Media in the Limelight

To understand the role of media in a conflict situation requires you to understand the conflict in the first place.

FROM THE CONFLICT COMMUNICATION INITIATIVE

Liberal democracy has been hailed as the system of choice with media playing a critical role in its functioning impartially yet the role or the effectiveness is under scrutiny in a conflict society where the military, the state and non-state actors have their own concepts of power structure.

An uncanny resemblance lies between the search for meaning in our existence and the role of media in a conflict society. As much or little that we know about our existence, there is a glimmer of hope that we would know deeper, if not in its entirety, when we know the reason behind the origin of the universe. In a strife-torn society, the question on how and when media would be most functional is lost on whether that society must resolve its conflicts first or the media must play a role in the resolution process. The solution is more elusive than finding an answer to a question like why the universe exists.

The assumption is simple: we cannot wait implies that we need not hold back for clear blue skies, lush green environments, birds and flowers galore, and cheerful expressions on everybody’s faces to actualise the purpose of the media. Broadly, an elementary understanding will help reduce it to information, communication and entertainment. However, the equation alters when conflict resolution comes into the picture as another variable.

Any deliberation on media will always bring into question the two aspects of governance and civil society. Media does not act as a catalyst but rather as a co-product of these different aspects while blurring the line between its very presence and the roles it has in such a society seeking for peace and development. The good news is that it has inherent principles, such as those of spreading information and facilitating communication, which are essential in any form of conflict resolution.

For a society in turmoil mostly with its economy plagued by flawed policies and development interventions and the governance is characterised by the lack of political will, it will be sheer overconfidence to trust the media despite its incontestable principles.

In a simplified structure of human society, the base of relationship in a civil society shapes the superstructure of media. The civil society can make or mar democracy and media exists in this condition upholding the values of objectivity but the more the destructive the society is, the lesser is the contribution of media. It is also in this kind of context that the media is in the limelight—from an observer to being the observed.

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A civil society has close affinity to a state, not necessarily that the two are always in an agreement. Still, the latter always has the upper hand by virtue of its legitimacy. In spite of this power, sometimes a state is considered a failed one, which is more rampant in conflict zones and has a direct consequence on the civil society, be it in its inability to establish a detemined political stand or sheer ineptitude in organising itself in general. Media as a watchdog can come into the rescue but it can unconsciously be trapped in a vicious cycle with its inseparable connection to the civil society just like in the debate of whether peace or development should come first when both are missing in that society.

In this ambivalence, given its reach, and how it has even infiltrated into the most private spaces with the rise of social media and alternative news websites it would be pertinent to take note of the potential of media. Also noting that the issue is not merely about media and its whole-wide-world, it becomes more significant that the awareness is essential for both media practitioners and for the mass who use and has access to media more than ever in the histories of many contemporary societies.

While raising media literacy could be the simplest explanation, social conflicts are political by nature, and the ideology of politics will ever take the centre stage regardless of how much media can hog the limelight. To cite an instance, it is no less than a Sisyphean task to separate politics from violence in Manipur—where state and non-state actors occupy the same platform though technically, it swears by the Indian federalism since 1949, and where several armed organisations are calling for the right to self-determination.

In other words, to understand the role of media in conflict is to understand the conflict in the first place. Abstract concepts like democracy and freedom of the press lack the form and substance when these are juxtaposed with hard realities or the politics of the day. India, as the largest democracy, is the supreme example with people in the peripheries like Kashmir and Manipur rotting away under constitutionally driven draconian laws for an example. Liberal democracy has been hailed as the system of choice with media playing a critical role in its functioning impartially yet the role or the effectiveness is under scrutiny in a conflict society where the military, the state and non-state actors have their own concepts of power structure.

An urgent need for responding to the conflict situations persists not only for the natives but also for everybody in this globalised world. The blind alleys of nationalism and religious supremacy will hardly offer a space for solution and so are not the reactionary approaches. It is in this space where media can contribute and fortunately, the mass is no more living under those days of ‘hypodermic needle’ framework.

To draw another concept from media studies, the media can ‘set the agenda’, and as an important tool for democracy, an unbiased, informed and impartial decision, or publication and broadcast in this context, can guide the ‘agenda-setting’ process. As much as media literacy is necessary, there is an urgency to understand politics as a contested area. If media take this indispensable step to address the issues, it will not do away with the existential crisis of a conflict society but at least it will provide some essence for its very existence.

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