conference reviews |
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Media, War and Conflict Resolution Conference Hosted by: The conference brought together international scholars, media practitioners, graduate students and community members to discuss media’s role in war and conflict resolution. The relevance and immediacy of the conference theme was highlighted in the pre-conference workshop which addressed the theme of Conflict, Media, and Islam. Featured speakers from the local Muslim community leadership shared their experiences of being “terrorized” by hate speech that was promoted and perpetuated through the media via negative stereotypes of their religion. In particular, the community members raised concern about a controversial DVD entitled Obsession: Radical Islam’s War against the West which had been delivered to doorsteps in the community that week as an insert to their local newspapers. The film, which was produced by the conservative Clarion Fund, characterized Islam as a violent religion that was a threat to the security of the United States. Conference participants discussed the timing of the distribution of these DVD inserts, which were targeted to urban centres in “swing” states during a U.S. presidential election. In addition, there was a thoughtful discussion about the relationship between the editorial departments and the marketing divisions of the newspapers who included or refused to insert these controversial DVDs. There was diversity in the topics, theories, methodologies and case studies presented by the conference participants who addressed global, historical, and contemporary issues in their papers. The themes that emerged from these sessions can be broken down into: Media’s Complicity in War; and Peace Journalism. Media’s Complicity in War was developed through a variety of conference sessions where presenters documented the predominance of propaganda, spin, and “stenography to power” in the media’s coverage of war and in particular the U.S-led “war on terror.” The power of language was thoughtfully explored in several papers that examined the role of rhetoric, metaphor and semantics in the media’s coverage of war. Political economy issues were highlighted in several papers which examined the impact of corporate ownership, advertisers, think tanks and lobby groups in the coverage of war. Representations of war in popular culture was explored through a number of papers that examined sports coverage, Hollywood film representations and literature narratives. The organization of journalism in the west and in developing countries was explored through a variety of case studies that examined the state of freedom of the press regarding coverage of conflict. Peace Journalism and Peace Media were discussed in several sessions in which the participants debated the opportunities presented by Peace Journalism versus the challenge it represented for mainstream notions of journalistic objectivity. Global case studies of citizen journalism, advocacy journalism, peace journalism, and conflict-sensitive journalism were shared in an effort to develop the theoretical infrastructure of this emerging field. Reconciliation and peace education through media training, community activism and pedagogical innovations were showcased through a variety of case studies. The link between the nature of media coverage and the development of war crimes and genocide was explored in a variety of historical and contemporary case studies including Colonial Wars, the Holocaust, the Balkans, Rwanda, Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo Bay. Featured Keynote Speakers http://www.bgsu.edu/offices/mc/page52417.html The Conference Director was Oliver Boyd Barret Dr. Erin Steuter ______________________ to top
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