Nonkilling Media

Edited by
Joám Evans Pim

Co-published byCenter for Global Nonkilling

Honolulu and Omaha
December 2013

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Nonkilling Media / Edited by Joám Evans Pim.
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“The conventional view serves to protect us
from the painful job of thinking”
John Kenneth Galbraith

Contents

Foreword
Beverly Deepe Keever

11

Introduction
When the messenger is the killer…
Joám Evans Pim

23

Chapter One
Nonkilling Media: A Normative Framework
Philip Lee

35

Chapter Two
The Media’s Untapped Potential
Virgil Hawkins

55

Chapter Three
Covering Killings
Xu Xiaoge

77

Chapter Four
Public Discourses for Nonkilling Societies
Eloísa Nos Aldás

93

Chapter Five
Catastrophe and Progress in Nonkilling Futures
John A. Sweeney

121

Chapter Six
Envisioning Nonkilling Futures in Film
Karen Hurley

153

8

Nonkilling Media

Chapter Seven
Nonkilling Media from a Gender Perspective
María José Gámez Fuentes

173

Chapter Eight
Counternarratives to the intelligentsia
Tom H. Hastings

191

Chapter Nine
Contemporary Peaceful Societies
Bruce Bonta

219

Foreword

Foreword
Beverly Deepe Keever
University of HawaiӁi

The power of the media to create and destroy fundamental
human values comes with great responsibility. Those who
control the media are accountable for its consequences. …
Without a firearm, machete or any physical weapon, youcaused the deaths of thousands of innocent civilians.
Presiding Judge Navanethem Pillay, warning three
media executives found guilty of genocide by the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, 2003.

This book amasses for the first time anywhere the roles and responsibilities of the media for establishing and securing a nonkilling world.
The ten authors assembled and introduced by Joám Evans Pim for theCenter for Global Nonkilling cull a wide array of academic and community
sources to assess the state of today’s global media and to offer recommendations for achieving a nonkilling world.
That nonkilling world has been described by Glenn D. Paige in his seminal book as one characterized by the absence of killing of humans, threats
to kill, conditions conducive to or justifications for killing and of “no conditions of society dependent on threat or use of killing force for maintenanceor change” (Paige, 2009: 21).
This first-ever book comes at a most propitious moment in history. It isa moment of profound shiftsa term I use to describe an unmooring fromthe past amidst momentous technological changes headed in a which-way
direction that may imperil the planet and its population.
It is in a direction in which “the future does not exist,” according to Professor Jim Dator’s First Law of the Future, as recounted by John Sweeney in
Chapter 5. In short, the future is waiting to be shaped or may be happening
right now. Will it shift toward more killing or toward nonkilling?
Partly determining the shaping of the future lies in the hands of the media in reflecting and responding to these five monumental, even if slowmoving, shifts:

11

12

Nonkilling Media-the shift away from supports for killing or threats of killing,
the shift away from paying the costs of killing or threats of killing,
the shift toward more fact-finding about conditions causing killing,
the shift toward a nonkilling society and world,
the shift in media technologies.

The shift away from supports for killing or threats of killing is visibly underway. Daily at this writing citizens globally are repulsed by the killings of people
within Syria by their own government or its armed opponents, as distributed
worldwide by the media, while simultaneously experiencing fears of nuclear
happenings that could destroy much of the planet and its population. In the
United States random shootings of pupils in schools have even prompted
some parents to buy bulletproof backpacks for their little ones.
Yet covering killings has become increasingly significant because thespeed, reach and impact of the media have become more pronounced thanever before. For the first time perhaps, journalists themselves have becometargets. As Associated Press’ Middle East Regional Photo Editor Manoocher
Deghati explains: “When you cover conflict, it’s really dangerous, but beinga target is a different thing. Because we know inside Syria, the progovernment militia are looking for journalists.”
At the other end of the spectrum, killings have been done purely for
propaganda purposes. As Marine David J. Morris explains, a four-man U.S.
Marine Corps sniper team was spotted and executed on a rooftop in downtown Ramadi, Iraq. Then, he continues, “Video footage of the executions
was running on several local Arab television networks before the Marines
could even mount a patrol to investigate.”
In short, as Jason Burke, a British expert in terrorist groups, elaborates,“The terrorists have become producers and film directors and video cameras have become their most potent weapon.”
The global media are on notice that messages inciting killing might be considered war crimes, as the italicized quote at the beginning of this text underscores. In this landmark decision by the International Criminal Tribunal, three
media executives were convicted of genocide for inciting people to participate in the wave of killing in 1994 that swept across Rwanda; about 800,000
were killed. The Tribunal found that a popular radio station and a newspaper
were used by the media executives to inflame hatred against the country’s
Tutsi minority plus their sympathizers and to encourage massacres.
The Tribunal’s decision “marks the first time since the Nuremberg trials
after World War II that anyone has been convicted of responsibility forForeword 13

