Journal Description
Media, War & Conflict is a major international, peer-reviewed journal that maps the shifting arena of war and conflict in media environments and ecologies. It explores cultural, political, social and technological transformations in the conduct, outcome and consequences of intensively mediated war.
Media, War & Conflict is the first inter- and multi- disciplinary journal to be dedicated to this field. It publishes substantial research articles, essays and reviews. It solicits submissions from academics, professionals and practitioners. The editors are looking for innovative work that contributes to existing debates and identifies emerging challenges in the convergence of media, war and conflict.
Topic coverage includes how media, war and conflict converge in subjects such as:
- Journalism and witnessing
- Security, politics and militaries
- Art, aesthetics, photography, film and popular culture
- Technologies, spatialities and architectures
- Aftermath, reconciliation, peace processes
- Memory, commemoration and archives
- Identity and embodiment
- Practices, cultures and ethics
- Audiences and engagement
- Narratives, legitimation of war and peace
Journal Feed
- by Jose David Ortega ChávezMedia, War & Conflict, Ahead of Print. This article contributes to the understanding of the role of the media in peace processes. By applying Wolfsfeld’s politics–media–politics model, the author assesses the role that the Colombian media played at the moment of the worst escalation of the conflict – in 2015 – during the peace negotiation (2012–2016) between the Colombian government and FARC. He does this by drawing upon a triangulation of methods that combines Structural Topic Modelling on 17,688 news articles, thematic analysis (n = 146), and interviews (n = 26) with politicians and journalists. Findings show that the Colombian media considerably amplified the […]
- by Hossein DavariMedia, War & Conflict, Ahead of Print.
- by Rutendo ChabikwaMedia, War & Conflict, Ahead of Print.
- by Øyvind KalnesMedia, War & Conflict, Ahead of Print. This study discusses the use of TikTok during the war that began with the Russian attack on Ukraine in February 2022. TikTok has been the fastest growing social media channel and is known for its young user base. Although associated with lifestyle and light entertainment, it also become an important arena in the war. Young people abroad used TikTok to obtain information about the conflict and to comment on or share it. This article presents a case study of five young Ukrainian women who captured the attention and sympathy of international audiences via […]
- by Jessica Trisko DardenMedia, War & Conflict, Ahead of Print. Building on research on victims and perpetrators of political violence and their depiction in the media, this article highlights the conceptual and practical challenge of specifying the process by which individuals acquire a morally ambiguous or ‘complex’ status in conflict. The authors conduct a content analysis of English-language print reporting on Dominic Ongwen’s International Criminal Court case and ambiguous status as a child soldier and victim–perpetrator. They identify important variation in how different news media frame the processes through which an individual becomes a victim–perpetrator and how these depictions relate to understandings of […]
- by Alexandra PavliucMedia, War & Conflict, Ahead of Print. This article analyses the gendered differences in digital political communication of Ukrainian politicians and international figures on Twitter/X during Russia’s 2022 full-scale invasion. Narratives are captured using a structural topic model of 130,000 tweets by 74 Ukrainian politicians and the 223 international figures they targeted most to understand how men and women use different narratives during war. Men’s communications concentrated on military and diplomatic narratives while those of women focused on civilian trauma and Russian war crimes but contained no calls for compromise, disproving Western theories that women are more pacifist than men. […]
- by Kathryn Brimblecombe-FoxMedia, War & Conflict, Ahead of Print. Against a background of contemporary hyperconnected warfare and accelerating advances in drone/robotic systems, this article discusses the airborne drone in relation to concepts of surrender, both historic and contemporary, literal and metaphoric. Drawing upon Paul Virilio’s (2002[1991]) observation that, during the first Gulf War, ‘technologies employed are too powerful’, the author examines how continuing military aspirations for technological speed and lethality represent surrender to the lure of techno-power. Two incidents of human beings surrendering to drones, in Kuwait in 1991 and in Ukraine in 2023, anchor an exploration of literal and metaphoric surrender […]
- by Rana ArafatMedia, War & Conflict, Ahead of Print. When TikTok started as a youth-oriented platform, it was mostly used for light entertainment, including music, songs and dance clips. Today, however, it is often relied upon as a hub for social and political activism. Hashtags are an important affordance to create visibility and attract attention. Using a qualitative multimodal thematic analysis, this study examines the shifting patterns in TikTok’s nature as a social media platform and investigates its various affordances in the realm of activism, in general, and feminist activism, in particular. Adopting a comprehensive approach, which takes into account various dynamics, […]
- by Liz HallgrenMedia, War & Conflict, Ahead of Print. A close reading of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s self-produced social media content alongside Western news outlets’ profiles of Zelensky from the first months of the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022 illuminates a symbiotic relationship of drama-making that is mutually beneficial for Zelensky’s military and the West’s journalistic interests. Performing as a scrappy underdog turned brilliant military mind, Zelensky provides the Western press with an authentic protagonist figure who makes ideal fodder for a Western news style steeped in drama-making and a natural fit for the individualized storytelling core to the genre of […]
- by Agnieszka WęglińskaMedia, War & Conflict, Ahead of Print. The Russo–Ukrainian (RU) conflict serves to illustrate the vital role of modern technological tools which are employed on a wide scale by journalists, military personnel and civilians. The internet and social media have had an impact on the work of war journalists, as evidenced by the example of the ongoing war in Ukraine. Journalists reporting on this war have had to adapt to these changes. Therefore, this research investigated the development of the work of war correspondents. The authors conducted 18 in-depth interviews with reporters and journalists covering the RU war with previous […]
- by Antal WozniakMedia, War & Conflict, Ahead of Print. How closely does news coverage in independent media outlets in non-Western countries follow domestic political elites’ interpretations of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine? And how much attention do newsrooms pay to geopolitical aspects of the issue compared to domestic considerations? This study moves beyond a still prevailing Euro- and US-centric perspective by focusing on Brazil, India and South Africa, three democratic countries with close economic and political ties to Russia. The authors systematically compare the wording used by elite politicians to describe the events in Ukraine with that in mainstream news reports. They also […]
- by Morten G EnderMedia, War & Conflict, Ahead of Print.
