can contribute to making such processes visible, or even credible, to a large audience. Extensive coverage through an ever increasing number of 24-hour media networks can shape citizens' perceptions of which crises are important. Aid actors can use media to raise public pressure to 'do something' in times of crisis. Media play a role in affecting societal processes and social structures in times of war, conflict and crisis.
'New media', as platforms that allow open participation, are increasingly used to mobilize and influence societal outcomes. Examples of such media are blogs, Wikipedia, Instagram, YouTube, Twitter, and Facebook. What has come to be known as the Arab Spring demonstrated the power of new media, as ordinary citizens used their access to virtual social networks in protesting against authorities. The question of whether such efforts are replicable, now that governments are aware of the (perceived) power of new media, remains. Furthermore, new media can function as platforms for security policies or the establishment of a sense of post-disaster community at the grassroots level.
How should media communicate during conflict and crises? How do we balance a robust freedom of speech with ethical concerns such as truthfulness, quality, and decency? This has become a great challenge, as media reports, and the accompanying global reach of the Internet and social media, can spread all kinds of messages at great speed, often inflaming passions and sometimes laying the groundwork for or exacerbating social conflict. At the same time, it is exceedingly hard to regulate the tone and atmosphere of the media without infringing on free speech and the freedom of the press. Finding innovative and ethically sound ways to strike this balance is arguably one of the great tasks of our times.
Teuta Kukleci has successfully defended her master's thesis The “Low Road”: Ethnic Division and Bosnian Newspaper Coverage of Landmark Cases of Sexual Violence at the ICTY at the University of Oslo.
Friday, we got to know that a large project has been funded by the Research Council of Norway's INFRASTRUKTUR initiative, that aims to build up relevant, up-to-date infrastructure that is accessible to the research community, to various private and public sector user groups, and to the general public.
The ambition of the ODAS project is to explain how online dangerous speech contributes to communal violence in Southeast Asia.
In the article, published in the journal Politics, Religion & Ideology, Katrine Fangen examines two anti-Islamic Facebook groups.
Julie Marie Hansen, Doctoral Researcher at PRIO, presented a paper atthe international conference ‘Social Media in Armed Conflict’ on 25-26 November2020.
The Peace Research Institute Oslo (PRIO) and the Myanmar Institute for Peace and Security (MIPS) invite submissions of abstracts for papers to be presented at the Social Media in Armed Conflict conference, to be held on 25-26 November 2020.
PRIO is one of eleven organizations from civil society who have created the Forum on Information and Democracy, a new international entity tasked with implementing the principles of the International Partnership on information & Democracy, an intergovernmental agreement signed by a coalition of 30 States on the margins of the UN General Assembly last September.
On 2 August, Julie Marie Hansen gave a talk about sexual violence in armed conflict at KSAS, Humanity Institute in Myitkyina, Myanmar.
With so much attention on the destructive role of Facebook in Myanmar, Doctoral Researcher Julie M.
From early 2018, Julie Marie Hansen will start a three-year doctoral research project studying the gendered impacts of social media on armed conflict and peacebuilding in Myanmar.
MIPS Annual Peace and Security Review
Journal Article in Patterns of Prejudice
Popular article in PRIO Blogs
Book chapter in The Politics of Written Language in the Arab World: Writing Change
Book chapter in The Politics of Written Language in the Arab World: Writing Change
Journal Article in International Journal of Middle East Studies