Media in Peacebuilding and Conflict Prevention - The Deutsche Welle Global Media Forum 2009

This conference documentation includes the proceedings of the Deutsche Welle Global Media Forum 2009, Bonn, Germany, June 2 - 4 2008.

Incorporated in the document are the keynote address by Dr. Shirin Ebadi of Iran, lawyer and Nobel Peace Prize laureate, and an analysis called Media in Peacebuilding and Conflict Prevention by Marc von Boemcken, Senior Researcher, Bonn International Center for Conversion (BI CC), Germany. Summaries of panel discussions include the following topics:


• Worldwide deployment - What can and must Europe do to prevent conflicts?
• Crisis Prevention via Media Intervention
• Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon - Economic Development, Political Stability, and the Role of the Media in Asia
• How Can the Truth Survive? In Africa, Journalists are Often Caught Between the Battle Lines
• Reading Between the Lies - Perception and Prejudice in the Middle East
• The Use of TV and Radio in Peacebuilding: Concrete Examples
• The Alliance of Civilizations (AoC) Rapid Response Media Mechanism (RRMM)
• Citizen-State Relations? Expectations - Trust: Introducing the Public Sphere Concept into the State-Building Debate
• United Nations (UN) Experiences in the Area of Radio/Media Projects in Conflict Areas and Sustainability

The 9 workshops at the conference included such topics as online terrorism, populism and press freedom, 'Can popular media contribute to freedom of opinion?', mediaME - sharing tools and approaches for monitoring and evaluation in media development, and "When telling the truth becomes a crime". The symposium topic featured in the conference was: Journalistic Training in Conflict-Related Situations. Session topics were the following:


Session 1: Opportunities through education
Session 2: Quality journalism - journalistic training in conflict-related situations: challenges, trends, and strategies
Session 3: Quality journalism - journalistic training in conflict-related settings: challenges, dangers, and limits
Session 4: The Bonn Network - enabling rapid action in conflict situations
Session 5: Media diversity - training for a digital world
Session 6: Impact on peace and conflict: What journalists and peacebuilding practitioners need to know about it

The conference analysis suggests that participants agreed that media has an impact, both constructive and potentially destructive, on peace and conflict dynamics. This "two-faced character is considerably pronounced and exacerbated by a number of recent developments in the global media landscape...", including increased communication channels and a more diverse array of broadcasters (including the pluralisation of the media landscape by “citizens’ journalism” and community-based media). However, this includes an increase of voices promoting hostility and violence.


The conference, as reported here, succeeded in identifying a number of conditions, ideas, and recommendations for strengthening the potential contribution of the media to fostering peaceful co-existence, including:


• freedom of the press as a precondition - care that media are not instrumentalised as a mouthpiece for government propaganda.
• peace journalism - seeking to broaden journalistic coverage so as to take the wider context of a conflict into account, including a detailed consideration of the root causes of violence. Although there was agreement that bias should be kept to a minimum, other speakers cautioned that an entirely objective and neutral coverage of conflicts may not be really possible, though it may include the need to accept a diversity of viewpoints.
• “do no harm” journalism - Expert advice to journalists on how to deal with culturally sensitive problems is available through the RRMM of the AoC.
• media as the agent for peacebuilding - as stated in the document, 1) the media has the central task of uncovering war crimes, human rights violations, corruption, and similar wrongdoings; 2) the media could serve an “early warning” function in case of a renewed outbreak of violence in post-conflict environments; 3) The media can provide a forum for dialogue and reconciliation; and 4) The media can transport messages of peace and unity.
• peace journalism training needs - assistance to make media workers more responsible, support them in promoting “peace journalism” and actively involve them in peacebuilding programmes.
• media assistance as a “substantive development issue” - training and capacity building of media workers needs to be accompanied by providing the required technical infrastructure to responsible media outlets in developing regions.
• closer cooperation among international media broadcasters - As stated here, in order to agree upon common journalistic standards and values, coordinate assistance to media sources in developing countries, and set-up international training programmes for media workers from all over the world, closer cooperation between international media broadcasters is needed.