We were delighted that the excellent thesis written by Uruguayan student Cecilia Arregui has made it into the top international journal Journalism Practice…
For academics, having work published in journals and books is an important measure of the value of their research, and indicates that they are making an intervention into the debates and discussions about their specific topics. Even very seasoned scholars still get a thrill when they see their work appear in print, but for a student to achieve this is unusual and very worthy of note. So many congratulations to former Erasmus Mundus student Ceci, who studied for an MA in Journalism, Media and Globalization at Swansea in 2018/9.
Ceci looked at the notion of “peace journalism” and how easy this might be to practise. The whole idea of peace journalism suggests that when reporting conflicts, journalists might take a less warmongering approach to news, and instead consider the causes, consequences and implications of the conflict, rather than focusing too heavily on the details of the bloodshed. It is journalism that gives all sides a hearing, focuses on victims rather than perpetrators and tries to identify the possible alternatives to fighting.
Ceci began by looking at how a range of intentional journalists reported two specific events in Kenya – violence after an election and a terror attack in a tourist area. She concluded that their reports mainly adopted a war journalism approach and that peace journalism wasn’t really very evident. Crucially, she then travelled to Nairobi to interview many of these journalists to find out what they knew about peace journalism and whether it was seen a legitimate alternative to the way they reported these events. Her key findings are that peace journalism is seen as a good idea by some journalists, but difficult to practise for a number of operational reasons. Other journalists felt that peace journalism would in some way compromise their duty to be objective and to report what they saw, whatever that might be.
Ceci’s co-authors Drs Richard Thomas and Allaina Kilby both helped in synthesising the original work into a format strong enough and suitable enough for the journal. It is a piece of work that promises to be of interest to scholars and journalists alike. We hope too, that this will inspire other students to produce work that might be published in the same way. In the meantime, Ceci continues working on her PhD at Aarhus University. You can read the full article here: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/epub/10.1080/17512786.2020.1856707?needAccess=true