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The Role of the Mass Media and Digital Media in...
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The Role of the Mass Media and Digital Media in Contemporary Armed Conflict

A special issue of Journalism and Media (ISSN 2673-5172).

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (15 November 2022) | Viewed by 26477

Special Issue Editors

Dr. Gregory Simons

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
1. Institute for Russian and Eurasian Studies (IRES), Uppsala University, 753 20 Uppsala, Sweden
2. Department of Communication Sciences, Turiba University, LV-1058 Riga, Latvia
3. Ural Institute of Humanities, Ural Federal University, 620002 Yekaterinburg, Russia
Interests: contemporary warfare; persuasive communications; public opinion; political capital and legitimacy; transforming global order
Prof. Piers Robinson

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Organisation for Propaganda Studies, Bristol BS5 0HE, UK
Interests: war; conflict; propaganda; media; international relations; communications

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

In 2005, former BBC producer Kenneth Payne characterised the mass media as an instrument of war, not least owing to their need to prime and mobilise different audiences to facilitate installation of the elite’s policy agenda. This has certainly been proven countless times in history, whether that be the Rwandan genocide or the infamous 2003 Iraq War. It is the intention of this Special Issue to focus on the role of mass media in contemporary armed conflict. This does not restrict the focus of submissions to only war journalism—we also welcome articles that focus on the role and potential of peace journalism.

This is an important topic and issue to consider given the increasing deterioration of global stability—owing to the transformation of global order and the role played by extraordinary events such as the Coronavirus pandemic—which drives an ever-increasing level of tension and conflict that can and does spill over into open armed conflict. This can lead to increased motives and opportunities for regular military conflicts. There is also the aspect of increasing challenges by non-state actors to the state’s monopoly on organised violence and mass communications, which is driving the speed and force of irregular conflicts.

Submissions that investigate and analyse all kinds of mass media, including digital media, and all types of contemporary armed conflicts are very welcome, and diverse regional or country cases from non-Western researchers are encouraged. This Special Issue intends to go beyond the mainstream and Western-centric current state of the art research in order to gain a much deeper level of understanding and knowledge of the present opportunities and hazards of the role of mass media in contemporary armed conflict.

Dr. Gregory Simons
Prof. Piers Robinson
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Journalism and Media is an international peer-reviewed open access quarterly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 1000 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • peace journalism
  • war journalism
  • contemporary conflict
  • persuasive communications
  • perception
  • opinion
  • manufacturing consent
  • legitimacy

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Published Papers (4 papers)

