Friedensjournalismus

25 years after the project of peace journalism was launched, the author of this book takes stock of what theoretical, empirical and experimental research and development have achieved since then, and how peace journalism itself has developed further: from an alternative to the propaganda bias of conventional war reporting towards a model of constructive coverage of international and domestic conflicts of any degree of escalation up to everyday conflicts of interest, as are inevitable in a democratic society, and negotiations for the purpose of constructive dispute settlement.

Women Journalists’ Careers in Spain: the Case of War Correspondents

Gender inequalities persist in the journalism profession in Spain, even though some have celebrated that it has become a feminized job. In fact, the journalistic profession in Spain has a severe gender divide: many women leave the profession; there are few women in the highest echelons of news organizations; there is an under-studied wage gap; and newsrooms continue to be gender-blind. This article explores these issues through the case of war reporting. War reporting has traditionally been considered a “man’s job,” but there are around forty women working for the Spanish media covering violence and armed conflicts. Based on in-depth interviews with women war correspondents and using the concept of typical career types, this article analyses the barriers that female reporters have to face and reflects on how gendered these barriers are.

News personalization for peace: how algorithmic recommendations can impact conflict coverage

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to develop a conceptual framework for assessing what are the possibilities and pitfalls of using algorithmic systems of news personalization – i.e. the tailoring of individualized news feeds based on users’ information preferences – for constructive conflict coverage in the context of peace journalism, a journalistic paradigm calling for more diversified and creative war reporting.Design/methodology/approachThe paper provides a critical review of existing research on peace journalism and algorithmic news personalization, and analyzes the intersections between the two concepts. Specifically, it identifies recurring pitfalls of peace journalism based on empirical research on constructive conflict coverage and then introduces a conceptual framework for analyzing to what degree these pitfalls can be mediated – or worsened – through algorithmic system design.FindingsThe findings suggest that AI-driven distribution technologies can facilitate constructive war reporting, in particular by countering the effects of journalists’ self-censorship and by diversifying conflict coverage. The implementation of these goals, however, depends on multiple system design solutions, thus resonating with current calls for more responsible and value-sensitive algorithmic design in the domain of news media. Additionally, our observations emphasize the importance of developing new algorithmic literacies among journalists both to realize the positive potential of AI for promoting peace and to increase the awareness of possible negative impacts of new systems of content distribution.Originality/valueThe article particle is the first to provide a comprehensive conceptualization of the impact of new content distribution techniques on constructive conflict coverage in the context of peace journalism. It also offers a novel conceptual framing for assessing the impact of algorithmic news personalization on reporting traumatic and polarizing events, such as wars and violence.

Dreißigjähriger Krieg und Öffentlichkeit

This study considers print media produced during the Thirty Years War, focusing on the fact – largely unknown by most historians of the war - that this was the first war in human history to be accompanied by newspapers printed on a regular weekly basis. It assesses the effectiveness of newspaper coverage of political, diplomatic and military affairs and the characteristics of war reporting. Little of what, in historiography, is generally counted among the arcana imperii remained hidden from the readers. A history of the war could be written on the basis of the newspaper reports alone. With very few exceptions, every battle and siege was covered in great detail. No other media shadowed the events of the war as closely as the newspapers, which present a unique narrative of the war and revealing insights into these historical events. They represent an indispensable historiographical source, constituting an initial draft historical narrative from a contemporary perspective.