The role of the media in violent conflicts in the digital age: Israeli and Palestinian leaders’ perceptions

Abstract

The role of the news media in violent conflicts is a topic that has received a great deal of scholarly attention especially in the field of political communication. A major issue that has emerged in recent years asks about whether the advent of the digital age has led to any significant changes in the role the media play in such confrontations. In this article, the author focuses on two research questions that seem especially important. The first asks: Has the advent of the digital age had any impact on how political leaders view the ability of weaker antagonists to compete politically with the more powerful side in asymmetrical conflicts? The second asks: To what extent do political leaders involved in violent conflicts think that the changes associated with the digital age have led to the media playing a more positive or negative role in attempts at peace and reconciliation. The author tries to provide some initial answers to these questions based on 30 interviews with Israeli and Palestinian political leaders. In answer to the first research question, he did find some convincing evidence that the digital age has improved the ability of weaker challengers to compete with their more powerful antagonists. The spread of camera phones and the inability of the authorities to keep secrets help explain this change. The answer to the second research question is also fairly clear. If the political leaders interviewed are to be believed, the advent of the digital age represents a tremendous boon for spreading hatred and intolerance. Revealingly, this is an area where almost total agreement among both Israeli and Palestinian leaders was found.

Navigating the complexities of media roles in conflict: The INFOCORE approach

“…The rise of social media and new communication technology has not just helped to amplify the voice of less well-resourced local and semi-local NGOs as well as exiled journalists forced to emigrate because of conflict (Frère 2017), but also empowered ordinary citizens in complex ways as Trpevska et al (2016) and Wolfsfeld (2018) show. The former demonstrate that between 5–15 percent of surveyed citizens use the growing range of interaction opportunities offered by media organizations, such as phoning into radio shows, participating through comments on online forums and news websites.…”

“…Given the predominance of pessimistic accounts of media contributing to mobilisation for war (Carruthers 2011), hindering conflict prevention (Gowing 1997;Jakobsen 2000) and making peace processes more difficult (Wolfsfeld 2004), it would be all the more important to understand under what conditions media can also support peace and reconciliation as case study evidence suggests (Hoffmann and Hawkins 2015;Frère 2007). …”

“…There is some preliminary evidence to suggest that parliamentary debates pick up more positive references to media given their problem-solving orientation in foreign policy. Wolfsfeld argues, political leaders from both sides of the conflict tend to see social media as inherently unhelpful to efforts of building peace (Wolfsfeld 2017). They can breed self-referentialism among journalists, underpin a political economy of attention for the most emotive and often violent content, and can be used by conflict parties for spreading fear and as tools for surveillance and identification of political challengers.…”

“…Moreover, we have conducted interviews with NGO staff, political leaders and journalists to analyse how news are actually produced rather than actors' own theories about them (Hoxha and Hanitzsch 2017), how NGOs differ in their communication strategies and influence (Meyer et alin this issue) and how political leaders perceive the impact of legacy and social media on their ability to control events and make peace (Wolfsfeld 2017). Apart from the focus-groups and survey that aim to explore how the audiences in conflict countries interact with news (Trpevska et al 2016), we have conducted more than 400 individual interviews which helped us to build up a nuanced picture of the dynamics between the most significant actors in each of these conflict settings, but also to detect overarching patterns and key conditioning factors behind media coverage.…”

The Dual Stricture of the Israeli Economy: Is Technology the Solution?

“…The advent of the digital age has led to significant changes to sectorial groups (Wolfsfeld, 2017). A growing number of researches suggests that social media alter traditional political uses by democratizing access to media sources, speeding the circulation of information, which in turn can facilitate and spread collective action (Laursen & Muntean, 2015).…”