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Methods and techniques of mass media coverage of the regional conflicts


Ideally the mass media in the open society are the conscience of the country, especially in those situations, when the mass deaths of the people is concerned. The carried out study clarifies also the relationships, often very tense ones, between mass media and the state. The degree of freedom of mass media is checked during crises. Mass media not only determine the political course of ruling structures, but also reflect the whole dynamics of the political process.

Therefore, the necessity of studying the role of mass media in the production and reproduction of conflict situations from the point of view of political science has become ripe.

The reasons that the concrete experience of covering by mass media of the war in Chechnya, the problems of mass media in covering Georgian-Abkhazian and Georgian-Ossetian conflicts, the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict are used in the present work, are following:
Scale: all forms of confrontations have been demonstrated in the mentioned conflicts;
Political interests of the parties were reflected;
Conflicts pointed out economic problem of the countries;
They revealed extreme forms of chauvinism and nationalism;
Religious factor of different confessions.

The war in Chechnya put a number of serious questions on the ability of authorities to observe the principles of information openness and the mass media readiness to act under extreme conditions. The problem is not only in that whether the covered information is positive or negative, but also in that the main criterion of the evaluation of mass media activities in a democratic society is that of reliability and completeness of information provided the readers and viewers. The military conflict in Chechnya became a test not only for the Russian military and politicians, but also for the mass media. The conflict put principally new tasks before the press. This conflict displayed all sides of a new role of mass media in the society, gave an impetus to studying this important problem.

The studies of the media activities in conflict situations are pressing for Azerbaijan, which was in a state of information blockade during the first years of the conflict with Armenia over Nagorno-Karabakh. The methods of covering the Karabakh conflict by the mass media of Azerbaijan, which in comparison with the coverage of the Chechen war by the Russian press considerably lags behind the latter by the informative contents of materials, have been analysed. The study deals with the relations established between the mass media and the society concerning the reflection by the press and the television of the conflict in Chechnya. These relations are displayed in newspaper articles and television broadcasts, i.e. the information product designated for public use. It is this very information product that will be analysed with the aim of searching the regularity in the mass media activities on the coverage of developments in conflict areas. For the implementation of the aim set a special place in the methodological basis of the study is occupied by the content analysis.

Experience of the mass media of Azerbaijan and Armenia in covering the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict

The conflict that has been going on for more than 15 years had various in their meaning geopolitical state and legal and information contexts. During this time Azerbaijan went a complicated way of historical ordeals from the crisis and decay of the Soviet Union to the proclamation of independence. Unlike other republics the perestroika processes considerably aggravated here by the conflict that permanently “heated up” due to influence of a lot many unpredictable factors at that. And not only the changes in the country influenced the course of the conflict but the conflict itself influenced specifically the dynamics of political and social situation in Azerbaijan. A complex interaction set up between these processes.

The political processes in and around Azerbaijan and stage-by-stage changes of mass media during the whole process of conflict development had interwoven into a complex knot of mutual influences. At every new phase considerable transformations took place in ideology, work regime and the language of mass media. At first the mass media oriented only at Moscow and did not invent anything “by themselves”; then the pathological hysteria became dominant. Further as “the information world became pluralistic” a chaotic combination of “militarization”, “hysteria” in the work of mass media was observed. Lately, “multidimensional information field” has been mastering the language and methods of diplomatic struggle. Democratic process of control over the conflict situations assumes, among other procedures, a mutual and operative exchange of reliable information. The cooperation and information exchange between Azerbaijan and Armenia is carried out, mainly, between the Azerbaijani agency “Turan” and the Armenian “Snark”.

The question is about technical problems existing in obtaining information, about difficulties of telephone and facsimile communication, as well as the problems of electron post. If the communication problems are solved, then practically any mass media will cooperate with its colleagues in the other country. Today the majority of information on Azerbaijan covered by the Armenian mass media is indirect information. It is radio interception, reprints from newspapers, and the struggle between Azerbaijani and Armenian web sites.

