conflict & communication online, Vol. 18, No. 2, 2019
www.cco.regener-online.de
ISSN 1618-0747

Michael Reimann
Peace journalism in marginally to moderately escalated conflicts: Conflict theoretical foundations, variables and reportage patterns

‘Peace journalism’ was originally conceived in contrast to ‘war propaganda’. However, this does not do justice to the processuality of escalating conflicts. Above all in the beginning, thus in marginally to moderately escalated conflicts, de-escalation oriented journalism should react to the respective state of escalation of a conflict or respectively adapt to it. This necessitates a sensitive set of tools that makes it possible to recognize even minor deviations from peace, which here is defined with a range of ‘peace conditions’. In the course of a conflict’s escalation, specific ‘blind spots’ increasingly arise in the perception of the conflict constellation and in the perception of the other party, the ‘opponent’. De-escalation oriented reportage must identify these gaps in perception and counter them with a complete picture of the conflict.

The author:
Michael Reimann, Dipl.-Psych., Dipl.-Information scientist, since1991 member of the Peace Research Project Group at the University of Konstanz. After his psychology studies at the Universities of Konstanz and Oldenburg, Reimann worked in the international DFG-Project «Journalism and the New World Order» at the University of Konstanz, with a focus on the development of content analytical variable systems for the analysis of conflict reportage. Since 2001, after completing a program in information science at the University of Konstanz, he worked as script writer and project director for E-Learning Projects, among others at the Research Center for Security Policy of the ETH Zürich, at the University of Zürich and in the private economy.
eMail: mr@michael-Reimann.ch