mass murder through the control of the media,” Dworkin writes. The verdict on Rwanda “is likely to stand as a decisive precedent in determiningthat media organizations can be held accountable for the crimes that they
direct their listeners and readers to carry out.” Similarly, scholar Alison
DesForges told the Washington Post that the Tribunal’s decision is extremely important “because it does recognize that media can be used tokill.” (Dworkin, 2003; visit <http:www.crimesofwar.org>).
The shift away from the economics of killing or threats of killing is alreadyhitting governments’ budgets and taxpayers’ pocketbooks. Facing a multitrillion-dollar national debt, stubborn unemployment, under-funded publicschools and infrastructure, the U.S. government has slashed monies for its
military establishment and is withdrawing its troops now killing and being
killed in Afghanistan.
In the Middle East, Europe, Brazil, and elsewhere protestors risk being
killed or killing others by taking to the streets, smashing windows and fighting
law enforcers as they demand better economic and social conditions. Insteadof expending these pent-up violent reactions, however, protestors might wellbenefit from studying the effectiveness of Gandhi’s nonviolence. Thanks tothe electrifying revelations of renowned leaker Edward Snowden, protestors and other dissidentsand citizens and governments everywherearenow alerted that all of their electronic media messages are being spied onby the U.S. government, often with help from its allies.
Willingly, unwillingly or unwittingly, the media often serve as a vast surveillance network useful to governments and commercial enterprises and perhaps
even to criminals. And this prospect may increase as drone journalism andother media outlets gain momentum. To offer individuals counter-surveillanceprotections, cutting-edge designers are creating “stealth-ware” that block unwanted photo-taking or aerial tracking (Worthham, New York Times, 2013).
In other cases, some media companies are owned by or inter-lockedwith corporations holding or seeking government contracts or other benefits. For example, General Electric, a major U.S. defense contractor, owns a
49 percent interest in NBCUniversaal, 51% interest in Comcast, is a joint
partner with Microsoft in the cable news network of MSNBC, and has holdings abroad intertwined with several giant international corporations (“WhoOwns What,” Columbia Journalism Review, June 2013).
The powerful images and stories of film are often overlooked to create
uplifting and inspiring nonkilling productions, as Karen Hurley describes in
Chapter 6, because major studios are owned by transnational conglomerates
operating in a “society that is based on militarism and focused on violence”.

14

Nonkilling Media

They adopt story lines that often take place in the United States. In effect, shenotes in citing others, “the future has been fully colonized and it is American.”In addition, as Philip Lee explains in Chapter 1, the U.S. mass media generally “colluded in the so-called ‘war on terror’, aiding and abetting thewars on Iraq and Afghanistan.” Some media celebrated “legitimate” weapons of mass destruction like smart bombs, he continues, instead of realizingthat “journalists' choice of stories, angles, sources and ways of structuring
narratives strongly influence readers’ and viewers’ attitudes and beliefs.”
Yet done wisely, as Virgil Hawkins notes in Chapter 2, the media “havethe power to contribute to better policymaking in responding to conflict, by
providing detailed information and context to the public and policymakers,
and encouraging discussions and debate.” The media could also do more to
reduce killing, he explains, by exposing the trafficking of arms, trade in natural
resources associated with conflict, and financial support of the belligerents.
Despite today’s dire economics and the public horror of real-life, realtime killing, producers of movies, video games and other entertainment
media are reaping huge profits in the global multi-billion dollar market, as
Sweeney reminds us in Chapter 5.
These producers could conceivably usher in a nonkilling future, he notes,
but most games and other media entertainments involve dramatic killings orother fast-action violence that can be more easily comprehended and absorbed
by global audiences regardless of their language or culture, thus evidencing “theintegral link between capitalist ideologies and economies of lethality.”
The shift to more factfinding globally about conditions causing killing is underway. The extent of killing worldwide in 2009 is explained by Xu Xiaoge
in Chapter 3. Based on the latest global report of the World Health Organization, he details that l.79 billion people were killed in that year, including:-

44% committing suicide,
28% in homicides,
17% during wars,
11% were murdered and.04% as death penalty.

