Stimulating peace or fueling war? Public communication'by humanitarian organizations
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2019-06-11
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en
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Abstract
This research shows to what extent and why the humanitarian organizations the International Red Cross Committee and Doctors Without Borders differ from each other and from news media in their practices of war and peace journalism while communicating about the Syrian conflict. This approach includes coding content from the communication channels of the ICRC and MSF on characteristics of peace and war journalism and conducting semistructured interviews with their representatives.
The findings show that similar to news media, the ICRC and MSF use significantly more practices of war journalism than peace journalism while communicating about the Syrian conflict. The ICRC and MSF focus on violence by providing limited context on the conflict and by using strong emotional language that depicts victims as passive and
helpless. These dominant practices of war journalism by the ICRC and MSF are related to their humanitarian principles, fundraising strategies, the type of aid they provide and their expectations on the role of the media in reporting about conflict. In comparison to news media, humanitarian organizations adopted more practices of peace journalism. They avoid propaganda, address the suffering on all sides and avoid the representation of the conflict as a battle between ‘winners’ and ‘losers’.
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Faculteit der Managementwetenschappen