[ecrea] New MeCoDEM Working Paper | Media Framing of Political Conflict: A Review of the Literature

MECODEM WORKING PAPER:

MEDIA FRAMING OF POLITICAL CONFLICT: A REVIEW OF THE LITERATURE (Nebojša
Vladisavljević)

This working paper from the MeCoDEM series is now available for download
at: http://www.mecodem.eu/publications/working-papers [1]

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
The paper provides a critical overview of the literature on media and
conflict by focusing on the ways in which contemporary media frame
different types of political conflict. It reveals a fractured field.
There is an extensive literature on how media report on wars, on
election campaigns and popular protest and social movements in western
democracies, as well as some research on media coverage of violent
conflicts in non-democratic regimes and democratising states, but there
are only limited attempts to draw parallels between the media coverage
of different kinds of conflicts and little cross-fertilisation of
findings from the disparate literatures.

 	* Much of the literature discusses the ways in which western media
frame foreign conflicts and domestic election campaigns and policy
debates, while there is considerably less focus on the media framing of
domestic conflicts in non-western settings, such as those that arise
during and after transitions from non-democratic rule.

 	* Several authors claim that reliance on existing models of media and
conflict in established western democracies may be misleading in the
study of non-western, transitional settings. They therefore call for
developing new theories that are more suitable to discern the role that
media play in democratisation.

 	* In contrast, this paper identifies arguments and hypotheses from the
existing literature for further exploration in the study of media
framing of political conflicts - such as those on citizenship,
elections, transitional justice and distribution of power - in
transitions from authoritarian rule and in new democracies, which are at
the centre of the MeCoDEM project.

 	* Media coverage of political conflict can only be understood in
context. Several dimensions of the political context matter in this
respect, such as regime type, international (foreign) or domestic
perspectives, the degree of elite consensus, the degree of policy
uncertainty, whether or not a conflict takes place within an
institutionalised setting, and the stage of democratisation. Also, the
literature suggests that media framing influences political outcomes,
for example the decisions made by policy makers, the strategic choices
of collective actors or popular responses to conflicts

ABOUT MECODEM:
MeCoDEM began on 1 February 2014 and will run over three years. The
project investigates the interplay of communication and democratisation
conflicts in four emerging democracies, Egypt, Kenya, Serbia and South
Africa, each of them representing unique aspects of transitional /
post-transitional divisions. Based on a comparative case study design,
the research covers constitutional conflicts, civic conflicts and
conflicts surrounding accountability and good governance. These
conflicts constitute arenas of dispute where the media interact with the
communicative strategies of governments on the one hand, and political
activists and political movements struggling for recognition on the
other. MeCoDEM is funded by the European Union within the EU's Seventh
Framework Programme. With a budget of 2.2 million Euros, the project
consortium includes eight partner institutions from six countries:
University of Leeds (co-ordinating institution), University of Belgrade,
University of Hamburg, University of Cape Town, University of Oxford,
Stockholm University, Ruhr University Bochum and American University in
Cairo.

FOR FURTHER ENQUIRY:
Prof Nebojša Vladisavljević | (n.vladisavljevic /at/ fpn.bg.ac.rs)

MECODEM CONTACT:
Prof Barbara Thomass | (Barbara.Thomass /at/ rub.de)
Website: www.mecodem.eu [2] | Twitter: @MeCoDEM [3]



Links:
------
[1] http://www.mecodem.eu/publications/working-papers
[2] http://www.mecodem.eu
[3] https://twitter.com/MeCoDEM



---------------
ECREA-Mailing list
---------------
This mailing list is a free service offered by Nico Carpentier and ECREA.
--
To subscribe, post or unsubscribe, please visit
http://commlist.org/
--
To contact the mailing list manager:
Email: (nico.carpentier /at/ vub.ac.be)
URL: http://homepages.vub.ac.be/~ncarpent/
--
ECREA - European Communication Research and Education Association
Chauss�de Waterloo 1151, 1180 Uccle, Belgium
Email: (info /at/ ecrea.eu)
URL: http://www.ecrea.eu
---------------