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?
MIT-WPU/PRIO Conference
MIT-WPU in Pune, India, 1–2 November 2023
CALL FOR PAPERS
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.
Congratulations to Teuta!
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. The ultimate ambition of ODAS is to test a causal connection between dangerous online speech and violence. To do so, speech and violence data must be merged.
This is one out of five PRIO projects that today have received funding from the Research Council of Norway.
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 at
the international conference ‘Social Media in Armed Conflict’ on 25-26 November
2020.
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. The conference will focus on the broad theme of social media and digital information and communication technologies (ICTs) in armed conflict and peace processes, with a particular focus on Myanmar. The deadline for submitting an abstract is now 28 August, 2020 (extended, see submission details below).
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. It is the continuation of the international process launched by Reporters Without Borders (RSF) in September 2018.
On 2 August, Julie Marie Hansen gave a talk about sexual violence in armed conflict at KSAS, Humanity Institute in Myitkyina, Myanmar. Hansen introduced current theories on the causes and consequences of conflict-related sexual violence, and an overview of efforts to prevent and mitigate the impact of this type of violence.
With so much attention on the destructive role of Facebook in Myanmar, Doctoral Researcher Julie M. Hansen points out the constructive side of Facebook by bringing in examples of how women in Myanmar use of the social media platform. She writes:
"The
spread of hate speech and misinformation online that incites real-life violence
are serious issues that deserve the media attention they have received, and the
tech community must prioritise finding a solution. Yet, for a fuller
understanding of the role of Facebook – which has become such a dominant tool in
Myanmar for information and communication that is almost synonymous with the
internet – we should also recognise the platform’s constructive side. And this becomes apparent when we look at how
the social media platform is used by women."
Report - External Series
Journal Article in Patterns of Prejudice
Conference Paper
Conference Paper
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
Edited Volume
Journal Article in International Journal of Middle East Studies
Journal Article in Ethnicities
Julie Marie Hansen
Doctoral Researcher