Media Framing on Armed Conflicts: Limits of Peace Journalism on the Nagorno-Karabakh Conflict

ABSTRACT

Media framing and coverage of contemporary armed conflicts largely focus on the defence of national security and war propaganda. The concept of peace journalism draws on the Galtung tradition and provides a toolkit for opposing war journalism and contributing to reconciliation. By examining the case of media framing of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, this article asks whether and why peace journalism is possible in the given political context. Our study of limited peace journalism shows that traditions of war journalism are predominant and points to limitations of liberal instruments in (semi-)authoritarian post-Soviet conflict contexts.

KEYWORDS:

• Media framing
• peace journalism
• Nagorno-Karabakh conflict
• freedom of the media

Acknowlegements

The author is grateful to the editors of the Journal of Intervention and Statebuilding, to the guest editor of this special issue Anna Kreikemeyer for the idea of this joint work, and for her motivating leadership. We really appreciate the critical and patient work of the two anonymous reviewers, and thank the colleagues for their very helpful comments.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes on contributors

Arthur Atanesyan is professor and head of Department of Applied Sociology at the Faculty of Sociology of the Yerevan State University of Armenia. His area of research and teaching includes political and conflict communication, military sociology, and mass media theories.

Notes

1 United Nations Human Rights Office of the High Commissioner. Accessed 3 March 2019. https://www.ohchr.org/EN/Issues/Education/Training/Compilation/Pages/7.DeclarationonFundamentalPrinciplesconcerningtheContributionoftheMassMediatoStrengtheningPeaceandInternationalUnderstandin.aspx.

2 Law on Secession from the USSR. Seventeen Moment in Soviet History. Accessed 4 March 2019. http://soviethistory.msu.edu/1991-2/shevarnadze-resigns/shevarnadze-resigns-texts/law-on-secession-from-the-ussr/.

3 See also Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Republic of Artsakh. Accessed 12 March 2019. http://www.nkr.am/en/four-day-war.

4 https://www.international-alert.org/projects/unheard-voices, accessed 17 March 2019.

5 Reporting in conflict: Journalists share stories across the divide. Accessed 17 March 2019. https://www.international-alert.org/stories/reporting-conflict-journalists-share-stories-across-divide.

6 Media Freedom and Development. OSCE. Accessed 13 March 2019. https://www.osce.org/media-freedom-and-development.

7 https://chai-khana.org/en/about, accessed 23 March 2020.

8 My Step Foundation. Accessed 3 January 2019. https://mystep.foundation/en.