This lesson explores the theoretical assumptions underlying peace journalism. It focuses on the forces shaping news production and clarifies the divergence of perspectives that leads to conflict escalation.
After this learning activity you will be familiar with the perceptual distortions that affect the escalation or de-escalation of conflict and will be aware of the different steps that lead to conflict escalation.
From a psychological perspective, the controversy over war journalism vs. peace journalism is about, first, aggressive interaction, second, the construction of social reality, and third, the question of what roles journalism and the media (can) play in this process. This is related to the notion that how conflict parties act is not determined by the objective conflict situation (i.e., the actual incompatibility of their claims, intentions and actions), but rather by their subjective perceptions of the conflict. How they act depends not on the objective nature of their environment, but rather on what it means to them (Blumer, 1973).
Meanings result from a social negotiation process and are constituted by social discourse — here the discourse within and between conflict parties. Because the media assume an important mediating role in political conflict, conflict parties always try to make media reporting serve their propaganda aims. It would nevertheless be quite mistaken to locate media influence in the framework of a simple stimulus-response model (cf. Jaeger, 2003). The constitution of meaning is an interactive process in which the media is only one actor among many.
Journalists are themselves members of society and are subject not only to certain institutional pressures, but also to the same social-psychological pressures as other people, particularly the distortions that arise in the perception of conflicts, which, so to speak, adjust automatically with their own involvement in escalating conflict.
It is obvious why distortions enter into the perception of conflict. Every conflict affects the rights and aims of all participants, and they can be resolved either cooperatively to everyone's benefit (win-win model), or competitively (win-lose model), mainly to the benefit of only one party. In the latter case each party tries to maximize its own rights and goals at the expense of the others. We can thus speak of a distortion in the perception of conflict whenever the perception of conflict excludes one of the two options for its resolution. Therefore, according to Deutsch (1976), there are both competitive and cooperative perceptual distortions.
To understand the role perceptual distortions play in the development of aggressive interactions, it is useful to define some key terms. Specifically, the word "aggression" is used in at least three different senses (Kempf, 1995).
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The first part of the learning activity on the theoretical assumptions of peace journalism was dedicated to the construction of social reality and the meaning of aggression in the context of peace research. Please answer the following questions.
Conflict parties attach great importance to media coverage that serves their aims. This can be explained by the following assumptions.
This is where journalism comes in. Media coverage plays a role in the social negotiation process that shapes how conflicts are perceived. The perception of a conflict, the meaning that people attach to it, in turn, frames the actions of the parties involved. As shown in the previous lesson(s), this also includes journalists.
2. Please fill in the blanks with the appropriate terms.
The last question is related to the concept of "aggression" in peace research. Three different senses of "aggression" were introduced.
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A major problem for peace research is how violence can be avoided without reducing the capability to achieve aims. Therefore, in this case as well, the concept of conflict escalation does not necessarily have a negative connotation from the start, and in some cases it may be necessary for conflicts to escalate a little at first before they can be dealt with by constructive transformation (cf. Müller & Schweitzer, 2000).
The non-violent escalation of conflict, however, is also a risky undertaking and can at any time shift into violent escalation. This is because conflict becomes an autonomous process as soon as it is approached competitively (Kempf, 1993), as described in Pruitt and Rubin's (1986) conflict-spiral model. Whatever one party does to realize its rights and aims can negatively affect the rights and aims of another party, which must then defend itself against this. And whatever the latter does to defend its aims at the expense of the former limits the rights and aims of that party and will in turn be seen as an attack, and conversely.
The escalation of conflict will thus be driven by a twofold divergence of perspectives.
Perceptual distortions influence efforts to legitimate conflict behavior and thereby function as catalysts in the escalation process. Focusing on one's own rights and needs while at the same time condemning the actions of the opponent and similar behavior makes it easier to shift from simple competition to struggle, where each of the conflict parties now attempts to impose its aims on the other parties. Justifying the struggle by emphasizing one's own rights and needs while at the same time denying the rights of the opponent, condemning his intentions and similar behavior facilitates a shift from non-military conflict to war. Here conflict is reduced to a zero-sum game in which there is now only one aim — to win the conflict, even if this means resorting to violence (Galtung 1998) — and this is justified by idealizing one's own rights and demonizing the opponent's. If the escalation process cannot be stopped, it leads to a total war in which the only thing that matters is not losing (lose-lose model) (Glasl, 1994).
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Conflict escalation need not be condemned a priori. Sometimes it is necessary for conflict to escalate to some extent before it can be transformed constructively. However, this is risky, because the escalation of conflict risks escalating to the point where the parties resort to violence.
Escalation towards violence is preceded by perceptual distortion.
Correct! According to Pruitt and Rubin's conflict-spiral model (1986), conflict can escalate unintentionally, especially when the conflict comes to be perceived competitively.
2. Please fill in the blanks with the appropriate terms.
The distortion in the perception of conflict during the escalation of conflict is conceptualized by Kempf (1999b). In this exercise you will reconstruct a table, as you did in the previous lesson on task formulation. Kempf suggests an escalation-step model with five characteristics that represent the escalation of a conflict due to the perceptual distortions 3. Please assign each statement to the corresponding escalation step.
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| Escalation step | Cooperation | Perspective divergence | Competition | Confrontation | War |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Conceptualization of conflict | Win-win orientation | Bias towards win-lose but win-win still possible | Win-lose (possibly softened by rules of fairness | Win-lose (increased by threat strategies) | Zero sum orientation. Force as the appropriate means of resolving conflict, emphasis on military values (shift from win-lose to lose-lose) |
| Valuation of rights and aims | Mutual respect for the rights of all participants and emphasis on common interests | Focus on own rights and needs (including common interests), the rights of others, however, vanish from view | Focus on own rights and needs; common interest, however, vanish from view | Emphasis on own rights and needs combined with questioning the rights of the opponent and condemning his intentions | Idealization of own rights and needs, at the same time contesting the rights of the opponent, demonization of his intentions and denial of common interests |
| Evaluation of actions | Consideration of the benefits for each of the parties | Focus on one's own benefits (also those resulting from the mutual relationship) | Justification of one's own actions and condemnation of the opponent's | Idealization of one's own actions and demonization of the opponent's | |
| Emotional involvement | Empathy and mutual trust | Tension between threat and trust | Focus on threat to onself, that to the opponent disappears from view, mutual trust is lost | Emphasis on one's own strength and the danger posed by the opponent creates a fragile balance between threat and confidence of victory; a threat to the opponent is actively denied; mistrust is present | Balance between threat and confidence of victory continues to exist, mistrust also directed against neutral third parties who attempt to mediate in the conflict, indignation against war turns into indignation against the opponent |
| Identification offer | Mutual | Self-centered | Dualistic | Antagonistic | Polarized |
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