Transcript Slide 1
Spinning out of Control: Rhetoric and Violent Conflict Representation of Self and Other in Yugoslav Successor States Project Background • Project initiated in mid 2006 and lasted until 2010 • Institutional Project Partners: – The Department of Literature, Area Studies and European Languages at the University of Oslo; – Institute for Philosophy and Social Theory, Belgrade – Mediacentar Sarajevo • Funding by Norwegian Research Council (NFR) and the Norwegian Center for International Cooperation in Higher Education (SIU) Scope of the Project • Covering Bosnia, Croatia, Kosovo, Macedonia, Montenegro, Serbia and Slovenia • 18 authors (senior + junior researcher teams) • Preliminary book-workshop with external peer reviewers: Stef Jansen, University of Manchester, and Ger Duijzings, School of Slavonic and East European Studies, University College of London • 1 book published in UK by Ashgate: “Media Discourse and the Yugoslav Conflict”, 2009 • 1 book published in Belgrade: “Intima javnosti”, 2008 + 1 source book • several articles • several international seminars / workshops organized Institutional impact • Development of internal research capacities • Establishing cooperation networks • Continuing cooperation among institutional and individual partners from the project Research • Attempts to provide a new insight into the conflicts in former Yugoslav countries • Deploys discourse analysis as analytical and theoretical framework to study the role of rhetoric and media in the conflicts • Trying to answer the question: How warring parties present themselves in the media prior, during and after the conflict? • Such time-sensitive analysis helps us understand better the emergency, dynamics and development of rhetoric in the media and its links with the conflict’s dynamics Research Approach • Studying cases of war (Bosnia, Croatia, Kosovo), limited violence (Slovenia, Macedonia), non-violent dissociation of Serbia and Montenegro • Researchers paired to come from different countries • Discourse seen as one factor among many others (elite interest, political and military correlation of forces, international climate,...) that plays part in the conflict • Studying discourse in conflict complements other approaches and theories and helps understand better links between other factors and aspects of conflict • The book contains 3 thematic chapters and 7 casestudies Starting points • Trying to investigate if and how rhetoric and media content may contribute to violent and peaceful outcomes • Assuming that once rhetoric is created, and discourses put in motion, they can “spin out of control” and limit alternative interpretations, and thus reduce available political options and actions • Looking into mutual influence and feedback effects between discourses coming from confronted communities • Looking into possible loop effects from context to text and back to context, as situation shifts from non-violence to violence and back to non-violence Theoretical Approaches • Linking three strands of research: – Theories of ethnic conflict – Theories of identity construction on the wethem boundary – Discourse Analysis Some Key Findings • Media discourses are an indicator of crisis but also a contributor to the crisis • Media discourse contributes to the “politics-mediapolitics” cycle (as defined by Wolfsfeld) and can “spin out of control” as suggested by Kolsto • As Gadi Wolfsfeld puts it: ‘when things get bad, the news media often make it worse’ • Both, in conflict and in the peace process, media are more prone to play negative role due to its inherent ethnocentrism, simplicity in reporting, need for drama, and immediacy • Overall, the research has document mutual reinforcement of discourses that are created around conflicts Some Key Findings (continued) • Research documented how discourse helped establish symbolic borders and distance between, and normative definitions (good vs. bad, evil...) of combatants, by steadily changing definitions of “us” and “them” • Also, research uncovered the importance of “what is not said”, or the “rhetoric of slience” as defined by Đerić – it allows confronted sides to cast themselves in the role of the victim by avoiding to discuss “own” failures and atrocities. This clearly hampers any reconciliation and ‘normalization’ process between the two sides. Final Remarsks As Pal Kolsto concludes in the last chapter of the book: • Individuals may be strongly influenced by existing discourses but they may also manipulate these discourses for their own purposes. • The media both influence and are influenced by public attitudes and perceptions. • Discourses on ethnic boundaries are dynamic and change across time and in different contexts. They may influence the outcome of conflicts, but hardly in any linear or predetermined way.