- by Ksenia ErmoshinaMedia, War & Conflict, Ahead of Print. The controversies surrounding the right to privacy of individuals in a hyperconnected world are longstanding debates, where particular emphasis is placed on encryption technologies, which encode information by converting its original representations into alternative forms that computers cannot decipher, thus ensuring the security of communications. These technologies are at the heart of a public controversy, in which privacy advocates a clash with claims that encryption is a threat to general security as an enabler of subversive action. Recent developments in the armed conflict in Ukraine open up or renew questions such as: in […]
- by Rodney CibohMedia, War & Conflict, Ahead of Print. This study examines current methods of reporting conflict in Nigeria from three perspectives: (i) how journalism academics regard current methods; (ii) what best reporting methods they recommend; and (iii) what kind of training they think is suitable for journalists who report conflicts. Participatory Action Research (PAR) was used as methodology and focus group discussion was conducted in three phases: evaluation, proposition and education. Answers suggest that current methods of reporting conflict are irresponsible and capable of discouraging nonviolent reactions to conflicts, that many journalists are prejudiced by ethnicity, religion and party politics that […]
- by Sayyed Fawad Ali ShahMedia, War & Conflict, Ahead of Print.
- by Kateryna KasianenkoMedia, War & Conflict, Ahead of Print. Memes are iconic digital artefacts that acquire meaning through their production and circulation among the digitally mediated publics. This visual essay presents an iconographic exploration of the North Atlantic Fella Organization (NAFO) – a vernacular online collective engaged in ridiculing Russian disinformation and rallying support for Ukraine’s defence and recovery efforts. We approach memes as a visual interface between the user and various subgroups within and outside the community. Drawing on a combination of autoethnographic, visual semiotic and computational methods, we demonstrate how memes perform three key functions within the online community: representing […]
- by Delphin Rukumbuzi NtanyomaMedia, War & Conflict, Ahead of Print. United Nations Peacekeeping Operations (UNPKOs) have incorporated a Public Information (PI) component to communicate with the public. This component has shifted from public outreach towards media reports on current events, including violent incidents. Few studies have assessed the contribution of the PI components of UN-led media. This article assesses the framing of Radio Okapi (RO) online newspaper articles to understand RO’s contribution to peacebuilding processes in the Eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), an ethnically highly polarized region where many sites are difficult to access. By analysing how RO reports on violent incidents […]
- by Nina Fabiola SchumacherMedia, War & Conflict, Ahead of Print. This study compares communication patterns of German political journalists with correspondents assigned in covering Russia/Ukraine regarding the ongoing Russo-Ukrainian War discourse on Twitter (now X). During the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, Twitter has been an important platform for (European) politicians, journalists and other stakeholders to share their views on the war. In general, journalists differ largely in terms of Twitter activity and in posting individual contributions. This comparative research delves into the analysis of journalistic communication in 4,460 tweets, focusing on war and peace journalism framing. The study also investigates the personalization […]
- by Louisa EstherMedia, War & Conflict, Ahead of Print. Since the renewed outbreak of the ongoing crisis in Burundi in May 2015, triggering a media crackdown, over one-third of the country’s reporters have gone into exile. They therefore joined an increasing number of journalists worldwide who are forced into exile. Between 2015 and 2021, many of the exiled Burundian journalists continued reporting for newly founded exile media in neighbouring Rwanda. Before their forced closure in 2021, these exile media had established themselves as successful outlets providing the only independent information from an otherwise blacked-out country. Based on semi-structured interviews with 10 exiled […]
- by Osman OsmanMedia, War & Conflict, Ahead of Print. This article explores the diverse media framing of the 2013 Westgate Mall attack presented by Kenyan and US newspapers. The author reveals how national contexts and cultural values shape news narratives by analyzing 242 articles from Kenya’s Daily Nation and Standard and the US’s New York Times and Washington Post. The findings show that Kenyan and US newspapers predominantly employed episodic frames, with Kenyan newspapers utilizing them in 69.7 percent of articles compared to US newspapers in 64 percent of articles. This episodic focus highlights individual experiences and immediate events consistent with broader […]