This book analyses the use of communication in resolving conflicts, with a focus on de-escalation and processes of peacebuilding and peace formation. From the employment of hate radio in the Rwanda genocide, to the current conflict between Russia and the Ukraine following events in the Crimea, communication and the media are widely recognized as powerful tools in conflicts and war. Although there has been significant academic attention on the relationship between the media, conflict and war, academic efforts to understand this relationship have tended to focus primarily on the links between communication and conflict, rather than on communication and peace. In order to make sense of peace it is essential to look at communication in its many facets, mediated or not. This is true within many of the diverse strands that make up the field of communication and peace, but it is also true in the sense that a holistic and interdisciplinary approach is missing from the literature. This book addresses this widely acknowledged lacuna by providing an interdisciplinary perspective on the field, bringing together relevant, but so far largely isolated, streams of research. In doing so, it aims to provide a platform for further reflection of the meaning of, and requirements for, peace in our contemporary world with a focus on de-escalation, conflict transformation, reconciliation and processes of peacebuilding – as opposed to conflict escalation or crisis intervention. This volume will be of much interest to students of peace and conflict studies, peacebuilding, media and communication studies, security studies and IR in general.

The Language of Peace: Communicating to Create Harmony offers practical insights for educators, students, researchers, peace activists, and all others interested in communication for peace. This book is a perfect text for courses in peace education, communications, media, culture, and other fields. Individuals concerned about violence, war, and peace will find this volume both crucial and informative. This book sheds light on peaceful versus destructive ways we use words, body language, and the language of visual images. Noted author and educator Rebecca L. Oxford guides us to use all these forms of language more positively and effectively, thereby generating greater possibilities for peace. Peace has many dimensions: inner, interpersonal, intergroup, international, intercultural, and ecological. The language of peace helps us resolve conflicts, avoid violence, and reduce bullying, misogyny, war, terrorism, genocide, circus journalism, political deception, cultural misunderstanding, and social and ecological injustice. Peace language, along with positive intention, enables us to find harmony inside ourselves and with people around us, attain greater peace in the wider world, and halt environmental destruction. This insightful book reveals why and how.

This book is composed of interconnected essays which reflect on challenging new issues related to diplomacy, communication, and peace. This book begins by drawing out some of the challenges for diplomacy that arise from modern theories of semantics and of strategic communication, as well as those posed by the need for secrecy, and by the activities of agents of influence. It then proceeds to examine important issues in contemporary diplomacy, including refugee diplomacy, humanitarian diplomacy, sovereignty, norms, and consular activities. It concludes with an exploration of dilemmas that confront attempts to promote peace through multilateral means, such as the limitations of peacemaking diplomacy, the difficulty of promoting democratic governance, and the problems associated with dealing with morally repugnant actors. The book is grounded in the conception of diplomacy as a social practice with multiple players, and recognises that ‘the state’ has many different elements, and that ‘state actors’ live in worlds shaped not just by their relations with other states, but also by their own complex domestic politics. This book will be of much interest to students of diplomacy, foreign policy, and International Relations.

By exploring the role of both culture and the mass media, this volume fills a gap in the literature on war and peace. Outstanding scholars provide an overview of critical mass media research and open up entirely new perspectives on the ongoing debate over communications issues in war and peace. The contributions bring together common themes including the military-industrial-communications complex, cultural imperialism and transnational control of communications. Various perspectives are covered, such as gender issues, language study and bureaucratization.

"This volume brings to the forefront a variety of critical conflicts in the world and a wide spectrum of peace communication approaches. The volume provides an in-depth look at how intricate and intractable conflicts can be and how the communicative aspects of conflicts can be equally challenging. The volume includes an incisive review and guide to past and present knowledge in the field of conflict and peace communication. It features an outstanding team of scholars, practitioners and activists and is truly interdisciplinary in spirit. It is divided into five easy to naviagate sections titled Theory Development, Method Development, Traditional/Digital Media and Peace and Conflict, Case Studies, and Innovative Approaches. A key theme throughout the Handbook is the utilization of past conflict communication theory to posit workable and innovative peace communication strategies that inform today's conflicts and can be a vital register of such communicative practices for the future. The volume also focuses on strategies of peace communication from the margins that acknowledge and elevate solutions for and from those who are most vulnerable. This volume will be indispensable to the teaching, study and practice of conflict negotiation, peacebuilding, intercultural communication, positively affecting race relations and much more. This timely publication provides students, academics and practitioners tools to navigate more and more complex local and global conflict and peace communication issues in our world."--

In every interaction, every conversation and in every thought, you have a choice &– to promote peace or perpetuate violence. International peacemaker, mediator and healer, Dr. Marshall B. Rosenberg shows you how the language you use is the key to enriching life. Take the first step to reduce violence, heal pain, resolve conflicts and spread peace on our planet &– by developing an internal consciousness of peace rooted in the language you use each day. Speak Peace is filled with inspiring stories, lessons and ideas drawn from over 40 years of mediating conflicts and healing relationships in some of the most war torn, impoverished, and violent corners of the world. Speak Peace offers insight, practical skills, and powerful tools that will profoundly change your relationships and the course of your life for the better. Bestselling author of the internationally acclaimed, Nonviolent Communication: A Language of Life. Discover how you can create an internal consciousness of peace as the first step toward effective personal, professional, and social change. Find complete chapters on the mechanics of Nonviolent Communication, effective conflict resolution, transforming business culture, transforming enemy images, addressing terrorism, transforming authoritarian structures, expressing and receiving gratitude, and social change.

During the First World War, mass media achieved an enormous and continuously growing importance in all belligerent countries. Newspaper, illustrated magazines, comics, pamphlets, and instant books, fi ctional works, photography, and the new-born “theater of imagery”, the cinema, were crucial in order to create a heroic vision of the events, to mobilize and maintain the consensus on the war. But their role was pivotal also in creating the image of the war’s end and fi nally, together with a widespread, new literary genre, the war memoirs, to shape the collective memory of the confl ict for the next generations. Even before November 1918, the media raised high expectations for a multifaceted peace: a new global order, the beginning of a peaceful era, the occasion for a regenerating apocalypse. Likewise, in the following decades, particularly war literature and cinema were pivotal to reverse the icon of the Great War as an epic crusade and a glorious chapter of the national history and to create the hegemonic image of a senseless carnage. The Mediatization of War and Peace focalizes on the central role played by mass media in the tortuous transition to the post-war period as well as on the profound disenchantment generated by their prophesies.

The news media have become the central arena for political conflicts today. It is, therefore, not surprising that the role of the news media in political conflicts has received a good deal of public attention in recent years. Media and Political Conflict provides readers with an understanding of the ways in which news media do and do not become active participants in these conflicts. The author's 'political contest' model provides an alternative approach to this important issue. The best way to understand the role of the news media in politics, he argues, is to view the competition over the news media as part of a larger and more significant contest for political control. The book is divided into two parts. While the first is devoted to developing the theoretical model, the second employs this approach to analyse the role of the news media in three conflicts: the Gulf war, the Palestinian intifada, and the attempt by the Israeli right wing to derail the Israeli-Palestinian peace accord.

This interdisciplinary volume includes general theory, case studies and examples as well as ideas for procuring peace through communication for the larger community. The book concludes with an agenda-setting summary that stimulates inquiry in communication studies and international relations. Readers will obtain an overall perspective of factors that affect diplomacy and negotiation across cultures - power, trust, stereotyping, hostility escalation, mediation and negotiation philosophy and style, and media and policy implications.