Media and the Production of Peace

 

 In this week’s UK Guardian (June 25, 2007) John Williams in the Media pages assesses the way in which Iran carried off a media coup during the crisis occasioned by the taking of fifteen sailors and marines hostage three months ago. He writes, rightly or wrongly, that ‘relationships between states are conducted to a great extent through broadcasters and newspapers’. That rather downgrades the roles of the diplomatic services, economic processes of all sorts including the hunger for resources and other forms of greed driven exploitation and a range of formal and informal political processes.  Nevertheless the media are increasingly important in laying the basis for justification of unjustified action as much as having opportunities to maximize the production of peace rather than conflict. The thrust of John Williams’ article, ‘How Iran won the media war’, is just as the title tells us. Ali Larijani, close to supreme leader Ayatollah Khamenei, manipulated press coverage to win hands down against the British government (and their diplomats, senior military personnel and politicians).  Williams goes on to write: ‘Foreign policy needs explaining’. I suppose he means ‘spinning’ but maybe not. ‘The media are fundamental to foreign policy…The big failure was to explain why Britain’s restraint was the right approach, not an act of weakness.’ The media handling, it is claimed, made Britain look weak so that the only two options, according to Williams, appears in the future to be between (abject) surrender and (violent) conflict. ‘The media could and should have been used to set out a different narrative so that Iran can be dealt with in a way that comes nowhere near threatening apocalypse.’ Fair enough. However how might Iranians react to the term ‘dealt with’ or be accused of taking the world to the edge of ‘apocalypse’. Again, why use war in the title of the piece?  The title of the article might well have been ‘How Iran won a media peace’ or even ‘How Iran made peace while the UK dithered’. The media do have a role in conflict. A useful beginning might be a more thoughtful use of language but, then, it would seem that since the days of Chamberlin and Munich war is better copy than peace.   --->

IMPS HISTORY AND MISSION

In the latter part of the 20th century the role of the news media changed fundamentally. Today, citizens of the world have access to a 24-hour news cycle providing them with as-it-happens information. Governments use the media to communicate their foreign policies, and UN officials use the media to alert us about humanitarian crises. The media are an essential ingredient in every democratic society. However, communication strategists, spin-doctors and a whole swathe of new professionals have emerged to manage the news and its interpretation. Media companies of all kinds have become more and more concentrated. Free democracies do not, therefore, experience genuinely free media. In authoritarian and similar regimes free media are always squeezed out and journalists that speak out suffer unspeakably. Last February, Reporters Without Borders noted that: “A disturbingly record number of journalists and media workers were killed or thrown in prison around the world in 2006 and we are already concerned about 2007, as six journalists and four media assistants have been killed in January alone. But beyond these figures is the alarming lack of interest (and sometimes even failure) by democratic countries in defending the values they are supposed to incarnate."

We wish to help through education and through whatever means comes to hand to maintain free and open media in the interests specifically of peacebuilding, peacekeeping, and conflict prevention.

The Institute for Media Peace and Security, originally conceived by Dr. Keith Spicer as "an intellectual tool for preventive diplomacy", aims to educate people in the many ways the media interact with issues of conflict, peace and security. It welcomes two kinds of participants: persons from areas of recent, current or potential conflict; and persons from countries or organizations strongly concerned with international peace and security. Its research programmes feeds directly into the classroom, targeting international questions in which the media play a significant role. By its education and research programmes, and by its day-to-day contacts with UN and regional peacekeeping bodies and partner organizations, the Institute hopes to contribute to new thinking about how free media can help prevent conflict – and to alert decision-makers, as well as the general public, to looming risks of war.