For a long time the war in Karabakh was, naturally, a number one event in the mass media of the two conflicting countries. Taking into account that today the interest to the Karabakh events is less acute due to the nine-year-old cease-fire and that the mass media consider this subject to be less pressing and touch upon it lesser and lesser, one can attempt to analyse the methods of its reflection in the press when speaking of a termination of a certain stage in the Karabakh conflict. The first thing to strike the eye is the practically complete absence of the military news columns in newspapers. Both official and opposition and independent press neither informatively, nor factually enough reflected three years of intensive hostilities. To a certain degree the first essays on the conflict were done in a genre of a chronicle. But further this genre of a strict chronicle without any comments proved little attractive. The reason for such neglectful attitude to the main genre of military journalism – chronicle – requires separate studies and is, possibly, in the sphere of ethno psychology. The lack of informative materials is clearly seen as compared to the coverage by the Russian press of the Chechen war. This might be the result of old traditions of the Russian military journalism but in the end by the newspaper materials on can make oneself a rather complete impression on the actual course of the Chechen campaign. On the contrary, in our case one can only make assumptions purely by the emotional background of publications and by the language of Aesop. Practically complete disregard of the current events is complemented by the abundance of political, historical, analytical, scientific and pseudo-scientific articles on the origins, reasons, pre-determination and possible results, methods of settlement of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict.

The pathetic pamphlet materials that had had sufficient specific weight during the first days of the Karabakh confrontation are not so widespread today. Maybe, the most significant difference is a special tendency of the Armenia press to present own people “as eternal martyrs” and to the political subject of creating the myths. The Armenian journalism is cool towards the sphere of confessional legend-making and clan background of betrayals at the fronts of Karabakh. It fills up this asymmetry by especially zealous researches in jurisprudence and international humanitarian law. But on the whole it is quite clear that the strata considerably isolated from real life are the dominating methods of Karabakh war reflections.

Positive and negative functions of the mass media in the regional conflicts

For the last decades the role of mass media as the human behaviour determining factor, including their conflicting quality, sharply increased. The contents, forms, dynamics of information reported by the mass media exert an evident influence on the psychic state of the people and their attitude towards the people around them. When watching the TV news, the audience experience most often the alarm, defenceless, tiredness, and insecurity. Apparently, these feelings cannot but influence their behaviour, including in conflict situations. Thus, mass media:
powerfully influence the formation in all people of the settings affecting their behaviour in conflict situations;
influence the understanding and estimation of the conflicts by the specialists in conflicts, leaders, politicians;
help to form in the people, starting from their childhood, the stereotypes of constructive behaviour in problem situations of social interaction.

Unfortunately, from the very beginning the professional limitations, which under the circumstances would have been quite lawful, were not established (and this is the reproach brought on federal authorities and those who dealt with the information), since this is a war and any information received from the hostilities zone requires a special attitude. And the conflict that arose between the official information and that, which was afterwards broadcast by TV, that very shock provoked the inadequate reaction of the authorities on the journalists.

Summing up one’s impressions of the judgments stated in the press, one can confess that:
- for the first time in the history of the Russian television the war became public – the people watched by its own eyes. By TV broadcasts. In fact, the Chechen conflict can be called “the first television war”.
- the war was not only on the screens, it was about the TV. The television, as a whole, demonstrated its oppositional character towards the authorities. One of the most serious crises for the last years between the authorities and the electronic press began. The state was not able to use the potential of the “fourth power”.
- television was mainly the source of information on the war. Television did not openly play the role of a propagandist, although the TV information helped to understand the war as “social sufferings”.
- for the first time on the screen the war horrors were shown to such an extent. On the part of the critics there were practically no reaction at the ethical side of demonstration by the TV of the corpses, of the dying soldiers, etc. However, the agreement with the necessity of showing the “true face of the war” was expressed indirectly.

On the one hand, this cannot be shown, especially, when it turns into a pressing problem when the corpses of the victims lie for weeks in the streets of Grozny, on the other hand, the journalists understand perfectly well that this leads to some senselessness of the audience, when the public becomes senseless to such an extent that it conceives still calmer every new portion of violence. By the way, this is a difficult problem and at the moment it has not been solved yet. However, those tragic pictures of war, which were shown by the Russian TV during the Chechen conflict, were the cruellest, the most natural of all the audience has recently watched not only in Russia but also in the CIS. For the last several years the television showed the most distressing reports from Transdniestria. There were the cut heads of the Russian frontier guards from Tajikistan as well; there was Karabakh. At that the journalists working in Chechnya are aware of the norms, existing in the western countries. The role of “synchrony”, possibility to provoke a new outburst of violence, emotional part of information.

