Resources: Covering Conflict

BAIRD, V.
"Spiked!"
New Internationalist 256 Jun 1994:4-7.
Introduces the theme of this issue: the Western media and its coverage of the Third World. Asks why so many news stories never make the news, and examines some of the obstacles in their way.

FOX, Fiona
"Rwanda: the journalist's role".
Month 29(5) May 1996:186-9.
Two years after the genocide in Rwanda, an event widely publicised in the press and broadcast media, the vast majority of the British public remain completely bemused as to the cause of the killing. Takes a critical look at the media's coverage and calls for a return to the best traditions of investigative journalism.

GOWING, Nik
Media coverage: help or hindrance in conflict prevention? A report to the Carnegie Commission on Preventing Deadly Conflict.
New York: Carnegie Corporation, 1997.
Journalists and policymakers alike tend to assume that media coverage has an undefined yet pivotal role in helping conflict management or prevention. On the contrary, in many cases reports by the media of impending crises have been ignored by the international community. Impartial reporting on conflicts has moreover been negated by media organisations that "peddle one line to the exclusion of other evidence".

HOLLAND, May
"Why we should have known".
Index on Censorship 25 (3): 25-7, May/June 1996.
One of Ireland's leading columnists argues that the renewed IRA bombing campaign should have come as no surprise. The media reported the warning signs but failed to take them seriously enough to warn the public about what was really happening in the Northern Ireland conflict.

JAKOBSEN, Peter Viggo
"National interest, humanitarianism or CNN: what triggers UN peace enforcement after the Cold War?"
Journal of Peace Research 33(2) May 1996:205-215.
Compares UN peacekeeping operations in Iraq, Somalia, Rwanda and Haiti to determine whether these were initiated by U.S. national interest or humanitarian sentiment. Questions whether the 'CNN factor' of media reporting drives humanitarian interventions.

JOHNSON, Roger N.
"Bad news revisited: the portrayal of violence, conflict and suffering on television news".
Peace and Conflict: Journal of Peace Psychology 2(3);201-216, 1966.
U.S. television broadcasts were monitored over a six-month period and analysed for the amount and type of five categories of 'bad news'. More than half of the news depicted various forms of violence, conflict and suffering; further emphasis was given by placing this news earlier in the broadcasts.

McCANN, P.
"Lights, camera, war".
Independent on Sunday Feb 22, 1998 p. 19.
Suggests that reporters following the chemical and biological weapons story in Iraq are staking out positions for Gulf War II, and that the ratings battle has only just begun.

MINEAR, L [et al.]
The News Media, Civil War and Humanitarian Action.
Boulder, CO: Lynne Reiner, 1996.
Examines motives for government and humanitarian intervention in disasters across the globe, and the role that the media can play in catalysing or influencing relief effort.

MOULD, David H.
"Press pools and military-media relations in the Gulf War: a case study of the Battle of Khafji," January 1991.
Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television 16 (2):133-59, Jun 1996.
Examines this battle in the light of the nature of warfare; media technology; miltary and press priorities; the press pool; briefing system and confusion in the military and press corps. Was this a military defeat or propaganda victory? Discusses the impact of the battle on military-media relations.

NEUMAN, Johanna
Lights, Camera, War: is media technology driving international politics?
New York: St. Martins Press, 1996.
Presents "a historical perspective for current concerns that new technology is making fundamental changes in international relations and diplomacy". In each generation effective leaders have learned how to use new technologies to accomplish their purposes.

ROTBERG, R, and Thomas G. Weiss (ed.)
From Massacres to Genocide: the media, public policy and humanitarian crises.
Washington: Brookings Institute, 1996.
Examines the extent to which media coverage and its relief agencies can influence policy making toward humanitarian emergencies, ethnic and religious conflicts and other crises. Includes recommendations.

SHAW, Martin
Civil Society and Media in Global Crises: representing distant violence.
London: Pinter, 1996.
Discusses how Western societies respond to recent global crises, and the formation of 'global civil society'. Examines the role of media coverage of war and the formation of public opinion. The media are of increasing importance because of the decline of other institutions in civil society and the inability of parties, churches and even social movements to represent the victims of complex inter-national crises.

UGRESIC, D.
"The culture of lies".
Index on Censorship 23(1-2):23-43, May/Jun 1994.
New lies are written over old truths as the people of ex-Yugoslavia are terrorised by the conflict into remembering, and forgetting. Clearly shows how media lies helped instigate a war of intolerance in the Balkans.

VETVODA, Ivan
"Not our war".
New Internationalist 256:10-11, Jun 1994.
The opposition of Serbs to Serbian nationalism has not been a focus of Western media. The latter has fallen into the trap of portraying conflicts in terms of good vs. evil. Conflicts generally, and especially the one in the former Yugoslavia, can rarely be understood in this way.

CONTENTS    HOME