Modernisation or participatory development: the emerging divide in journalist training for conflict-affected societies

Abstract

The field of media development, as an intervention in conflict-affected societies, is both growing, and divided. This article identifies and discusses some emerging divisions in the sub-field of journalist training. On the one hand is a ‘modernisation’ approach, geared towards the implantation of western-style precepts and methods for reporting conflicts. On the other is a critical pedagogical approach intended to enable participatory media development. In the latter, ‘minority world journalism’ is effectively problematised, especially around assumptions about the role of the journalist vis-à-vis conflict and whether it is proper, permissible and/or practically possible for editors and reporters to set out to contribute to peace. The contestation this divide has occasioned partly recapitulates the UNESCO media debate of the late 1970s and early 1980s. The concept of peace journalism is now attracting attention, both as a form of critical pedagogy in journalist training and as a potential rallying point for reviving calls for structural reform in the world information and communication order.