Political purposes and technological aspects

In a democratic state, where the press is a real fourth power, it controls the first three branches of power and expresses the public opinion. Unfortunately, a state cannot ensure the secure conditions for journalists, working in “hot spots”. This is explained by objective reasons. Whatever important the operative information might be, it has certain drawbacks, especially in the formation of the world public opinion. The analysis and the complete context of the current event are absent from it. Nevertheless, this operative information has a great importance for the population, which closely and intensely follows the course of actions in the conflict zone.

Everyone hopes for the honesty, objectivity and understanding of their professional duty by the journalists working in conflict zones, since the dynamics of a conflict depends on their work as well. Those who underestimate the importance of the press are deeply mistaken. The problem of the press being unready can be spoken of to such an extent, to which neither the public opinion was ready to this situation. The public opinion experienced a shock, and the press reflected that shock. The state structures proved unready. For the mass media, covering the conflict in Chechnya, the problem of readiness arose, in the first place, from the point of view of organisation and available technical possibilities. There were no specific problems here, since the Russian information service used to work in a rather tense regime, and the experience of covering such kind of conflict was not unique, though here the additional and very important factor was that this was the first big armed conflict in the territory of the Russian Federation. Television journalists strived to reflect the situation in such a manner, as they perceived it. They had the experience of working in hot spots, but they were indirect hot spots – they had no relation to Russia, and therefore, the reaction of the authorities was indirect as well, since the fighting did not take place on the territory of Russia. Neither did the relations between the mass media and the authorities, therefore, become tough.

Nowadays the “democratic power” unleashed the conflict, and the press, supporting this power, was shocked. It did not know how to react: either to support the authorities, which in this case waged an unjust war, or not to support it. If to support – then how? There was only one way not to define one’s political position: to take up the position of pacifism, of “universal human moral”. From the point of view of the form all materials represent a complete set of genres: information reports, reporting, interviews, comments and analyses, and so on; at that all journalists used the same sources: their own information, press-service and agency communications, references to the other mass media, anonymous sources and the like.

Concept and types of conflicts

In the modern science under the term of conflict the confrontation of sometimes contrary interests, activities and viewpoints of individual persons, political parties, public organisations, socio-political and socio-economic systems is understood. Conflicts differ by their subjects, levels of conflict relations and by the object. They can be economic, social, foreign and domestic political, territorial, language, confessional and others.

Conflicts may differ by their maturity, character and the acuteness of their resolution. Depending on the concrete historical situation, a conflict may tend either to self-liquidation, to the solution as a result of subjective factor, or to the aggravation of a conflict situation, to the escalation. The latter consists of involvement into confrontation of bigger and bigger masses of people, in the expansion of the conflict zone, of the transition from its “civilised” forms to more problematic, sometimes tough ones, reaching the stage of armed struggle and the formation of an extreme situation for the very existence of conflicting parties.

Most generally the conflicts are usually classified by the following:
- the zones and areas of their origin. Here, first of all, foreign and domestic political conflicts are distinguished, which in their turn are subdivided into a whole spectrum of various crises and contradictions;
- by the degree and character of their normative regulation;
- by the qualitative characteristics, reflecting different degrees of involvement of the parties, intensity of crises and contradictions;
- by temporal (time) characteristics: long-term and short-term ones. Some conflicts in the political life can be resolved during a short period of time, whereas the others can last for whole generations;
- the correlation with the desires and organisation of the governance regime. In this case the vertical (characterising the relationship between subjects of different levels of power) and horizontal (showing the relations of one subjects with the power bearers) conflicts are distinguished as government ones.

The idea of internal contradiction, conflict character of politics has found its place in the science since 19th century. A.Tocqueville, K.Marx, H.Zimmel, and later K.Boulding, L.Kozer, A.Bentley and other theorists considered the conflict as a leading source of politics, lying in the basis of changes that occur in it, and thus determining the boundary and the character of the existence of the given sphere of public life.