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Research

18 pages, 697 KiB  
Article
Russo-Ukrainian War and Trust or Mistrust in Information: A Snapshot of Individuals’ Perceptions in Greece
by Paraskevi El. Skarpa, Konstantinos B. Simoglou and Emmanouel Garoufallou
Journal. Media 2023, 4(3), 835-852; https://doi.org/10.3390/journalmedia4030052 - 27 Jul 2023
Cited by 3 | Viewed by 4815
Abstract
The purpose of this study was to assess the Greek public’s perceptions of the reliability of information received about the Russo-Ukrainian war in the spring of 2022. The study was conducted through an online questionnaire survey consisting of closed-ended statements on a five-point [...] Read more.
The purpose of this study was to assess the Greek public’s perceptions of the reliability of information received about the Russo-Ukrainian war in the spring of 2022. The study was conducted through an online questionnaire survey consisting of closed-ended statements on a five-point Likert scale. Principal components analysis was performed on the collected data. The retained principal components (PCs) were subjected to non-hierarchical k-means cluster analysis to group respondents into clusters based on the similarity of perceived outcomes. A total of 840 responses were obtained. Twenty-eight original variables from the questionnaire were summarised into five PCs, explaining 63.0% of the total variance. The majority of respondents felt that the information they had received about the Russo-Ukrainian war was unreliable. Older, educated, professional people with exposure to fake news were sceptical about the reliability of information related to the war. Young adults who were active on social networks and had no detailed knowledge of the events considered information about the war to be reliable. The study found that the greater an individual’s ability to spot fake news, the lower their trust in social media and their information habits on social networks. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue The Role of the Mass Media and Digital Media in Contemporary Armed Conflict)
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30 pages, 372 KiB  
Article
Media, Public Opinion, and the ICC in the Russia–Ukraine War
by Senthan Selvarajah and Lorenzo Fiorito
Journal. Media 2023, 4(3), 760-789; https://doi.org/10.3390/journalmedia4030048 - 2 Jul 2023
Cited by 5 | Viewed by 11128
Abstract
This study, using content analysis and frame analysis, examines whether there is any connection between the International Criminal Court’s (ICC’s) announcement on the fifth day of Russia’s war against Ukraine (which began on 24 February 2022) that it would investigate credible allegations of [...] Read more.
This study, using content analysis and frame analysis, examines whether there is any connection between the International Criminal Court’s (ICC’s) announcement on the fifth day of Russia’s war against Ukraine (which began on 24 February 2022) that it would investigate credible allegations of Russia’s war crimes in Ukraine, and the reporting of the international press in those first five days. This study finds a functional relationship between the ICC’s application of international law and international press reporting, in that the latter pursued an agenda grounded in the sources of international law. This reporting appeared to have made people think about the likelihood of Russia’s war crimes in Ukraine (accessibility effect) and that Putin and his regime should be punished under international law (applicability effect). In turn, this was advantageous to the ICC’s announcement that it would investigate allegations of Russian war crimes in Ukraine. The speed of the ICC’s decision to open this investigation opens questions as to what distinguished the situation in Ukraine from similar situations. Media reporting may have contributed to a broader rationale for potential realpolitik objectives concerning Ukraine and Russia, underpinned by laudable humanitarian and legal concerns. This study concludes that if power saturates law, then the media is a diffusing agent of that power—an actor that spreads and amplifies elite narratives into the public sphere, rationalising the actions of institutions like the ICC. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue The Role of the Mass Media and Digital Media in Contemporary Armed Conflict)
20 pages, 484 KiB  
Article
“Let’s Draw a Line between Dos and Don’ts”: Pakistani Journalists’ Perspectives about the Ethics of Conflict-Sensitive Reporting
by Sadia Jamil and Gifty Appiah-Adjei
Journal. Media 2023, 4(1), 177-196; https://doi.org/10.3390/journalmedia4010013 - 30 Jan 2023
Cited by 1 | Viewed by 5205
Abstract
In conflict-ridden countries, the news media has a pivotal role to perform as an active advocate of human rights and societal peace, as well as a facilitator of conflict mitigation and resolution through the gathering and dissemination of non-partisan information. While today the [...] Read more.
In conflict-ridden countries, the news media has a pivotal role to perform as an active advocate of human rights and societal peace, as well as a facilitator of conflict mitigation and resolution through the gathering and dissemination of non-partisan information. While today the world witness armed conflicts in more forms than ever before, some countries are more sensitive to conflict and violence—such as Pakistan. The country is recognized as one of the riskiest places for working journalists by virtue of recurrent political, ethnic, and religious conflicts. The Pakistani journalists work in a climate of fear and risks and with opposing groups seeking to influence the news media, which creates more difficulties for them to report unbiased and accurate news to the public. The practice of ethics has become more challenging for the Pakistani journalists because the country lacks an effective and standardized code of conduct to report on conflict. Therefore, drawing on the theory of the conflict triangle by Galtung, this study seeks the Pakistani journalists’ perspectives about the ethics of conflict sensitive reporting. In doing so, this study uses the quantitative method of survey and the qualitative method of in-depth interviews. The study uses descriptive analysis to present the survey findings in the form of percentage and thematic analysis to present the findings of interview data. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue The Role of the Mass Media and Digital Media in Contemporary Armed Conflict)
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14 pages, 877 KiB  
Article
Lenses of Iran’s Role in Syria’s Conflict through a Comparison between BBC and Sputnik: News Approaches from Revisionist, Multilateral, and Counter-Hegemonic Discourse
by Davoud Gharayagh-Zandi
Journal. Media 2022, 3(2), 278-291; https://doi.org/10.3390/journalmedia3020021 - 11 Apr 2022
Cited by 1 | Viewed by 3474
Abstract
Syria’s domestic dissent created the foundation for the country’s civil conflict, where foreign actors have favored the different sides since the 2011 Arab Spring. Iran was invited to play an active role in the conflict owing to the declining fortunes of the Syrian [...] Read more.
Syria’s domestic dissent created the foundation for the country’s civil conflict, where foreign actors have favored the different sides since the 2011 Arab Spring. Iran was invited to play an active role in the conflict owing to the declining fortunes of the Syrian government. Iran welcomed the opportunity and understood that it suited its foreign policy priority to endorse the counter-hegemony approach in the MENA region in addition to maintaining the country’s political stability. It is essential to analyze how international media outlets covered Iran’s role in Syria. This study addressed the news coverage provided by Great Britain’s BBC and Russia’s Sputnik—two news agencies from two distinct geopolitical sides—both of which have Persian news outlets covering Iran’s role in the Syrian conflict. The foreign policy goals pursued by Iran aim at two different approaches: revisionism and multilateral partnership. Conducting a critical discourse analysis review of the news sources this study sought to demonstrate that the mass media attempt to engineer public consent in armed conflicts. According to the findings, the news agencies attempted to influence the policy preferences to adopt a peaceful architecture or try to induce a consent-driven perception in line with the foreign policy priorities set by their countries of origin. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue The Role of the Mass Media and Digital Media in Contemporary Armed Conflict)
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