Communicating Differences

Culture, Media, Peace and Conflict Negotiation

Sudeshna Roy, Ibrahim Seaga Shaw, Sudeshna Roy, Ibrahim Seaga Shaw

• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
• Year: 2016
• Print ISBN: 9781137499257, 9781137499257
• eBook ISBN: 9781137499264
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Business General
• Index: Social Sciences

This volume captures the essence of how we communicate differences in relationships, between and across cultures, in organizations, through education and in moments of local and global conflict and crisis that demonstrates the importance and viability of approaching peace and conflict communication from various fields within communication studies.

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Introduction – Communicating Differences: Toward Breaking the Boundaries for Peace and Conflict Research in Communication

Sudeshna Roy and Ibrahim Seaga Shaw

Society is undergoing rapid changes due to forces of globalization, mobility of people, technological evolution, and the media’s ubiquitous presence in all facets of life. As a result, the essence of how we communicate in relationships, between and across cultures, in organizations, through education, and in moments of conflict and crisis, is undergoing multi-faceted transformation. This volume brings together an eclectic and significant collection of essays representing influential theories, ideas, methods, and case studies in culture, media, conflict, and peace communication from diverse scholars who provide a thorough understanding of what entails processes of communicating differences in a conflict-torn world.

The problems of communicating about culture, conflict, and peace resonate with what founder of conflict and peace research Johann Galtung (2004) called cultural violence, and which he categorized as Attitude in his ABC (Attitude, Behavior, and Contradictions) Conflict Triangle. Most of the violence and conflict/crisis we experience in the world today can be traced back to the idea of Attitude (cultural violence) represented in, for example, hate speech, persecution complex, myths, and legends of war heroes, religious justification for war, discrimination on the basis of skin color, gender, religion, sex, etc., ‘choseness’/being the chosen people’, civilizational arrogance, and more (Galtung, 2004; Lynch and McGoldrick, 2005, p. 38; Shaw, 2012, p. 12).

This notion of cultural violence as an invisible indirect form of violence, which Chow-White and McMahon (2012) call ‘cold conflict’, suggests a clear overlap between the theories of communication, human rights, social justice, and peacebuilding. When one takes part in a communication exercise, one is essentially contributing to the creation of peace, which can also be central to the promotion and protection of human rights and bring about social justice in many instances. Yet, as we continue to witness acts of extremism and terrorism in this world, it is important to understand that it is not just the lack of the human right to communicate that can lead to indirect forms of cultural or structural violence, or direct forms of physical violence, but also the failure to strike the right balance between this right and the right of others to enjoy their religious freedom without being subjected to hate attacks.

What is more, the problem of communicating differences can lead to direct political violence as well as the clash of cultures involving Islamophobia on one hand and extremism and terrorism on the other. Moreover, there are other challenging issues of patriarchy and gender discrimination that fall well within the purview of cultural conflict, as well as other forms of discrimination. Take for example the shooting incident in 1989 in Montreal by a young man which left 14 young women dead. The burning issue of discrimination against women appeared to be the root cause. Marc Raboy described the emotional event in the following way:

On 6 December 1989, late in the afternoon, a young man armed with a semi-automatic rifle burst into a classroom at the Ecole Polytechnic de Montreal (the engineering faculty of the University of Montreal). He separated the people present into two groups, men and women. Then, according to witnesses, he cried: ‘You’re all a bunch of feminists. I hate feminists’, and opened fire. In a rampage through the building lasting barely 15 minutes, he murdered 14 women. Then, he killed himself.

(Raboy, 1992, p. 133)

This might have largely sounded, at the time, like an act of a lunacy perpetrated by a single member of society. However, the underlying cause of this act is not exposed in such an explanation. Such an act comes from the influences of the ideological, invisible crises of everyday life associated with the idea of the growing empowerment of women in a society that was, and perhaps still is, largely characterized by patriarchy and gender discrimination.

