The Effectiveness of Peace Journalism and its Necessity for Afghanistan

Abdul Basir Mesbah, Founder of Pole Sorkh Media

Nowadays, peace journalism holds a higher position and greater efficacy than traditional journalism. Although the majority of journalists, with a traditional approach, focus on broadcasting news of violence, attracting attention, and arousing the emotions of the audience, due to the world’s need for peace and dialogue, it seems that peace journalism will become the main agenda of global media. McDonald once said that there is a belief in the world of journalism: it is conflict and violence that make news, not peace. However, a scholar named Johan Galtung (1930–2024) proposed the value of peace-oriented journalism as a serious counterpoint to conflict, confrontation, and fame in the news, directing criticism at the media for oversimplifying events, engaging in negativity, and failing to address the motivations behind conflicts.

According to Galtung, peace journalism, instead of focusing on violence, open conflicts, and antagonistic actors, explores the structural and cultural roots of conflicts.

This Norwegian scholar, in order to provide a deeper and more comprehensive understanding of this genre in journalism, devised a model now known as the Johan Galtung Peace Journalism Model. He believed that this model consisted of four key indicators: solution-orientation, people-orientation, process orientation, and truth-orientation

 Johan Galtung’s Peace Journalism Model ¹

  Solution-Oriented
Focuses on finding practical solutions to conflicts rather than merely reporting on violence or crises.

  People-Centered
Emphasizes the experiences and perspectives of those directly affected by conflict, such as victims, marginalized groups, and communities.

  Process-Oriented
Prioritizes the processes of peace-building, dialogue, and negotiation, rather than focusing solely on events or outcomes.

  Truth-Oriented
Seeks to uncover the underlying causes of conflict, aiming to provide a deeper, more comprehensive understanding of issues rather than surface-level reporting.

If we take a look at this model, we see that peace journalism can produce fundamental reports stemming from the lived experiences of socially affected and harmed groups, such as children, the elderly, women, and other victims and survivors of wars. These reports can give rise to the hopes and disgusts of these groups while also paving the way for empathy and the creation of a culture of non-violence. This can be described as one of the fundamental functions of peace journalism.

In this regard, peace journalism can be seen as a discourse advocating empathy and tolerance in contrast to traditional journalism, which results in four essential factors. These four elements are: process-orientation versus event-orientation, focus on pluralism and non-official sources versus attention to elites and official sources, focus on structural violence rather than conflict, and, ultimately, a deeper look into the roots of events rather than superficial coverage.

Therefore, we can say that peace journalism lays the groundwork for sustainable peace and tolerance, whereas traditional or conventional journalism merely records the events of the day. From these two concepts, we can conclude that traditional journalism exacerbates conflicts, while peace journalism creates the environment for dialogue and empathy.

It is important to note that one of the central issues in peace journalism is the journalist’s attention to ethical codes and their adherence to them in the preparation and production of reports and news. In other words, we cannot strengthen peace reporting without focusing on impartiality, accuracy, and truth, avoiding violence, maintaining justice and fairness, and respecting human rights. This type of reporting first pays attention to the materials of the professional ethics charter and then, using the language of peace, engages in the preparation and publication of reports that can strengthen an atmosphere of empathy.

Perhaps the question arises: who and how can contribute to strengthening peace journalism? The answer is very clear and simple: the actors of mass media and social networks play a decisive role and are primarily at the forefront. In the first step, they are responsible for creating an internal organizational policy based on tolerance and supporting peace and empathy. Under this broadcasting policy, journalistic ethics will be observed, educated and peace-oriented personnel will be hired, human rights values will be deeply respected, and a clear distance will be maintained from ethnic, gender, linguistic, and any other stereotypes. Finally, instead of focusing on the aftermath of events, the social and human roots that lead to violence will be studied.

In conclusion, we can say that, given that Afghan society is socially and ethnically fragmented, with a lack of dialogue between families, communities, and tribes, and a kind of distrust among some young people on social networks, one of the professional roles of the media, especially exile media, is to strengthen peace journalism.

1. Galtung, Johan. Peace by Peaceful Means: Peace and Conflict, Development and Civilization. SAGE Publications, 1996. ↩︎