Crisis Journalism and World Peace

Bonachristus Umeogu, Ojiakor Ifeoma

Department of Mass Communication, Faculty of Social Sciences, Nnamdi Azikiwe University, Awka, Nigeria.
Department of Philosophy, Faculty of Arts, Nnamdi Azikiwe University, Awka, Nigeria.

DOI: 10.4236/aasoci.2012.22021                

Abstract

With the increase in violence and unrest in many countries, the searchlight has been turned on the media who are supposed to work for peace. This paper is of the position that journalism has a big role to play in maintaining relative peace just as they have the power to fuel crisis. In as much as objectivity should be upheld, it has to go with responsibility.

Keywords

Crisis Journalism; Peace; Peace Journalism; Hypodermic Needle Theory

Conflicts of Interest

The authors declare no conflicts of interest.

References

[1]	Borodzicz, E. P. (2005). Risk, crisis and security management. West Sussex: John Wiley and Sons Ltd.
[2]	Coombs, T. (2007). Crisis management and communications. URL (last checked 14 February 2012). http://www.instituteforpr.org/topics/crisis-management-and-communications/
[3]	Coombs, T. (1999). Ongoing crisis communication: Planning, managing, and responding. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
[4]	Fearn-Banks, K. (2011). Crisis communications: A casebook approach. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.
[5]	Hanitzch, T. (2004). Journalists as peacekeeping force? Peace journalism and mass communication theory. Journalism Studies, 5, 483-495. doi:10.1080/14616700412331296419
[6]	How to improve conflict reporting: A report on the international roundtable on new approaches to conflict reporting. URL (last checked 23 January 2011). http://is.dk/files/publications/IMS
[7]	http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crisis_management
[8]	http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypodermic_needle_model
[9]	http://www.utwente.nl/cw/theorieenoverzicht/Theory
[10]	http://www.lotsofessays.com/viewpaper/1708629.html
[11]	http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/journal/03638111.
[12]	Kempf, W. (2007). A tightrope walk between advocacy journalism and constructive conflict coverage. Conflict & Communication Online, 6, 14.
[13]	Lynch, J., & McGoldrick, A. (2005). Peace journalism. Hawthorne, CA: Hawthorne Press.
[14]	Okunna, S. (2003). Ethics of mass communication. Enugu: New Generation Books.
[15]	Ross, H. (2009). Conflict-sensitive reporting; state of the art: A course for journalists and journalism educators. UNESCO.
[16]	Ulmer, R., Sellnow, T., & Seeger, M. (2006). Effective crisis communication: moving from crisis to opportunity. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
[17]	Venette, S. (2003). Risk communication in a high reliability organization: APHIS PPQ’s inclusion of risk in decision making. Ann Arbor, MI: UMI Proquest Information and Learning.
[18]	www.cco.regener-online.de
[19]	www.12manage.com assessed on 16/02/12