In a most illuminating content analysis, he also made the significant findings that document inequities in news media coverage of killings. He foundthat eight selected English-language national newspapers covered killing or
its equivalent far more often when it occurred in undeveloped or developing countries (80%) than when it occurred in developed countries (20%).
These newspapers most often used the word killing or its equivalent inForeword 15

headlines and in leads and in stories covered by their own correspondents.
The stories most often de-legitimated the killings but usually slighted oromitted entirely references to nonkilling actions or attitudes.
He found that murder was reported as the major cause of killing (50%),
followed by terrorist attacks (24%), conflict (23%), genocide (.9%). Suicide
was reported as the cause in only l.1% of the stories, even though the World
Health Report he cites lists that as the leading cause of killings globallyalmost
more than homicides and wars combined. In addition to the cause of killings,
the scholar urges, news coverage needs to include “what should be done” toprevent their re-occurrence. He also urges news media professionals, professors and students to be exposed to and learn nonkilling concepts, principles
and practices so that they can be utilized in gathering, producing and presenting news stories on killing.
Paige outlines these four principles of nonkilling journalism and othermedia, in an 18-minute instructional video available online:-

Report the killing without euphemisms and inquire into its causes,
Report nonkillingwhy people don’t killand report human creativity,
Report the causes of shifting from killing to nonkilling or the reverse,
Report the characteristics of a nonkilling society. (Keever, 2007).

Inequities in economic and social arrangements cause killings and otherforms of violence. “The poorer people are, the poorer the circumstances inwhich they live, the higher the rate of violence,” Michael Marmot reported
to the World Health Organization (WHO, 2009).
Within the United States, the Occupy Wall Street protests in 2011 inspired
offshoots around the country and overseas, with a long-lasting one still holding
on in Honolulu. The Occupiers voiced the outrage of the 99 percenters against
wealth and power concentrated in the hands of the 1 percent. Despite their
sputtering out, the Occupiers’ claims have been borne out in a recent analysis
documenting that top executives of the biggest U.S. firms got a huge pay increase16 percentover 2011. (Morgenson, New York Times, 2013).
Similarly, a vivid social movement in Spain that used graffiti, posters, assemblies and other inventive ways to capture and spread the “Spanish
Revolution” calling for “Real Democracy Now” is detailed by Eloísa Nos Aldás in Chapter 4. She notes that one slogan used hand-scrawled letters on aposter reading “Yes we Camp,” as a play on the words used in 2008 by U.S.
presidential candidate Barack Obama his successful “Hope” campaign.

16

Nonkilling Media

Much violence is directed at women. Physical or sexual violence affects
more than one third of all women worldwide, according to a recent WHO survey, and “is a global health problem of epidemic proportions.” (WHO, 2013.)
Scrutinizing this epidemic situated in male-dominated societies, María
José Gámez Fuentes notes in Chapter 7 that women are most often portrayed as victims of violence—and hence receive a law-enforcement focus
in the media—or of domestic violence—and hence a social welfare focus.
Instead violence against women should be considered as a human rights violation to be addressed by all segments of society in an attempt to rectify
imbalances within the power and social structure.
The shift toward nonkilling societies is moving forward. Paige asks if a nonkilling society is possible. Of course, he replies. It already exists. One key
characteristic is strict egalitarianism, by age and gender, which Peter Gardner found over 40 years of researching the Paliyan, a hunting and gathering
tribe in South India (Gardner, 2012).
Using news reports to bring academic research up-to-date led in 2004
to the starting of the Peaceful Societies site (http://peacefulsocieties.org) that
Bruce Bonta discusses in Chapter 9. News reports occasionally report on
economic, social, educational or cultural and religious information about selected nonkilling societies. These sporadic news reports provide clues thatpeaceful societies were marked by what Bonta calls “the giving spirit, call it
generosity, perhaps.”
As for the news reports themselves, Bonta indicates, “some of the reporters show abysmal ignorance about the societies they are covering” andthey “rarely if ever consult prominent scholars, much less read their works,
when significant events occur.”
A significant shift now in motion is underway in a Movement for a
Nonkilling Philippines. The Movement urges that a nonkilling Philippines is a
desirable vision and a goal that can be measured by a proposed Philippine
Index of Killing/Nonkilling. That index “will record, map, and monitor theincidence of killings nationwide,” thus detailing the kinds of killing and theirprobable cause, Abueva reports.
Moreover, “communities that excel in nonkilling peacefulness will be recognized and their experience sought to be replicated elsewhere,” he elaborates. To institutionalize the Movement’s vision, a Senator has drafted alegislative bill establishing a Department of Peace.
The Movement was founded in 2009 by 17 Filipino scholars and community leaders who had written a trail-blazing study five years earlier aboutdeveloping a research and action agenda for developing a nonkilling Philip-

