Peace Journalism, War and Conflict Resolution, Book Review

Peace journalism as a theory was introduced forty years ago by the sociologist Johan Galtung with his studies on peace and conflict. Today, we have been presented with Peace Journalism, War and Conflict Resolution which contains a collection of essays by leading international peace journalism writers, their concerns and reflections and valuable ideas for the future of journalism.  This book was edited by Proff Richard Keeble, Prof John Tulloch and Ph.D student Florian Zollmann, all from the University of Lincoln. They all have also contributed a chapter.

This engaging book gives us an international overview of the field of peace journalism. It provides us with the theory and the concept that peace journalism is its own distinct field of study. The collection of over 20 international writers is divided in three sections.

The approaches of the first section are diverse with styles taken from the mainstream media to alternative media debates. One of the highlights of this section is the call from Richard Keeble to “move away from the concept of the audience as a passive consumer” which demands a new perspective and alternative media.

 The second section focuses more on the practice and innovative methods on reporting conflicts and peace journalism as a whole. It includes a chapter with a remarkable approach written by Valerie Alia in which she explores the alternative ways that indigenous people around the world have been found to communicate and in which resolve conflicts.

The last section is a critique of the mainstream media and how can it be transformed. David Edwards writes about our apparent sense of freedom. He states that only people of great cognitive ability would have what is necessary to wake the people up to the fact that this is an illusion.

This text allows us to consider the role of peace journalist in the media, by criticizing the mainstream media we have been given a reason to question the status quo and demand a new perspective.