However, in political science there is a contrary opinion too. E.Durkheim, M.Weber, D.Dewy and a number of other authors base on the secondary character of a conflict for the understanding of the essence of the politics and its subjection to basic social values, uniting the population and integrating the society into political system. From their point of view the unity of ideals and socio-cultural values allows to solve the existing conflicts and to ensure stability of the governing regime. In this connection they considered many conflicts as anomalies of the political process, and the politics, in its turn, had the aims of maintaining “social stability” (E.Durkheim), or “pedagogically influencing” the society (D.Dewy) for the conflict prevention. On the whole a political conflict represents nothing more than the variety (and a result) of competitive interaction of two and more sides (groups, states, individuals), contending for the distribution of power or resources. Sending a signal to the society and the authorities of existing contradictions, lack of position coincidence, a conflict stimulates the actions, which are able to bring the situation under the control. Therefore, the destabilisation of power and disintegration of the society arise not because of the conflicts, but due to inability to settle political contradictions or elementary ignoring these collisions.

The specialists in conflicts consider that if the energy of the people is set for the solution of a lot many important tasks for the authorities and is not focused at any one conflict, then such social and political systems preserve, as a rule, more possibilities to maintain the stability of their development. Only some kinds of political conflicts are really destructive for the society. In the countries with flexible and developed system of representation, detection and settlement of conflicts permits to effectively support the unity of a political system.

Summary

Several basic moments necessary for the conflict coverage by the mass media have been determined. They are based on analytical materials, review and opinion polls described in the present work. Their main aim is to help the mass media to consolidate the reached success, to stimulate the further reforms of journalism. To this end one could.
- organise a conference of main mass media with the participation of professional and scientific organisations;
- establish a standing committee, representatives of which would meet with the respective state agencies for coordination and adoption of decisions on such questions as daily press briefings of the military department, consideration of mass media proposals on the rights and the composition of journalists, who are admitted to the military activities zone and consequently share the obtained information with the other reporters;
- establish contacts of the media leaders with lawyers for the preparation of corresponding proposals to the legislative and executive bodies, as well as the judicial protection of journalists rights.

These measures, evidently, should be taken before certain rules regarding mass media are established. When these relations are codified, lesser efforts are required to care of a “special” attitude of the authorities towards concrete publications.

One should try to find common limits of tactful, reserved coverage of the war so that they would be within the responsibility of the press before the society. For this:
- the media organisations should come to agreement on the limits of violence demonstration, on the attitude to the violence propaganda on one’s part and on the part of an adversary, on the principles of using others’ and old video materials for the illustration of the course of war;
- one should, probably, avoid irony when underlining that official statements do not correspond the reality, since this leads to cynical attitude towards tragic events.

The use of photo collages and video films, showing the dying people, other materials, which the mass media in the majority of countries consider unethical and shocking one, should be questioned. The opinion and reaction of the audience, the mass media work for, should be deeper studied. It is known that during the war and armed conflict the study of the reaction of the audience takes on a special significance. And here it seems to be important to improve the marketing investigations, to elaborate some common standards, what will allow to precisely determine the character of information, which the audience counts for, as well as the admitted level of violence demonstration, acceptable character of comments and etc.
No doubt the war revealed the necessity of discussion and adoption of the professional ethics codex of journalists and of every mass media organ. It is important that the power structures decide the problems of information guarantees, organize the journalists’ training for the work in the military activities zones. It is necessary for the journalists covering this or that conflict to clearly outline the following set of problems.
- First, the problems of the use of force criteria at the conflict settlement and their correspondence to international practice.
- Secondly, the necessity to conceptually separate the right of nation to self-determination and separatism.

Thirdly, the elaboration of the criteria of interference into the internal affairs: are the changes in international relation enough to claim that the states are losing a part of their functions and that it is necessary to reconsider the concept of state sovereignty; the consent of any states or international bodies is required in order to consider the interference without the consent of the government of the receiving state to be legitimate; which forms of interference are the most effective during the settlement of a conflict.
It is important to define national interests of the country and their role in ensuring these interests; to decide to what extent the publication of such information as the operation plans, directions of strikes and others, which can potentially damage the national security, is well-grounded.

Expert opinion

Halter Marek

02.12.06

Halter Marek
Le College de France
Olivier Giscard d’Estaing

02.12.06

Olivier Giscard d’Estaing
COPAM, France
Mika Ohbayashi

02.12.06

Mika Ohbayashi
Institute for Sustainable Energy Poliñy
Bill Pace

02.12.06

Bill Pace
World Federalist Movement - Institute for Global Policy
Peter I. Hajnal

01.12.06

Peter I. Hajnal
Toronto University, G8 Research Group


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