Foreword 17

pines. Their study was inspired by Paige’s Nonkilling Global Political Sciencethat had been translated into Filipino (Abueva, 2013).
To expand this shift beyond the Philippines, Eloísa Nos Aldás in Chapter
4 urges organizations with peace-culture and nonkilling missions to movebeyond their structural requirements of fund-raising and branding and instead to make education and advocacy as their unique objective.
The silence of intellectuals advocating nonkilling is also overshadowed by“an increasingly war-accepting, if not war-promoting, public discourse,” according to Tom Hastings in Chapter 9. He lists a number of remedies including:-framing nonkilling initiatives as cost-reduction measures,featuring successful nonviolent examples,
calling on sources who are experts on or can speak to the structural
reasons for violence, andmarking nonviolent anniversaries.

The shift in media technologies is rapid and far-reaching. Glenn Paige’s
seminal book that touched off a nonkilling movement in the Philippines is
one striking example of the far-reaching impact of the new media technologies. With his manuscript rejected by traditional publishers, Paige utilized
the Internet to distribute his book without any cost to readers, and within adecade to have it translated into dozens of languages through which his
powerful ideas can be shared across time zones and cultures.
A corollary of Paige’s example is the demise of newspapers and otherprint-based media. Their demise illuminates one of Postman’s principles of
media technology, “A new technology usually makes war against the old technology” by competing with it for time, attention, money, prestige and worldview (Postman, 1996). The United States and the modern West are based on
the culture of print, which enables commercialism and imperialism, according
to Harold Innis in his formulating the bias of communication and the linkage
between communication technologies and empire (Innis, 1951;1972).
“A new technology does not merely add something; it changes everything,” Postman also explains. He elaborates that every new technology benefits some and harms others; it “predisposes us to favor or value certain
perspectives and accomplishments and to subordinate others”; it changes“how people use their minds, in what it makes us do with our bodies, in
how it codifies the world, in which of our senses it amplifies, in which of ouremotional and intellectual tendencies it disregards.” Each new technology
has different political biases because of the accessibility and speeds of their

18

Nonkilling Media

information, has different sensory biases, different social biases and different
content biases (Postman, 1996).
These new technologies have ushered in the so-called “global village.”
Thus far, this “global village turns out to be an unstable and in many ways an
unfriendly place in which ethnic nationalisms again occupy the center of thestage,” Carey ventures. “Everywhere state and nation are pitted against one
another; primordia have been globalized and identity politics is practiced ona world scale” (Carey, 1996).
Yet this unfriendly village can be transformed. Human violence is a curable disease and it can be prevented just as some diseases have been eradicated or reduced, according to the World Report on Violence and Health, thefirst such comprehensive survey of global scope.
“The factors that contribute to violent responseswhether they arefactors of attitude and behaviour or related to larger social, economic, political and cultural conditionscan be changed,” the Report states. In addressing ways for primary prevention, the Report calls for media campaigns
to “change attitudes, behaviour and social norms” (WHO, 2002).
A heightened, constructive role by the media adds a vital ingredient toaccelerated research, programming and implementation needed to curb the
curable disease of violence. By doing so, Paige emphasizes, “We are goingto eliminate human killing on the globe just the way we put a person on themoon” (Keever, 2007).
References
Abueva, Jose (2013). “Let’s Build A Nonkilling Philippines!” The Bohol Chronicle, June
23: 1.
Carey, James W. (1998). “The Internet and the End of the National Communication
System: Uncertain Predictions of an Uncertain Future,” Journalism and Mass
Communication Quarterly, 75(1): 34.
Columbia Journalism Review (2013). “Who Owns What”, Available online at:<http://www.cjr.org/resources/?c=ge>.
Dworkin,
Anthony(2003).
“Rwanda”,
Available
onlineat:<http://www.crimesofwar.org/onnews/news-rwanda.html>.
Gardner, Peter M. (2012). “A People Who Have Eliminated Killing,” in Towards a
Nonkilling World: Festschrift in Honor of Prof. Glenn D. Paige. Available online at:<http://www.nonkilling.org>.
Innis, Harold (1951). Bias of Communication. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.
Innis, Harold (1972). Empire and Communications. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.

