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Wilhelm Kempf
Dangers of peace journalism
The sense of mission shared by some peace journalists is a dangerous attitude. All journalists can do to give peace a chance is to serve as mediators, helping conflict parties overcome the competitive misperceptions and societal beliefs that fuel conflict.
If peace journalists try to promote and impose their own solutions, however, frustration is inevitable and will finally result in the search for an evildoer who can be made responsible. Thus by involving themselves in conflicts, journalists can become unintentional agents of conflict escalation.
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The author:
Wilhelm Kempf is Professor emeritus of Psychological Methodology and Head of the Peace Research Group (Projektgruppe Friedensforschung) at the University of Konstanz, Germany. Since 2002 he is the editor of conflict & communication online (www.cco.regener-online.de). His fields of research include quantitative and qualitative research methodology, nonviolent conflict resolution, peace journalism and the construction of social reality by the mass media. He currently works on a research project on “Criticizing Israel, coming to terms with German history and differentiating aspects of modern anti-Semitism”.
eMail: cco@regener-online.de, Website: http://www.pfkn.regener-online.de/ |
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