The workshop informs on the first results of an ongoing research project that aims at providing useful insights into the practice of journalism in post-conflict societies and to allow donors, NGOs and the media to improve their work.

A decade of thinking around journalism covering conflicts has produced quite a lot of different theoretical concepts, from ‘de-escalating journalism' to ‘conflict-sensitive journalism', ‘peace journalism' and ‘conflict transformation media'. To bring the debate about these concepts a step further, a research project in Liberia is especially dedicated to now review the practise of journalism and to assess how different media ( 4 newspapers and 10 radio stations) have actually covered conflicts in Liberia. For comparative reasons it looks at various media with different concepts for covering conflict and also investigates less contentious themes, like reconstruction of schools and roads.

The workshop informs on the first results of this project that allow assessing questions like: 

• What are the differences in actual reporting between ‘peace-oriented' stations and normal media? Do they realize their different concepts: How do they provide information on the background of conflicts, on different viewpoints, on solutions? Do they use stereotypes differently?

• What are the differences in covering conflict in comparison to cover other issues?

• What are the differences between newspapers (elite-oriented) and radio (larger audience oriented) 

 

 

Christoph Spurk, Media researcher at IAM Institute of Applied Media Studies