The question is obviously raised as to how this shooting to death of 14 young female students can be compared to present day politically and ideologically motivated conflict, and acts of terrorism motivated by religious extremism. They are similar mainly in the sense that they are all categorized as direct visible violence, which is the manifest Behaviour in Galtung’s ABC Conflict Triangle (2004). They are also similar in that they all happened as a result of some form of cultural violence or failure of intercultural communication: Islamophobic discourses in the case of contemporary acts of terror, and anti-feminist discourses in the case of the Montreal shooting. Examples of such failures abound, and appear, in fact, to be on the increase.

Although communication processes have enormous potential to bring about conflict transformation and peacebuilding, scholars need to focus more on the ‘what’ and ‘how’ of constructive contributions, as well as the underlying conceptualization of peace and communication. It is clear that there are many ‘fields’ within the field of Communication that are feeding conflict and peace studies in largely insulated ways. There needs to be more cross-pollination within the field in order to enable a greater understanding of the field and thorough engagement with what is an important and increasingly vibrant area of activity. While there have been few isolated cases of research on issues of cultural identity, intercultural communication, and communication diversity, there is little evidence of a scholarly volume that looks at the idea of communicating differences using the lenses of culture, media, peace, and human rights. It is in the context of addressing this gap that the current volume has been conceived.

The present volume brings together essays from scholars and practitioners from the various fields within the discipline of Communication Studies whose work demonstrates the importance and viability of approaching issues of conflict from an intra-disciplinary perspective. The various fields within Communication Studies that are integrated in this volume are intercultural communication, media studies, rhetoric, peace journalism, human rights journalism, conflict management and mediation, peace education, and peacebuilding. The volume highlights the many connections between and among the distinctive areas of study in order to tease out the possibilities of promoting intra-field dialogue and a more holistic approach towards peacebuilding, social justice, and change.

Individuals and groups with diverse backgrounds, values, and beliefs, situated in a variety of cultural, political, economic, and institutional structures need to grapple with ideas of diversity, difference, and multi-culturalism. The ways in which these fundamental issues are debated in today’s society helps pave the path towards a more inclusive, culturally conscious world that allows for dialogue and debate with regard to public policy, educational reform, and sustainable peace. Communication scholars and practitioners have made rich contributions in advancing the causes of intercultural awareness and a more peaceful society for the past several decades. Many of them have made these contributions from different focus areas. Some examples of approaches with different foci are: peacebuilding from an intercultural perspective; conflict resolution at the workplace; interpersonal conflict mediation; critiques of conflict reportage in the media; and a multitude of other approaches. Their work has made an impact in a variety of social arenas including but not restricted to social justice, citizen participation, student education, information dissemination, global north-south dialogue, intercultural understanding, gender perspectives, and critiques of existing peacebuilding and conflict management practices and institutions. However, continuous social changes around us engender the inclusion of nuanced perspectives about peace and conflict management as well as insight into newer forms and forums of expression in communication. For example, research in new media provides fresh avenues of reaching peacebuilding objectives and goals, or approaches to conflict management from grassroots women workers and organizers.

There are several important contemporary factors that need to be considered as scholars and practitioners contend with the ideas of sustainable peacebuilding and greater understanding between people across the world. Some of these factors are simultaneously oppositional and complementary in nature, such as: forces of globalization and the historical specificity of the nature of conflict; cultural diversity and indigenous perspectives about peace and conflict; traditional representation of interests; and technologically evolving forms of the portrayal of involved constituents. It then becomes imperative that scholars and practitioners keep the channels of dialogue and mutual understanding of each others’ works open in order to further contribute to bodies of work in this area. Longitudinal research as well as short-term case studies offer newer understanding of causes of conflict. Challenging existing frameworks and co-constructing more relevant approaches to conflict management and cultural dialogue provide all involved with tools that are crafted from contemporary social processes and offerings. Critiques of political, economic, cultural, and other macro-social issues igniting overt and covert forms of conflict become a necessary step towards the prevention of the same in the future. These undertakings and pursuits need to be thorough, consistent, and continuous through inevitable change. The nature of conflict is changing and so are cultures and peacebuilding endeavors.

