Reduced view of a multidimensional reality : the Northern Ireland peace treaty in Berliner Zeitung - an example of peace journalism?

Abstract

As a result of the 'cold war culture', war became a permanent item on the political agenda and could be consumed as part of everyday entertainment. In news media the result was a type of conflict coverage, which contributes to conflict escalation by means of propaganda techniques.Knowing about the media's impact on reality construction and opinion making, a type of journalism is demanded, which portrays reality entirely and truthfully, and which overcomes antagonism. Accordingly, the present study focuses on the media's potential contribution to peace building in war-torn societies. We test the hypotheses according to which (a) a de-escalation oriented reporting style is part of the journalist's repertoir (individual presupposition) and (b) peace on the political agenda allows this de-escalation oriented reporting style to emerge (environmental presupposition).A representative article which looked promising in terms of constructive coverage of the Northern Ireland peace treaty at first glance, was analyzed. The results demonstrate that de-escalation oriented reporting exists, but it is still far from being peace journalism. Though reality is still described incompletely, the article compromises a fundamental characteristic of escalation oriented discourse: the indignation of the conflict parties against each other.