Foreword 19

Keever, Beverly Ann Deepe (2007). “De-escalating Media Language of Killing: An Instructional Module,” Conflict and Communication Online, 6(1). Available online at:<http://www.cco.regener-online.de>.
Morris, David J. (2007). “The Big Suck: Notes from the Jarhead Underground,” Virginia Quarterly Review, 83(1).
Morgenson, Gretchen (2013). “An Unstoppable Climb in C.E.O. Pay,” New YorkTimes, June 29. Available at: <http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/30/business/anunstoppable-climb-in-ceo-pay.html>.
Paige, Glenn (2009). Nonkilling Global Political Science. Honolulu: Center for Global
Nonkilling. Available online at: <http://www.nonkilling.org/pdf/nkgps.pdf>.
Postman, Neil (1996). The End of Education: Redefining the Value of School. New
York: Alfred A. Knopf.
Trabelsi, Habib (2005). “Al-Qaeda takes jihad to media four years after 9/11,” Middle East Online, September 9. Available online at: <http://www.middle-eastonline.com/english?id=14500>.
World Health Organization (2002). World Report on Violence and Health. Geneva: WHO.
Available online at: <http://www.who.int/violence_injury_prevetion/violence/world_
report/en/index.html>.
World Health Organization (2009). “Progress in preventing violence,” Available online at:<http://www.who.int/mediacentre./multimedia/podcasts/2009/violence_prevention_20090921/en/>.
World Health Organization (2013). “WHO report highlights violence against women,”
Available online at: <http://www.who.int/mediacentre/news/releases/2013/violence_against_women_20130620/en/index.html>.
Worthham, J. (2013). “Stealth Wear Aims to Make a Tech Statement,” New York Times,
June 29. Available online at: <http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/30/technology/
stealth-wear-aims-to-make-a-tech-statement.html>.

Introduction

When the messenger is the killer…
The Possibility and Need for a Nonkilling Media
Joám Evans Pim
Center for Global Nonkilling

What is violence? In the first place we think of weapons,knife, killing, and so on. We never think of connecting violence with our tongues. (…)The first weapon—the most
cruel weapon—is the tongue.
Teresa of Calcutta (in Kelly-Gangi, Ed., 2006: 43).

An average person in the US watches approximately 30 hours of television every week. That equates to nearly 4 and half hours a day, an estimate
common to most industrialized countries. During those 4 and half hours
viewers have a choice of programming which usually ranges from several
thousand individual or serial killings in crime fiction serials to multiple complete anihalations of the whole human species and all planetary life available
on film. Counting individual murders alone, an average child in the US will
have viewed 16,000 killings by the age of 18 according to a study by theAmerican Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry. Television series exclusively focused on killings break audience figures leading all rankings(“Criminal Minds” in CBS has a DVR of 13.5 million viewers), spearheading a
multibillion dollar industry for the socialization of lethality and its institutions.
News channels also broadcast in multiple and repetitive occasions every
single intentional killing or public act of violence that takes place in the “civilized” world, toghether with escalating threats, military deployments and security hazards that constantly siege the average viewer. While the World HealthOrganization (2002) calculated that an average of 4,000 people are killed fromself-inflicted, interpersonal or collective violence every dayof which themost part is attributed to suicideevery television spectator is presented withseveral billion human killings every day, including nuclear holocaust, planetary
extinction and every single form of random or organized interpersonal or collective form of lethality. In a society increasingly shaped by what is conveyed
by the screen, this statistical anomaly has more far reaching consequences that

