Peace journalism is a type of journalism that could be used very strategically with my generation. Growing up in the 2000s, I was often exposed to a level of anti-muslim attitude following the attacks of September 11. These attitudes were based off of the attacks themselves, but even more so due to the violent media and the targeting of the muslim people as a whole. I was able to see how they as a people were generalized as one, and how that fosters a negative stereotype and unjust racism towards a group of people who, as a whole, did not deserve it.
While doing research on this topic, I came across a very interesting article written by the University of Michigan surrounding the topic of the public view of Muslims following 9/11. The article spoke about the fact that the United States public became very afraid of the Muslim Americans, actually doing just the opposite of what they were trying to do by targeting them in their media. The article states that by being afraid of the Muslims in the media, and portraying them in a negative light, they were actually self sabotaging themselves, by furthering the divide between the US and the governments of the countries from which these American citizens are from.
That is a very interesting point that I had not yet considered when talking about this topic. When thinking about the media in response to the 9/11 attacks, it felt as though all of the correspondence was from a place of fear or retaliation. Looking back however, many of the problems we have had in the world since then could have been resolved had we taken Johan Galtung’s ‘Peace Journalism’ approach.
Galtung’s ‘Peace Journalism’ is a concept which aims to take reporting of conflicts or dualistic in nature to a proactive and humanizing nature. It’s goal is to humanize the ‘enemy’ such as the Muslim people in the example of September 11th, and gives a voice to the less heard. It would have been able to prevent a lot of unnecessary hostility between the American public and some of its Muslim citizens. The violence reporting that was used in response to these attacks is something that has set back multiple generations into Islamophobia and has permanently altered the world view of my generation and Gen Z.
A Huffington Post article speaks on the ways that the United States can get over their fear of the Islam community, regardless of their faith. Some of those ways are to make friends with the Islam community and to speak openly about religion, especially with them. The common point that has shown up here, yet again, is to call out bias and racism displayed in our news networks. The war journalism is the root of this discrimination and is very easily fixed with more careful wording and portrayal of the Muslim community. I think that we would all be pleasantly surprised by the change we would see if Galtung’s Peace Journalism were adopted in this case.
Gillum, Rachel M. “Muslims in a Post-9/11 America.” University of Michigan Press. Accessed April 3, 2020. https://www.press.umich.edu/9765804/muslims_in_a_post_9_11_america.
Russo, Carla Herreria. “How To Fight Islamophobia In America, No Matter Your Faith.” HuffPost. HuffPost, March 19, 2019. https://www.huffpost.com/entry/how-to-fight-islamophobia_n_5c8c1d81e4b0d7f6b0f37515.
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