During the First World War, mass media achieved an enormous and continuously growing importance in all belligerent countries. Newspaper, illustrated magazines, comics, pamphlets, and instant books, fi ctional works, photography, and the new-born “theater of imagery”, the cinema, were crucial in order to create a heroic vision of the events, to mobilize and maintain the consensus on the war. But their role was pivotal also in creating the image of the war’s end and fi nally, together with a widespread, new literary genre, the war memoirs, to shape the collective memory of the confl ict for the next generations. Even before November 1918, the media raised high expectations for a multifaceted peace: a new global order, the beginning of a peaceful era, the occasion for a regenerating apocalypse. Likewise, in the following decades, particularly war literature and cinema were pivotal to reverse the icon of the Great War as an epic crusade and a glorious chapter of the national history and to create the hegemonic image of a senseless carnage. The Mediatization of War and Peace focalizes on the central role played by mass media in the tortuous transition to the post-war period as well as on the profound disenchantment generated by their prophesies.

During the First World War, mass media achieved an enormous and continuously growing importance in all belligerent countries. Newspaper, illustrated magazines, comics, pamphlets, and instant books, fi ctional works, photography, and the new-born "theater of imagery", the cinema, were crucial in order to create a heroic vision of the events, to mobilize and maintain the consensus on the war. But their role was pivotal also in creating the image of the war's end and fi nally, together with a widespread, new literary genre, the war memoirs, to shape the collective memory of the confl ict for the next generations. Even before November 1918, the media raised high expectations for a multifaceted peace: a new global order, the beginning of a peaceful era, the occasion for a regenerating apocalypse. Likewise, in the following decades, particularly war literature and cinema were pivotal to reverse the icon of the Great War as an epic crusade and a glorious chapter of the national history and to create the hegemonic image of a senseless carnage. The Mediatization of War and Peace focalizes on the central role played by mass media in the tortuous transition to the post-war period as well as on the profound disenchantment generated by their prophesies.

The First Amendment allows American journalists to present critical perspectives on government policies and actions. But are the media independent of government in practice? This book argues that, in the case of the military, they are not.

Amid the ongoing and volatile debate over the nature andpotential of peace journalism, this volume presents visionaryinsights from some of the most prominent scholars inthe field. The significant empirical studies included herewill provide foundation data for communication studies.The contributors broaden the purview and terrain of peacejournalism to include new media, and offers essays onthe eff ects and the content of global communications. Insum, the thirteenth volume of Peace and Policy deepensour empirical knowledge of the nature and effects ofconflict, while underscoring the increase in numbers ofparticipants and breadth of communications. For the past half decade, these contributors haveworked independently and collaboratively to increasesystematic understanding of the value of peace journalismand communication to civil society. Th e group has contributedto a complex articulation of the various framesof conflict coverage. In so doing, they have clarified thestructural, systemic and cultural aspects of global violence.In turn, this has helped create institutions, programs andstrategies for enhancing constructive peace communicationthat will increase mutual understanding, cooperation,reconciliation and transform confl ict. Peace journalism has reframed understanding of conflict from a tug-of-war between two parties in which oneside's gain is the other's loss, to the terms of relationshipsbetween various sides. It considers the context and the needto identify a range of stakeholders broader than the sidesdirectly engaged in violent confrontation. In sum, it leads tounderstanding of the distinction between stated demandsand underlying objectives, so as to identify voices workingfor creative and non-violent solutions, and finding waysto transform and transcend the lines of confl ict. Susan Dente Ross is professor at the Edward R. Murrow Schoolof Communication, University of Washington. She is also the directorof AccessNorthwest and the University of Washington. She isthe author of numerous professional journal articles and author ofthe book Deciding Communication Law: Key Cases in Context. Majid Tehranian is director of the Toda Institute for GlobalPeace and Policy Research and Adjunct Professor of InternationalRelations at Soka University of America. He is also theseries editor of Peace and Policy for Transaction Publishers.

Much is known about the media's role in conflict, but far less is known about the media's role in peace. Graham Spencer's study addresses this deficiency by providing a comparative analysis of reporting conflicts from around the world and examining media receptiveness to the development of peace. This book establishes an argument for the need to rethink journalistic responsibility in relation to peace and interrogates the consequences of news coverage that emphasizes conflict over peace.

New approaches to understanding war and peace in the changing international system. What causes war? How can wars be prevented? Scholars and policymakers have sought the answers to these questions for centuries. Although wars continue to occur, recent scholarship has made progress toward developing more sophisticated and perhaps more useful theories on the causes and prevention of war. This volume includes essays by leading scholars on contemporary approaches to understanding war and peace. The essays include expositions, analyses, and critiques of some of the more prominent and enduring explanations of war. Several authors discuss realist theories of war, which focus on the distribution of power and the potential for offensive war. Others examine the prominent hypothesis that the spread of democracy will usher in an era of peace. In light of the apparent increase in nationalism and ethnic conflict, several authors present hypotheses on how nationalism causes war and how such wars can be controlled. Contributors also engage in a vigorous debate on whether international institutions can promote peace. In a section on war and peace in the changing international system, several authors consider whether rising levels of international economic independence and environmental scarcity will influence the likelihood of war.