23

24

Nonkilling Mediacan be imagined, especially in the increasing number of youths that have in the
media one of their main sources of socialization and worldview formation.
While the media enshrines lethal violence almost constantly, its appalling
impacts or nonkilling actions in fiction or reality hardly receive any attention. The 1998 National Television Violence Study evidenced that while
61% of US TV programming contained violence, only 4% had anti-violence
theme. While 55% of programmes portrayed violence in realistic setting,
only 16% showed long-term negative consequences and in most scenes(71%) there were no traces of criticism or remorse over inflicted violence.
Lethal violence is often (42%) associated with humor and is committed byattractive people in 39% of cases (Federman, Ed., 1998). Nevertheless,long-term frequent exposure to media violence has been proven to descrease the sensitivity level of viewers (Eron, Gentry and Schlegel, 1996).
Videogames escalate lethal socialization among younger generations. Military psychologist Dave Grossman (2013: 45) recently pointed out how violent
videogames “act just like police and military simulators, providing conditioned
responses, killing skills and desensitization, except they are inflicted on children without the discipline of military and police training.” In the wake of
the Newtown killings, Grossman warned that although only some childrenthat use these games may actually become killers, “they will all be desensitized to human death and suffering, intentionally and realistically inflicted bythemselves, for their own entertainment” (id.). Even though interaction
with violent imagery can have greater effects than passive reception, as alearning process is developed, videogames of extreme violence are themost widely sold by large. In 2012, Call of Duty: Black Ops II (Xbox 360 andPS3) sold 10 million, Halo 4 (Xbox 360) sold 4.7 million, and Assassin’s
Creed III (Xbox 360 and PS3) sold 4 million (Variety, 2013: 14).
Brain scientists and psychologists alike have brought forward consistentevidence showing how violence in film, television and videogames has “substantial short-term effects on arousal, thoughts, and emotions, increasing
the likelihood of aggressive or fearful behaviour in younger children”. Structural equation modelling has demonstrated “that childhood exposure to
media violence was predictive of aggressive behaviour in early adulthood inboth men and women, even when controlling for socioeconomic status, intelligence quotient, and various parenting factors” (Browne and HamiltonGiachritsis, 2005: 702; see also Christie and Evans Pim, Eds., 2012). This isespecially so in the case of aggressive television characters with whomviewers tend to feel identified. For this reason, many are now calling for thesame degree of care with media violence regarding children as with medica-

Introduction

25

tion or hazardous chemicals, considering exposure to the extreme violence
that currently floods film, television and videogames a form of parental or
caregiver neglect and emotional matreatment.
Journalism is not foreign to this responsibility. Obssesed with violence,
homicide and war, it has, in general terms, failed to provide appropriate
coverage of nonviolent social actions and initiatives to prevent or reducekilling. This has been been analyzed in detail by many of the excellent works
on “Peace Journalism” that have been published in the past 15 years. Not
only has mainstream journalism magnified violence but is has also created amacabre equation of news value of deaths according to geographical and cultural variables. Studies such as those by Simon (2006) or Adams (1986) provide factual basis for the US newsroom truism “one dead fireman in Brooklyn
is worth five English bobbies, who are worth 50 Arabs, who are worth 500
Africans”, indicating than the actual reality is much worse. Only a few nonkilling journalism initiatives (such as Pernambuco Body Count, in Brazilnow
closedor the Los Angeles Times Homicide Report) have been able to take thecoverage of killings beyond media ghoulishism and turn reporting into a tool
for prevention and public awareness of nonkilling alternatives.
We are well aware of how the media have gained increased relevance inthe way global events are shaped and transformed, especially when covering conflicts but also everyday reality. Although their lethal capacity for triggering and promoting killing across the twentieth century has been verified
on many occasions, little effort has been made to refocus this power on
nonkilling conflict transformation. Ignoring the role of the media is not a viable option if we seek the contruction of killing-free societies.
Governments have been aware of these possibilities for many decades,
as various international documents and treaties illustrate. The Broadcasting
Peace Pact of 1936 (still in effect) established that foreign broadcasting should
guarantee truthful information aimed towards peace and international understanding, although its signatories soon abandoned these principles. Decades
later, the 1978 UNESCO Mass Media Declaration also pointed out the significance of the media as having “an important contribution to make for thestrengthening of peace and international understanding and in countering racism, apartheid and incitement to war” (Art. 3.1). In spite of this, neither media corporations nor governments have played a major role in implementing
nonkilling media strategies and usually delegate this responsibility to professional bodies of journalists and nongovernmental organizations.
Nonkilling media strategies include a wide range of actions in the field of
conflict prevention, conflict resolution, and postconflict reconstruction and26

