Communication and International Relations

Peace Journalism is the idea that journalists need to be conscientious about conflict coverage in order to promote non-violent alternatives. One method of promoting peaceful resolution to conflict is by exposing the true horror of war. However, war images provided by mainstream western media outlets are often sanitized and devoid of bloodshed. Al-Jazeera, on the other hand, has been criticized for its overly graphic portrayals of conflict. But are such depictions reckless? Or do they merely reflect reality? Regardless of philosophical questions, viewers' perception is the deciding factor in the decision to present graphic visuals or not.

Did you know...

Americans on Watch List for Viewing News?
By Gary Carrier

Promoting peace and understanding via the media can help us lower international tensions and violence. While most agree that hearing many sides of one story is crucial for this understanding, our own government disagrees. Americans that subscribe to Al-Jazeera, the Middle East's largest news network, are put on the government's 'watch list' because to George W. and Donald Rumsfeld the network is ''propaganda, fictitious, and a vehicle promoting terrorism.''

Al-Jazeera is one of the premier news agencies in the Middle East and watched by millions of viewers in the region. As noted above, compared to its western media counterparts, Al-Jazeera shows more images of civilian suffering and carnage as a result of war. But according to research presented in a 2007 issue of Journal of Broadcasting & Electronic Media, "Show the Truth and Let the Audience Decide: A Web-Based Survey Showing Support among Viewers of Al-Jazeera for Use of Graphic Imagery," Al-Jazeera viewers react positively to being exposed to these visuals.

Using an online survey the authors of the study, Shahira Fahmy and Thomas J. Johnson, attempted to determine to what extent Al-Jazeera viewers believed the media organization presented graphical imagery, and whether viewers supported such depictions. Overwhelmingly respondents were in favor of these presentations, citing that they were real facts and objective. More surprisingly, a significant number did not perceive the images to be overly "graphic" because they believed the situations themselves were inherently graphic.

In fact, in accordance with an idea of Peace Journalism, survey respondents felt that it was important to present these visuals in order to understand the ramifications of violence, especially for future leaders faced with decisions to go to war.