Further information about the projects:

Peace Communication in Zones of Peace

The debate of media-and communication sciences concerning war and conflict has so far focused on describing and evaluating the coverage of such incidences. Most of these studies describe the role of the journalist as an influencing factor of the communicated perception of conflict, the conflicting parties and thereby the course of conflict. In this study the focus is on no longer on communication about a conflict but on communication within a conflict. For this it is describing the potential ad limitations of communication during conflict transformation to end ethnopolitical war. This kind of communication was evaluated in a case study of a Peace Zone in Mindanao, Southern Philippines. It is based on published and internal documents of filipino scholars, NGOs and POs, initiators and organisers of the Peace and complemented by further in depth-information derived from five interviews with majors, co-workers and chairmen of the Peace Zone. The information gathered is evaluated along a set f criteria derived from Senghaas “Civilatory Hexagon”, Lederachs “Integrated framework for Peacebuilding” and Habermas concept of “lifeworld”. This approach led to a detailed overview of the many activities and there contribution to succeeded conflict transformation. Further first advices could be derived on how the existing strategies could be improved or complemented for an even more successful outcome.