MEDIA AND CONFLICT RESOLUTION FUNCTIONS

The media perform several functions in conflict resolution, known mostly as “media diplomacy” and “media-broker diplomacy” (Cohen, 1986; Gilboa, 1998b, 2002b, 2002c, 2005b). Politicians and policy makers use the media to advance negotiations, build confidence, and cultivate public support for negotiations and agreements.

Signaling and communication

In the absence of direct channels of commu­nication, or when one side is unsure about how the other would react to conditions for negotiations or to proposals for conflict resolution, officials use the media, with or without attribution, to send signals and messages to leaders of rival states and non­state actors. Using the media for signaling purposes has been known for many years (Jonsson, 1996). Using the media without attribution to sources is particularly efficient when policy makers wish to fly a “trial balloon.” They can avoid embarrassment and disassociate themselves from an idea that may receive a negative response. Leaders use reliable third parties to secretly explore intentions of the other side, but sometimes they simultaneously use the media to support the secret exchanges and to further indicate their serious intentions.

After the 1973 Arab-Israeli war, Secretary of State Henry Kissinger mediated between Israel and the two attacking Arab states: Egypt and Syria. He pursed this effort through “shuttle diplomacy” and highly sophisticated use of the reporters accompanying him on his plane.

In recent years, leaders have been using global communication more frequently than traditional diplomatic channels to deliver messages intended to alter an image or to open a new page. US State Department spokesper­son Nicholas Burns (1996) admitted: “We use the briefings to send messages to foreign governments about our foreign policy. For example, I sometimes read carefully cali­brated statements to communicate with the governments with which we have no diplo­matic relations: Iraq, Iran, Libya and North Korea” (pp. 12-13). Leaders in other parts of the world employ the same technique. For example, in January 1998, the newly elected Iranian President Mohammed Khatami chose CNN to send a conciliatory message to the United States (Associated Press, 1998). Sometimes attitudes toward journalists of the other side send an important signal.

Mediation

Occasionally, the media function as an independent actor, initiating and

facilitating negotiations. While not new, international mediation by journalists seems to have been expanding in recent years. Larson (1988) observed: “television provides an interactive channel for diplomacy which is instantaneous or timely and in which journalists frequently assume an equal role with officials in the diplomatic dialogue” (p.‘43). Gurevitch (1991) referred to journalists who directly intervene in diplomacy as “international political brokers” (pp. 187-188). Graber (2002, p. 171) said they became “surrogates for public officials” by actively participating in an evolving situation, such as a diplomatic impasse.

Theories of international negotiation may help place the mediation roles of journal­ists in a proper context by emphasizing the significance of “pre-negotiation” stages, the role of “third parties,” and “track-two diplomacy” (Zartman & Rasmussen, 1997). During the pre-negotiation stage, the sides explore the advantages and shortcomings of a specific negotiation process and make a decision—based on information received from the other party and domestic and exter­nal considerations—on whether or not they should enter formal negotiations (Saunders, 2001). At this stage, mediators attempt to persuade leaders to replace confrontation and violence with a commitment to peace­ful resolution and negotiations. Frequently, parties to a conflict are unable to begin direct formal negotiations and need a third party to help. Third parties can be formal representatives of superpowers, neutral states, international organizations or just ordinary individuals (Hampson, 2001). Third parties are particularly helpful in the pre-negotiation stage.

While “track-one diplomacy” refers to government-to-government, formal, and offi­cial interaction between representatives of sovereign states, “track-two diplomacy” refers to unofficial negotiators or medi­ators and informal forms of negotiation (McDonald & Bendahmane, 1995; Volkan, 1991).At first, track-two diplomacy described only contacts and negotiations at the people- to-people level, but later was expanded to include negotiations involving peoples and governments. Gilboa (2005b) suggested that it is useful to view journalists act­ing independently as third parties, pursuing track-two diplomacy, particularly in pre­negotiation stages, and used the term “media­broker diplomacy” to describe this role. Journalists primarily pursue this function when they temporarily become mediators and specifically help parties to begin official negotiation.

