FAQs

Peace journalism was developed as a way of avoiding and/or combatting prejudices and biases that are present in reporting around conflict. Created in response to research that indicated that news about conflict often has a value bias towards violence, peace journalism offers practical methods for correcting biases in the media by working with journalists, media professionals and media organisations in relation to conflict.

Also referred to as conflict solution journalism, constructive conflict coverage and conflict sensitive journalism, the concept of peace journalism was first proposed by Johan Galtung in opposition to war journalism. War journalism focuses on conflict; however, it has a value bias towards violent groups and violence, which only presents audiences with violence-based news, leading them to overvalue violent responses and to undervalue or ignore non-violent alternatives.

War journalism is the antithesis of peace journalism, as it has a strong focus on violence. War journalism tends to report the physical effects of conflict whilst ignoring the psychological impact, as well as focusing on those in elite positions and the differences between opposing parties. Based on zero-sum assumptions, war journalism publishes reports that assume that only one party’s needs can be met, whilst the other party must be defeated, ignored or compromised.

Peace journalism hopes to offer an alternative that will allow society to value and consider non-violent responses to conflict. The objective for peace journalists is to present audiences with the individuals and initiatives that will bring peace and are working towards achieving more harmonious conditions.

A Norwegian sociologist, Johan Galtung is the principal founder of peace and conflict studies and the founder of the Peace Research Institute Oslo (PRIO), which he launched in 1959 and where he remained as Director until 1970. As the founder of the Journal of Peace Research (established in 1964), Galtung has been a highly influential figure in the creation of peace journalism.

In 1969, Galtung was appointed to the world’s first chair in peace and conflict studies at the University of Oslo. Since his professorship at the University of Oslo, Galtung has held a number of other professorships at prestigious universities. He was the Distinguished Professor of Peace Studies at the University of Hawaii, and the first ever Tun Mahathir Professor of Global Peace at the International Islamic University Malaysia.