Nonkilling Media

reconciliation. Different kinds of actions have been undertaken dependingon the type and stage of specific conflicts, from basic and advanced training
for journalists to media-based interventions and intended outcome programming. Ross Howard identifies five stages in the media practices continuum from conventional conflict coverage to interventionist media programming (Howard et al., 2003). These phases are not rigidly set, as mostactions tend to move horizontally across different possibilities, simultaneously strengthening capabilities at all stages.
Stage one refers to the traditional Western approach to journalism that
ideally tends toward objectivity and neutrality, taking no responsibility forthe immediate or indirect consequences of reporting. This position is notnecessarily negative, as basic journalism skills and ethical values, if strictly
followed, contribute to the strengthening and development of fair reporting. Stage two, responsible journalism development, deepens the sense ofjournalistic responsibility, developing a critical apparatus (avoidance ofstereotypes and sensationalism, challenging of official views, etc.) and advanced journalism tools (investigative, explanatory, specialist, and analyticalreporting). Various training projects have been carried out with relative
success in war-torn or violence divided societies to foster responsible media practices aimed at nonkilling reconciliation and understanding.
Stage three breaks down the barrier between alleged objectivity and aproactive peace-advocating journalism, consciously introducing news items
that maximize nonkilling opportunities. Stage four introduces a new concept of constructive media for peace/nonkilling, in which journalists assume
the role of mediators or facilitators above profit-seeking values of conventional media. Stage five, which not always easily distinguishable from theprevious one, moves beyond the field of journalism toward directly interventionist media strategies with an intended outcome.
These media-based interventions are actions usually designed tocounter hate propaganda and lethality-prone conventional media, providing
specific programming to tackle conflict and postconflict scenarios (refugee
reunion, training and awareness on postwar hazards, health education, election procedures, etc.). Local or external institutions—either nongovernmental or international bodies—have helped establish media projects andproduction facilities to foster reconciliation, tolerance, discussion, and debate on conflict-related issues, gradually transforming attitudes and stereotypes. These projects include well-planned and goal-directed creative programming in the communications sphere: radio dramas, soap operas, cartoons, comics, theatre, music, school media, and a whole range of innova-

Introduction

27

tive and traditional propaganda and communication techniques (from wall
posters and free newspapers to Internet-based projects).
Some interesting examples can be cited. In the African Great Lakes region,
Studio Ijambo (“Wise Words”) was established in 1995 to counter hate press
and broadcasting (especially that of Rwandan government-supported Radiotélévision Libre Mille Collines), fostering reconciliation. The station had a multiethnic staff of 30, bringing together Hutus and Tutsis, not only in news coverage
but also in entertainment programming. In addition to becoming an independent and credible source of news in the region, Studio Ijambo developed media
products deliberately aimed at intergroup reconciliation. One example is the
Our Neighbours, Ourselves soap opera, which helped to build interethnic community cooperation and trust. Similar projects were also brought into practicein Zaire/Rwanda (Radio Agatashya), Nigeria (Radio Kudirat), Liberia/Sierra
Leone (Talking Drum Studio), Angola (Rádio Ecclésia), Sudan (Voice of Hope),
Somalia (Radio Galkayo), Kosovo (Radio Blue Sky), Serbia (Radio B52), Afghanistan (the BBC’s New Home, New Life radio soap opera), Timor (Studio Moris
Hamatuk), Colombia (Sipaz), and Cambodia (Radio UNTAC).
Nonkilling television programming has also shown positive results. Examples of children-focused programs include those in Macedonia and Israel/Palestine. In the former, children ages 7 to 12 of several ethnic backgrounds participated in an eight-part television series titled Nashe Maalo(Our Neighborhood), in which cultural, linguistic, and gender differenceswere cooperatively solved. The latter consisted of an Israeli/Palestinian
coproduction of the Sesame Street series (Rechov SumSum/Shara’a SimSim)
aimed at children ages 3 to 7. The program stimulated intercultural dialogue,
encouraging cultural exchange and countering entrenched stereotypes.
As Herman and Chomsky (1988) pointed out, conventional media tend
to provide support and legitimization for actions perpetrated by politicaland military leaders during armed conflict, defending the social, economic,
and political agendas of these dominant groups. Mainstream media discourses and propaganda sustaining war and violence usually blend together,
inducing social identification with the “common” one-sided position and excluding the challenging of official views and information. Escalationorientated and warmongering reporting fosters myths and beliefs that inflame conflict, demonizing the “other” through a zero-sum game of antagonism using oppositional metaphors (“us” vs. “them”).
Even if it may not directly advocate violence, violence-obsessed media
can easily fall into (the allegedly more profitable) sensationalist and partisan
stances, thus consciously or unconsciously sabotaging any nonkilling efforts.