A journalist may initiate mediation or may be asked by one or more parties to pursue it. In this model, journalists talk to the two sides, transmit relevant infor­mation, and suggest detailed procedures, proposals, and ideas that may advance official negotiations. This format was seen in Walter Cronkite’s mediation in 1977 between Egyptian President Anwar Sadat and Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin; in the attempt of the British correspondent Patrick Seale in 2000 to break the deadlock in Israeli- Syrian negotiations; and the attempt in 2002 of Russian reporter Anna Politkovskaya to mediate between the Russian government and Chechen terrorists who held 700 hostages at the Moscow Theater (Gilboa, 2002c; 2005b). The primary professional mission of journalists is to uncover events, not to conceal them. Yet journalists have been engaged as mediators in secret negotiations (Gilboa, 1998a). The most well-known case is the mediation of John Scali (1995), diplomatic correspondent forABCNews, during the 1962 Cuban missile crisis. The Soviets selected him because he was known for his fair reporting and close ties with policy makers in Washington.

Confidence building and destruction

In the critical pre-negotiation phase, journal­ists can unofficially promote and facilitate interaction among conflicted parties, and can improve communication and increase mutual understanding. The goal is to convince the sides that they should seriously consider negotiation as the preferred method for resolving their conflict. This role is more likely to happen when there is no formal third party helping enemies to engage in conflict resolution. It typically occurs when representatives of rival sides are brought together on air to discuss the issues dividing them. A well-known and respected journalist associated with a highly regarded program has a better chance of successfully performing this role. This function was seen in a series of special programs Ted Koppel broadcasted on Nightline, in 1988 and 2000, on the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, and in 1988 on the conflict in South Africa (Koppel & Gibson, 1996); the role of Thomas Friedman of The New York Times in initiating and promoting the 2002 Saudi Arabia plan for Arab-Israeli peace; and the role of Michael Gonzalez of The Wall Street Journal in 2003 in initiating and promoting a European alliance with the United States before the war in Iraq began (Gilboa, 2005b,pp. 106-111).

The media may intentionally or unin­tentionally destroy confidence as well. The typical example would be media cover­age of violence and terrorism used by organizations opposing conflict resolution (Cohen-Almagor, 2005). Media coverage of spectacular terrorist events usually turns into a disaster marathon (Katz & Liebes, 2007). It occurs when the broadcast media, partic­ularly television, suspend regular scheduling and keep repeating many times the pictures of death and destruction caused by terrorist attacks and bombing. The continuing broad­cast, which sometimes lasts for a few days, raises doubts about peace prospects and the value of negotiations. Disaster marathon plays right into the hands of the terrorists who wish to gain wide publicity for their agenda and stands.

The thought of journalists pursing medi­ation and confidence-building measures is indeed intriguing. If parties to a conflict cannot make progress on their own, and if no third parties are around, why should journalists be prevented from conducting mediation and constructive diplomacy? The frequent counterargument is that journalists are supposed to cover events, not create them. Gurevitch (1991) noted that “the active participation of journalists in the events they presumably ‘cover’ is often achieved at the cost of sacrificing traditional journalistic norms, such as editorial control” (p. 187). The journalists decide which actors, perspectives, and parts of the story to include and which to ignore. Furthermore, historically, journalists who have become players in a negotiation process have not suspended their professional reporting and coverage of the process. In fact, they have become players due to their professional standing and work. Therefore, journalists must be extremely cautious in using their profession to mediate in international conflicts, as should be policy makers who employ them for this purpose.

Promoting agreements

The media, particularly television, may contribute to reconciliation through media events—spectacular celebrations of peace agreements. The media contribution is par­ticularly critical in situations where the respective societies are highly suspicious of each other and have been educated for years to believe that the other side is only interested in violence and war. Media events are broadcast live, organized outside the media, pre-planned, and presented with reverence and ceremony (Dayan & Katz, 1992). Live coverage of media events interrupts scheduled broadcasting and attracts wide audiences around the world. Diplomatic media events include summit meetings between rival pow­ers, such as the United States and the Soviet Union during the Cold War, and celebrations of peace agreements signed between former enemies. Media events can be used at the onset of negotiations to build confidence and facilitate negotiations, or at the end of negotiations to mobilize public support for reconciliation. The reconciliation effect of media events gained vivid expression in chapters of US-USSR “summit diplomacy” and in Arab-Israeli negotiations.