This volume helps to build bridges across perspectives to provide for a larger array of solutions for sustainable peace and cultural understanding in intercultural and global contexts. The volume is a meeting ground of ideas and approaches in the form of essays that identify areas of convergence between the aforementioned disparate fields within Communication Studies. The essays embrace a variety of theoretical and methodological approaches including critical, interpretive, rhetorical, social scientific, and pragmatic.

What is conflict?

The very conceptualization of conflict encompasses the idea of intra-disciplinarity within it. An attempt to fix the meaning of conflict is futile since almost all the fields within Communication deal with some aspects of it. Just a cursory examination of the top professional Communication associations in the world, such as the International Communication Association, the National Communication Association based in the US, the International Association for Media and Communication Research, and the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication, shows that the various divisions within the field are dealing with multitude of conflict issues. While different divisions facilitate communication scholars’ congregation around clusters of similar ideas, and tease out theoretical and practical solutions to conflicts, the divisions also sometimes hinder scholars from seeing useful connections and creative approaches towards conflict negotiation and peacebuilding.

This volume lets the reader take a peek at a variety of conflicts spanning from interpersonal, intercultural and mediated to folk and peace studies, and a multitude of theoretical implications and innovative practical implementations of the theories. The scope of a reader is frequently witnessed in learning about various theories and case studies within a particular area of communication. This volume is able to go a step beyond and demonstrate the integration of theory and its application not only within such areas, but also amongst them.

Organization and overview of the book: main themes and objectives

We have organized Communicating Differences into four main parts, each covering a complex set of related ideas that reflect the changing nature of culture, conflict, and peace in a mediated world.

The volume begins with Part I, From Macro to Micro – Intercultural Communication at the Heart of Conflict Negotiation, consisting of four chapters that address the need and effectiveness of intercultural communication at the macro as well as micro level, theoretically and empirically. This part identifies for the reader the variety of ways in which cultural settings influence the way conflicts are managed, negotiated, and interpreted. A theoretical framework for the necessity of intercultural communication in processing issues of conflict is also discussed. In Chapter 2, Mary Jane Collier extends the framework for intercultural communication and peacebuilding co-developed with Benjamin Broome, by featuring the benefits of orienting to connections and intersections of elements and processes. This approach is applied to a case study of the work of International Peace Initiatives (IPI) in Kenya. The value of incorporating this framework is illustrated by attending to context as overlapping macro, meso, and micro level frames; recognizing the interrelated personal, relational, and structural dimensions of peacebuilding; demonstrating how these dimensions are intersecting, contextually contingent, and communicatively constructed as well as produced; and showing how the framework can accommodate integrated theoretical perspectives. In Chapter 3, Ibrahim Seaga Shaw draws on cultural studies, critical theory, and Galtung’s idea of indirect cultural violence to provide an analysis of how micro conflict events are portrayed through the discourses of macro events to represent UK Muslims in a largely negative light based on systemic and deliberate patterns of stereotyping. The micro event he analyses is the framing of the isolated incident of the murder of British soldier Lee Rigby in Woolwich in May 2013 by two Muslims. The macro discourse he refers to is the general framing of Muslims who support right-wing extremist groups in the UK. The conflation of the micro and the macro happens in the media representation of these events and alleged Islamic extremist phenomena in the UK. In Chapter 4, John S. Caputo interweaves theory and practice, intercultural and international communication, and micro and macro, with the help of dialogic theory. In order to understand the role of intercultural communication in peacemaking, Caputo describes a project that brought US students to Northern Ireland to work collaboratively with a grassroots organization named The Junction: Community Relations and Peacebuilding in Derry, who have used the process of dialogue, ethical remembering, and healing to facilitate working with former combatants to build a lasting peace. This chapter is a wonderful example of theory in action, where intercultural communication adds a measurable understanding of causes and history of a conflict leading to the development of a shared community through storytelling. In Chapter 5, Mariam Betlemidze brings to light factors of intercultural, interethnic, and international cooperation that are hidden under transcendent strategies of the conflicting stakeholders of the South Caucasian conflicts. This chapter offers Deleuzo-Guattarian and Badiouian ideas to challenge existing perspectives on South Caucasian conflicts that reveal multiple images of dynamism, desired productions, and states of endless becomings. The multiplicity of understanding of the conflict is at once beneficial and problematic in nature. However, the author demonstrates how affirmative philosophy is a useful tool for unlocking the potentials of these multiplicities in a way that helps stakeholders move from confusion to clarity.

