Communicating Peace through Sports

As a growing field, sports for peace have attracted optimists, pessimists and skeptics in the process fanning an efficacy debate. As a contribution to this debate, this chapter rather than directly get into the ongoing discourse, will instead, attempt to provide a sneak preview of the effectiveness of the Peace Race, a sports for peace intervention organized among Pastoralists in Kenya and Uganda. The chapter begins with setting up the context by tracing the practice of sports for peace, its development and making a mention of the schools of thought on the efficacy of sports for peace. It then proceeds to examining the efficacy of the Peace Race by focusing on its successes and challenges, exploring utility of Peace Race in the conflict cycle and the place of celebrities in peacebuilding. The chapter ends with suggestions on improvement on the efficacy of peace races and focus areas of research.

The Amplification of the Sunni-Shia Divide through Contemporary Communications Technology

The Sunni-Shia divide has once more returned to the global popular lexicon. However, this contemporary form of the allegedly age-old schism within Islam in fact differs significantly from historical cases. It has primarily come to the fore again as various actors have invoked it, and the fear it brings, in order to frame the conflicts they currently wage both overtly and covertly in more favourable terms. The purpose of this chapter is to examine this phenomenon, with particular focus on the Syrian Civil War, and the wider regional struggles for hegemony. It will further look at how modern communication technologies have permitted actors to spread their narratives much more effectively than ever before, and how the international community might arrest the exacerbation of this divide, and slow the sectarian violence currently plaguing the region.

Role of Traditional and New Media in Ethnic Conflict in Nigeria's Middle Belt Region

A chief obstacle to community development and progress in sub-Saharan Africa is persistent, widespread, low-scale, yet catastrophic, ethnic and communal conflicts. Nigeria is no exception! Nigeria's Middle-Belt region has experienced long-standing ethno-religious and political conflict/crises. Frequent and intermittent ethnic conflicts have persisted among the various ethnic groups. This research looks at the seemingly contrasting, yet complimentary, roles of traditional and new media in ethnic conflict transformation in the area. Using a peace journalism media-ecological model that incorporates spiral of silence, priming, agenda-setting, and framing theoretical frameworks, the research analyzes the (dis)functional roles legacy and new media play in conflict exacerbation, resolution, and mediation. It employs a qualitative interpretive critical approach to examine how traditional and new media respond to ethnic conflicts in the region. It proposes a new ethic for ethnic conflict reporting, suitable for professional and citizen journalists.

Art, Values, and Conflict Waged in Satirical Cartoons

The first international art controversy erupted after the publication of satirical cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad in Denmark's Jyllands-Posten in 2005. Unlike prior art controversies, the Muhammad cartoon controversy, as it came to be known, engaged millions of people around the globe. Debates and protests surrounding competing sacrosanct values received massive media attention. As the conflict between Western free speech and 10th anniversary of the September 30 publication of the cartoons approaches, the world mourns the loss of more lives in connection with the continuing controversy. By examining the constellation of speech acts associated with Flemming Rose, Stephane Charbonnier, and Lars Vilks, this chapter examines whether satire is an effective rhetorical device for resolving disagreements involving conflicting sacrosanct values, and if and how it ameliorates or contributes to conflict in increasingly multi-religious, multiethnic, and multicultural societies.

Inspiring Hate

Although Usama bin Laden is dead, the radical ideology that underscored his actions and those of his followers continues to live in his written and spoken communiqués, as well as those of other leaders of the jihadist movement. Of interest to this investigation is the internet publication Inspire, produced by al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP). At the core of these documents are the identity constructions of Self and Other. Previous research of terrorist writings highlights the centrality of Self and Other framing in advocacy for violence. Employing computational linguistic analyses, this investigation explored the identity frames published in Inspire. Results indicate that characterizations of the Self are as the victim of oppression by the Other, countered by frames of morality, purity, spirituality, and honor. Comparatively, the Other is framed as the actor towards the Self, engaging in aggressive, militaristic, and oppressive behaviors.

Islamaphobic Discourse and Interethnic Conflict

This chapter examines the Islamaphobic discourse that is perpetuated by the news media coverage of the ISIS beheadings to explain the potential influence of news media on viewers' dissociative behaviors, and the justifications made by social actors for such behaviors. Specifically, this chapter seeks to explore the ways in which intragroup identities are strengthened (ingroup bias) through outgroup derogation. The authors conducted a thematic analysis of news coverage from five major news sources. Findings revealed four themes of problematic discourse: (1) naming the enemy, (2) establishing intergroup threat, (3) homogenizing Islamic peoples, and (4) accentuating the negative. The authors then describe several ways in which media can function as a buffer to alleviate intergroup hostilities through the creation of positive contact situations.

Elite Communication and Legitimization of Violence during Inter-Group Conflicts

A comparative content analysis was conducted across communication from elites involved in inter-group conflicts across two decades and from four different countries (the former Yugoslavia, Rwanda, Sri Lanka and Myanmar). A thematic coding scheme was developed using themes identified in the previous literature, Susan Benesch's proposal on dangerous speech (2012) and perspectives from Social Identity Theory (1981). Coding and analysis revealed that across countries and temporal spans, elites bolster in-group and out-group distinctions and identity through their language choices, but typically avoid outright dehumanization as commonly assumed. Moreover, they excessively create non-falsifiable statements about current, past, or future events; and employ allegations against the intentions, plans and activities of the out-group. These non-falsifiable statements make a bulk of their speech or broadcasts. Several additional themes were identified as well which point to contextualization of communication.

Shared Perspectives in Ethnic Conflict

This chapter examines theoretical perspectives on ethnic conflict across several disciplines. Multiple academic disciplines have addressed ethnic conflict with the tools available in their fields of research. A less thoroughly researched aspect of ethnic conflict is what most valuable contributions are shared across disciplinary boundaries. This chapter will touch on approaches from social sciences, political science, cognitive science, communication studies, and lay views of ethnic conflict. This study is a first step into this topic and yields some important ideas for future research for analyzing ethnic conflict.

Transforming Conflict in the Hands and Hearts of Communities in Kenya

Media representation of ethnic conflicts in Africa constructs an image of a continent ridden with wars and violence. At the same time, prominence given to the Western intervention in conflicts in Africa leads to asymmetry of understanding about the role victims of violence play to improve their conditions. This chapter challenges macro-level frameworks about conceptions of ethnic conflict and peacebuilding by highlighting the work of Amani Mashinani (peace at grassroots) as a potential alternative model to transform conflict in North Rift Valley in Kenya. It appropriates peacebuilding as a practice of everyday life and explicates factors that explicitly account for understanding grassroots peacebuilding.

Flipping the Script

The purpose of this chapter is to examine newspaper coverage of the George Zimmerman-Trayvon Martin shooting and the frames of race and crime used in the context of newsworthiness. The researchers analyzed 1,177 articles in one local, six statewide, and three national newspapers. The local paper focused on the shooting and the ensuing police investigation instead of social and political issues, and local-interest stories instead of national events. There was virtually no mention of race. Coverage in the six Florida papers was mixed between details of the case and social issues such as Florida's Stand Your Ground law. There were few uses of racial descriptors. The three national papers focused on social and political issues such as Stand Your Ground, guns, and race, and referenced the shooting for context when discussing similar local incidents. Racial identifiers were used frequently, and Martin's clothing was referenced as a covert racial identifier or as shorthand for the shooting and its aftermath. The researchers then discuss the ethical implications of such coverage.