Gorbachev’s summits with Presidents Reagan and Bush demonstrate how the two superpowers became adept at exploiting the media in the transition from the Cold War to the post-Cold War era. Their summits, above all, reflected the dramatic changes in superpower relations (Negrine, 1996). The climactic Gorbachev-Bush summit held in Washington in May 1990 officially ended the Cold War. Reagan used the summits to legitimize the dramatic shift in his attitudes toward the Soviet Union, branded as “the evil empire” at the beginning of his presidency.

Media events became increasingly popular and were frequently used in Arab-Israeli reconciliation efforts (Gilboa, 2002c, pp. 204-207). These include Sadat’s historic visit to Jerusalem in November 1977 and the signing ceremonies of the Israeli-Egyptian Peace Treaty of March 1979, the PLO-Israel Declaration of Principles of September 1993, and the Israeli-Jordanian Peace Treaty of October 1994. Leaders consider media events to be an effective tool in building confidence and mobilizing domestic and global public support for difficult peacemaking processes and reconciliation. According to the typology of media events suggested by Dayan and Katz, the US-Soviet summit meetings and the Arab-Israeli media events belong to the category of conquests where a great leader, such as Gorbachev or Sadat, was able to overcome decades of hatred, conflict, and war and replace them with negotiations, cooperation, and peace.

Long and Brecke (2003) employed the term reconciliation events (p. 6) to assess recon­ciliation in civil and international conflicts. These are defined as turning points leading to improving relations and lessening the chance of a recurrence of violence. Reconciliation events include the following elements: direct physical contact or proximity between oppo­nents, usually at a senior level; a public cer­emony accompanied by substantial publicity or media attention that relays the event to the wider national society; and ritualistic or symbolic behavior that indicates the parties consider the dispute resolved and that more amicable relations are expected to follow. The authors argued that in both civil and international conflicts, reconciliation events are a valid proxy indicator of reconciliation. They offered two models of reconciliation: a forgiveness psychological model and a signaling rational choice model. The first is more useful in explaining reconciliation in civil conflicts, while the second is more useful in explaining reconciliation in international conflicts. The signaling model predicts that resumption of conflict after conflict resolution becomes less likely when reconciliation events are “part of a costly, novel, voluntary, and irrevocable concession in a negotiated bargain” (p. 3).

A reconciliation event in a civil conflict would be a peace agreement such as the 1992 Accords of Chapultepec signed between the government of El Salvador and the leftist guerrilla organization Farabundo Marti Front for National Liberation; or the establishment in 1995 of the Truce and Reconciliation Commission in South Africa. Areconciliation event in international conflicts would be a framework for peace such as the 1978 Israeli-Egyptian Camp David accords; the restoration of full diplomatic relations such as Great Britain and Argentina accomplished in 1990; or a formal peace agreement such as the agreement Vietnam and Cambodia signed in 1991. Long and Brecke concluded that emotion played a significant role in reconciliation, and that reconciliation events were associated with reductions in interna­tional conflict, de-escalated violence, and restored order. The problem with this study is the concept of a reconciliation event. The authors offered a highly simplistic definition of reconciliation and were probably unaware of the theory of media events that is very relevant for their study (Dayan & Katz, 1992). Despite these limitations, their study offers a media-dependent instrument that may help forecast chances for reconciliation in international conflict.

Analysis of media or reconciliation events reveals advantages as well as shortcomings. They certainly confirm legitimacy on negoti­ations and help to mobilize public support for agreements. On the other hand, by definition, media events have to be spectacular thereby creating high expectations for rapid and efficient progress toward peace. But as recent Arab-Israeli peace processes demonstrate, even following breakthroughs, difficult and long negotiations are needed to conclude agreements. The gap between the promise of media events and the actual results could create disappointments and confusion. Media events are not always successful, as was the case in the 1991 Arab-Israeli Madrid conference, and such ploys become far less effective when employed too frequently and the groundbreaking effect becomes diluted (Liebes & Katz, 1997). Recently, Katz and Liebes (2007) argued that traumatic events such as the 9/11 terror attacks in the USA, recent wars and natural disasters have upstaged peace ceremonies. Disasters took over because innovations in communication technologies have scattered audiences and taken the novelty from live broadcasting. Conflict resolution requires great visionary leaders and so far in this century they are in short supply. In retrospect, in several cases, the positive effects of media events have been short-lived. Yet in theory they provide enough time for great leaders to move forward beyond the point of no return in conflict resolution processes.