INTERNATIONAL CHILD AND YOUTH CARE NETWORK

27 NOVEMBER 2000
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Child and youth care workers learn from people in other disciplines, and this writing from Robert Manoff whose interests lie in the intersection of conflict and the media, offers an object lesson in approaching violence and conflict positively and constructively rather than with hype and melodrama. He suggests twelve roles for the media in such situations, all of which would fit well into the child and youth care worker’s repertoire of skills.

Potential Media Roles in the Prevention and Management of Conflict

When we began to examine conflict resolution theory and practice several years ago, we quickly identified a number of potential 'media roles' in conflict prevention that emerged from this literature and experience. Each one of these roles has an extensive theoretical and practical foundation in the conflict resolution tradition, and each, we felt, opened up possibilities for media activity that could readily be imagined. The point was to identify the conflict-preventing functions that the media can perform, and then to develop media-based activities (as appropriate to diverse conflict circumstances, media technologies and media systems) to fulfil such functions. With this schema in mind, we began to develop an inventory of such roles.

In doing so we discovered that the media were in some cases already performing some of these roles as a by-product of what they do for purely journalistic reasons. In such cases, the question then becomes whether the media can more self-consciously and more completely take on the burden of preventing deadly conflict, whether within current paradigms or through the elaboration of new ones over the years to come. Meanwhile, as a small sample of the repertoire of potential journalistic roles, let me offer the following:

1. Channeling communication between parties: The media not infrequently play this role ad hoc in domestic and international politics; the point would be to heighten the appreciation and systematic performance of this dialogical role in the ethno-political context.

2. Educating: Simply changing the information environment in which the parties operate can have a marked impact on the dynamics of conflict; it is particularly useful to promote appreciation of the complex factors impinging on the conflict situation, and to create appreciation of and tolerance for the negotiation process itself.

3. Confidence building: Lack of trust between parties is a major factor contributing to conflict. The media can help to reduce suspicion through their reporting of contested issues, and increase trust through reporting of stories that suggest or illustrate that accommodation is possible.

4. Counteracting misperceptions: Related to the confidence-building role above, journalists can come to see the misconceptions of the parties as a story in and of itself, and by reporting this story they can encourage the parties to revise such views, moving closer to the prevention or resolution of a conflict in the process.

5. Analysing conflict: This differs from conventional conflict reporting in that the media would self-consciously apply analytical frameworks derived from conflict resolution and related fields to systematically enhance the public's understanding of key aspects of the situation, as well as the dynamics of the efforts to manage it.

6. Deobjectifying the protagonists for each other: Sophisticated journalism, by revealing people's complexity, can already do this, but the question is whether some of what journalists already do ad hoc can be developed into a systematic repertory which they will be able to employ by virtue of an enhanced conception of journalism influenced by conflict-prevention considerations.

7. Identifying the interests underlying the issues: This is standard conflict resolution practice, but it is surprising how infrequently journalists address this question in stories. As media scholar James W. Carey has remarked, U.S. journalism generally foregoes sophisticated analysis of underlying group interests: "Explanation in American journalism is a kind of long-distance mind reading in which the journalist elucidates the motives, intentions, purposes and hidden agendas which guide individuals in their actions.

8. Providing an emotional outlet: Conflicts may escalate or explode in part because the parties have no adequate outlets for expression of their grievances. Conflict can be fought out in the media rather than in the streets. Journalists, already prone to report conflict, could better serve their readers and viewers, as well as the cause of preventive diplomacy, by more fully understanding this role and perhaps pursuing it self consciously.

9. Encouraging a balance of power: This helps get parties to the negotiating table. A media report can weaken a stronger party or strengthen a weaker party in the eyes of publics, thereby encouraging parties to negotiate when they otherwise might not have out of concern for the perception of their relative positions.

11. Face saving and consensus building: Similarly, when in the course of negotiations parties take steps toward resolving a conflict, they risk being attacked by more intransigent members of their own constituencies. The media can greatly facilitate the process of compromise by making it possible for negotiators to address their own publics through the media in order to explain their negotiating positions and build support for them.

12. Solution building: Conflicts get prevented or managed when the parties table and consider possible solutions to grievances. Journalists can play a role in this process by pressing the parties for their proffered solutions. Although this seems self-evident, many third party negotiators have noted that parties are often so invested in their grievances that they do not develop or consider options for potential agreement with adversaries. The simple act of eliciting ideas and, reporting them could assist the dynamic of the more formal mediation process itself. It should also be noted that the process of formal mediation can fail if there is not a parallel process of what might be called 'social mediation', by which the constituents and publics of the formal negotiating parties are brought into the process and prepared to accept its outcome.

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This is but a partial account of potential media roles. A fuller account would describe a complex set of activities undertaken by a great variety of actors operating from institutional bases in independent, multilateral and governmental institutions in conflict situations of great diversity. Elaborating such a full account will require, over time, the combined efforts of media professionals, diplomats, conflict resolvers and diverse protagonists, among others.

The process by which this could be done would be one of 'social invention' in which the spontaneous, largely uncoordinated but not random activities of diverse actors could create new institutions and behaviours. Journalism itself, in fact, is a product of precisely this process over time, as is the sitcom, soap opera, rap song, the portable radio and the sports page. It would be folly to believe that the history of the media has ended here, and that we do not possess the social imagination to meet the challenge now being posed by the threat of mass social violence to human societies everywhere.

Extract from Manoff, R (1998) Role Plays: Potential media roles in conflict prevention and management. Track Two, 7.4. 11-16.  (A publication of the Centre for Conflict Resolution and the Media Peace Centre at the University of Cape Town)

Robert Karl Manoff is Director of the Center for War, Peace and the News Media. This article was adapted from a paper delivered at The Hirondelle Foundation's conference on the media and conflict. An earlier version was printed in Crosslines magazine (March/April 1997).

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