Communication and Peace

Mapping an emerging field

Julia Hoffmann, Virgil Hawkins, Julia Hoffmann, Virgil Hawkins

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2015
• eBook ISBN: 9781317680475
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Military & Maritime History
• Index: Politics & International Relations

This book analyses the use of communication in resolving conflicts, with a focus on de-escalation and processes of peacebuilding and peace formation.

From the employment of hate radio in the Rwanda genocide, to the current conflict between Russia and the Ukraine following events in the Crimea, communication and the media are widely recognized as powerful tools in conflicts and war. Although there has been significant academic attention on the relationship between the media, conflict and war, academic efforts to understand this relationship have tended to focus primarily on the links between communication and conflict, rather than on communication and peace.

In order to make sense of peace it is essential to look at communication in its many facets, mediated or not. This is true within many of the diverse strands that make up the field of communication and peace, but it is also true in the sense that a holistic and interdisciplinary approach is missing from the literature. This book addresses this widely acknowledged lacuna by providing an interdisciplinary perspective on the field, bringing together relevant, but so far largely isolated, streams of research. In doing so, it aims to provide a platform for further reflection of the meaning of, and requirements for, peace in our contemporary world with a focus on de-escalation, conflict transformation, reconciliation and processes of peacebuilding – as opposed to conflict escalation or crisis intervention.

This volume will be of much interest to students of peace and conflict studies, peacebuilding, media and communication studies, security studies and IR in general.

Routledge Studies in Peace and Conflict Resolution

Series Editors: Tom Woodhouse and Oliver Ramsbotham

University of Bradford

Peace and Security in the Postmodern World

The OSCE and conflict resolution

Dennis J.D. Sandole

Truth Recovery and Justice after Conflict

Managing violent pasts

Marie Breen Smyth

Peace in International Relations

Oliver P. Richmond

Social Capital and Peace-Building

Creating and resolving conflict with trust and social networks

Edited by Michaelene Cox

Business, Conflict Resolution and Peacebuilding

Contributions from the private sector to address violent conflict

Derek Sweetman

Creativity and Conflict Resolution

Alternative pathways to peace

Tatsushi Arai

Climate Change and Armed Conflict

Hot and Cold Wars

James R. Lee

Transforming Violent Conflict

Radical disagreement, dialogue and survival

Oliver Ramsbotham

Governing Ethnic Conflict

Consociation, identity and the price of peace

Andrew Finlay

Political Discourse and Conflict Resolution

Debating peace in Northern Ireland

Edited by Katy Hayward and Catherine O’Donnell

Economic Assistance and Conflict Transformation

Peacebuilding in Northern Ireland

Sean Byrne

Liberal Peacebuilding and Global Governance

Beyond the metropolis

David Roberts

A Post-Liberal Peace

Oliver P. Richmond

Peace Research

Theory and practice

Peter Wallensteen

Reconciliation after Terrorism

Strategy, possibility or absurdity?

Judith Renner and Alexander Spencer

Post-War Security Transitions

Participatory peacebuilding after asymmetric conflicts

Edited by Veronique Dudouet, Hans Giessman and Katrin Planta

Rethinking Peacebuilding

The quest for just peace in the Middle East and the Western Balkans

Edited by Karin Aggestam and Annika Björkdahl

Violent Conflict and Peacebuilding

The continuing crisis in Darfur

Johan Brosché and Daniel Rothbart

Peacebuilding and NGOs

State–civil society interactions

Ryerson Christie

Peace Negotiations and Time

Deadline diplomacy in territorial disputes

Marco Pinfari

History Education and Post-Conflict Reconciliation

Reconsidering joint textbook projects

Edited by Karina V. Korostelina and Simone Lässig

Conflict Resolution and Human Needs

Linking theory and practice

Edited by Kevin Avruch and Christopher Mitchell

Human Rights Education and Peacebuilding

A comparative study

Tracey Holland and J. Paul Martin

Post-Conflict Studies

An interdisciplinary approach

Edited by Chip Gagnon and Keith Brown

Arab Approaches to Conflict Resolution

Mediation, negotiation and settlement of political disputes

Nahla Hamdan and Frederic S. Pearson

UN Peace Operations and International Policing

Negotiating complexity, assessing impact and learning to learn

Charles T. Hunt

Nonviolent Resistance and Conflict Transformation

Dynamics and factors of conflict demilitarisation

Edited by Véronique Dudouet

Communication and Peace

Mapping an emerging field

Edited by Julia Hoffmann and Virgil Hawkins

The evidence is growing that media and communication in the twenty-first century really matter in shaping how and whether humans get on with each other or end up attacking and killing each other. We need really strong multi-disciplinary research, reflecting diverse approaches and perspectives, to better understand what we can do to support media that reduces or mitigates conflict and increases the chances of people getting on with each other. We don’t have anything like enough of it and this looks like a very promising and timely contribution.

James Deane, BBC Media Action, UK

An excellent book revealing both how media contribute to violence and how they could contribute to peace; like asking “Mr President, what is the conflict underlying the violence? Mr President, what are you going to do to solve that conflict?”

Johan Galtung, TRANSCEND International

To remain relevant, peacebuilding must prove itself to be media-savvy. Yet for too long the discussion on the contribution of media to peacebuilding has remained within the ranks of the converted, framed by high expectations of its positive impacts – expectations which, given that peacebuilding by its very nature permeates the whole of society, often seem exaggerated. Presenting a variety of experiences and lessons learned from the practice of peacebuilding, Hoffmann and Hawkins bring together important voices in this handbook, thus laying an essential – and a refreshingly critical – foundation for opening up this field to interdisciplinary reflection.

Rousbeh Legatis, Peace and Conflict Researcher & U.N. Correspondent for Inter Press Service (IPS) News Agency

The dynamics between peace and communication remains a hugely under-researched area of academic inquiry. This excellent collection of essays with some stellar contributors makes a timely and much-needed intervention in the field. Highly recommen...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Half Title Page
• Frontmatter 1
• Frontmatter 1
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• List of figures
• List of tables
• Notes on contributors
• Foreword—OLIVER P. RICHMOND
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction: communication and peace – mapping an emerging field—JULIA HOFFMANN AND VIRGIL HAWKINS
• 1 Media in peace and conflict studies—JAKE LYNCH
• 2 Media studies and the peace issue—CEES J. HAMELINK
• PART I Reporting and representing peace
• PART II Intervening for peace
• PART III Enacting and communicating peace
• Index