feature article

The Media: Both a Help and a Detriment to Peace Activists

By Laurel Severt

In the world of peace activism, the media are often seen as necessary to the cause. Without media coverage, how is a movement to gain supporters, attract political attention, or get the word out about its purpose? Yet as some peace groups learn the hard way, media attention is not always as beneficial and can result in inaccurate, or even harmful, portrayals of activists. Peace groups thus have a challenging task of utilizing the media to further their goals while keeping in mind the risks of the media spotlight.

Through the help of mass media, peace movements are able to organize, mobilize, and campaign in order to promote a change or awareness in society. Peace movements cannot begin without some sense of discontent, and so by bringing to light injustices or publicizing events that cause dissatisfaction, media coverage can play an important role in the beginning of a movement. Media have the power to shape public opinion about an issue or cause, and can therefore aid in bringing peace movements to the public eye. After a movement has developed, media may help to reinforce an organization’s legitimacy, promoting cohesion and furthering recruitment. In addition, with newer alternative forms of media, such as the Internet, “cyber-activism” has begun to attract attention through furthering understanding of peace movement. Instead of relying on recruiting and communicating ideas face to face, organizations are now able to generate support through a variety of media channels.

However, once an organization or movement gains the media spotlight, they become subject to the bias and limitations of media coverage. Movements are often forced to narrow their focus and adapt themselves to cater to the desires and demands of journalistic coverage: creating “newsworthy” events to garner the needed attention, or conforming to societal notions of what a protest or demonstration “should” be instead of what would best represent the movement’s intentions. Control of the organization’s principles and goals is shifted to the outside hand of the media, who are responsible for conveying these objectives to the public. As media scholar Todd Gitlin writes, traditional news “concerns the event, not the underlying condition; the person, not the group; conflict, not consensus; the fact that ‘advances the story,’ not the one that explains it.”

Without question, media and peace activists have a complex relationship, and one that will surely not be resolved any time soon. Peace movements must be aware of the challenges and barriers they face when utilizing the media to further their cause.