Securing whose peace? Power, voice and peace media intervention in post-war societies

Abstract

Peacebuilding media intervention through the creation of peace media by international actors (normally, the UN or NGOs) in post-conflict scenarios has grown steadily during the last two decades and gained increasingly complex forms. Starting as public information within UN missions then evolving to specific programmes broadcasted through local media (e.g. radio and video) they finally got the shape of externally set up media, particularly radios – the cheapest and furthest reaching media.By means of their programming, these media aim at contributing to the pacification and anti-polarization of societies as well as to provide the space for political accountability practices and fora, thus helping to create (formal) democratic structures and prevent, according to liberal literature, the (re)emergence of violent conflict and practices in post-war or unstable societies – hence contributing to the ends of peacebuilding. However, despite the growing number of peace media projects and international investment attached to them, as well as the increasing number of NGO, governmental institutions and UN missions allocated to this kind of agency, the consequences this kind of international intervention has regarding the construction of peace and the role of peace media within the wider intervention peacebuilding scheme are still imprecise or unidentified. What is the actual role of peace media in the implementation of a liberal peace in post-conflict societies? Going beyond the formal discursive role peace media play in mediabuilding intervention strategies, this thesis examines discursively and genealogically the role peace media performs in the implementation of a liberal peace in post conflict societies. With reference to the work put forward by three key actors in mediabuilding- United States Institute of Peace, Search for Common Ground and Fondation Hirondelle - this study identifies and analyses the power dynamics behind peace media action and subsequent results. Stemming from the acknowledgement of the international system as a power-driven system and from the conception of peace as a situated concept and media as a non-neutral technology, this thesis argues that peace media contribute to the civil pacification of communities in a context of a broader and hierarchical liberal peace and liberal global governance frameworks.