The second part of the volume, From Local to Global: Mediated Identities in Conflicted Cultures, moves on to issues of identities in areas that are experiencing conflict in the world. In this part, the reader begins to understand the complexities brought about by cultural conflicts that heavily influence the construction of identities of stakeholders with local as well as global impacts. The identity construction process is further complicated by the pervasive presence of media, at a pace that has never before been experienced. The part contains four chapters that focus on case studies from particular areas of the world as well as theoretical understandings of ideological underpinnings and processes of ethnic conflicts. In Chapter 6, Sudeshna Roy strives to deconstruct the politics of representation of the many Indian ethnicities represented in Bollywood movies in the new millennium. The author conducts a critical discourse analysis of the ten highest grossing Bollywood Hindi movies of the current century to unearth discourses of marginalization, extreme stereotypes, and disenfranchisement embedded in the ideological ‘othering’ of minorities in these movies. The case studies highlight how the global econo-political scenario has a local influence through the extension and cementing of popular stereotypes of Indian ethnicities that may or may not parallel social and political conditions in the country’s complex class, ethnic, racial, and religious hierarchies. In Chapter 7, Julia Khrebtan-Hörhager demonstrates how intercultural cinematography brings the local and the specific to the levels of the global and the universal. Cinema assumes a pedagogical role in the lives of audiences, and serves as a means of teaching culture and conflict. Using intercultural cinematography as a peacebuilding methodology and epistemology, the author focuses on the dynamics between the ‘self’ and the ‘other’ as represented in the Italian film Quando sei nato non puoi più nasconderti. The film addresses particularities and possibilities of communication dynamics between the local population in Italy and the incoming immigrant population, a subject increasingly relevant and currently being debated in the contemporary context of the European Union response to the immigration crisis brought on by the Syrian civil war. The author provides concrete examples of the reel to real inclusive strategies of de-escalating the complex relationships between the European ‘self’ and the immigrant ‘other’; and examines its impact on the multicultural dynamics in the European Union. In Chapter 8, MiSun Lee and Jinbong Choi conduct longitudinal analysis of news media coverage of South Korean immigrant community. The South Korean government has promoted immigration within the last decade. As a result the foreign population (mostly from South Asia) has soared in the country. The authors highlight how Korea is in a transitional period. They adapt from Western experiences of immigration, acknowledging the importance of journalists’ role in social change and apply those learnings to the news media experience in South Korea, providing a local application of global theories of news media with regard to immigration. They explore four Korean national newspapers in 2005 and 2011 to examine how newspapers represent immigrants and whether the attitude of news coverage has c...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• List of Figures and Tables
• Foreword
• Acknowledgements
• Notes on Contributors
• 1 Introduction – Communicating Differences: Toward Breaking the Boundaries for Peace and Conflict Research in Communication
• Part I From Macro to Micro – Intercultural Communication at the Heart of Conflict Negotiation
• Part II From Local to Global: Mediated Identities in Conflicted Cultures
• Part III From Deconstruction to Reconstruction: Rebooting Frameworks of Education on Culture, Conflict, and Peace
• Part IV From Singular/Static to Multiple/Dynamic: Creative and Alternative Communication Approaches to Conflict Negotiation and Social Change
• Index