28

Nonkilling MediaHistorical evidence shows that warmongering can easily produce selffulfilling prophecies (the Spanish-American War is commonly cited as an example), as politicians—especially in democracies—tend to follow (and condition) public opinion trends for better outcomes. The predominant focus
on immediacy, drama, simplicity, and ethnocentrism of conventional media
inevitably leads to tension between traditional news routines and news values and peace efforts (Wolfsfeld, 2004). Peace journalism has been proposed and implemented as a viable alternative to build nonkilling media.
As a critical-realist normative theory, peace journalism (also known asconstructive conflict coverage) is an alternate model for conflict news coverage. It is committed to a positive peacebuilding, de-escalation, and reconciliation role by the media. First conceptualized by Johan Galtung, it focuses,
through conflict analysis, on the underlying cultural and structural causes ofviolence, assuming a proactive role by investigating conflict causes and possible cooperative solutions.
In their peace journalism model, Lynch and McGoldrick (2005) consider
journalists not simply observers but also active participants, catalysts, and messengers. Willingly or unwittingly, journalists serve as mediators of a given reality, having a great potential to influence it, positively or negatively. The media
have the capacity for consensus and confidence building, humanizing and bringing together conflicting parties, and serving as an emotional outlet, functioning
as a communication mechanism in deeply divided societies (Bauman andSiebert, 2001). Not only can they educate and correct misperceptions, theyalso enable informed participation, giving voice to all who are involved.
Critics have stressed the incompatibility of promoting peace/nonkillingthrough journalism with the ideal of objectivity that is espoused in its traditional
Western definition and practice, where journalistic neutrality and (veiled or unveiled) commercial imperatives prevail. On the contrary, Lynch and McGoldrick(2005) maintain that reality is always subjectively mediated and cannot be neutral toward peace. Therefore they propose a new “ethics of responsibility,” using conflict resolution as a news value toward alternative outcomes.
Nevertheless, Galtung explains that the basic point of peace journalism
is not advocacy but “the expansion of the conflict discourse to include
peaceful outcomes and processes, making peace perspectives visible”(2007: 10). The emphasis is thus on balanced, critical, contextualized, anddeepened analysis of facts, giving attention to the goals of all parties, including those who oppose violent conflict. While war journalism tends to be“propaganda oriented,” peace journalism should be “truth oriented.”Introduction

29

Although peace journalism is far from being a mainstream approach toconflict coverage, professional organizations have been inclined to support
its ethical background. The International Principles of Professional Ethics inJournalism, drafted in 1983 at a summit of eight international journalist organizations representing 400,000 professionals, state that journalists should
actively participate in social transformation, contributing “to a climate ofconfidence in international relations conducive to peace and justice” (8thPrinciple). The Charter also points out that “the ethical commitment to theuniversal values of humanism calls for the journalist to abstain from any justification for, or incitement to, wars of aggression” (9th Principle).
The importance of rethinking media and entertainment from a nonkilling
perspective is self-explanatory. In Nonkilling Global Political Science, Paige(2009) pointed out how violence is “socially learned and culturally reinforced”. This social effort is by no means casual or due to some innate taste
or demand for violence contenthistorically considered repugnantbutrather, “violent media socialization is useful for a state in need of professional patriotic killers”. Nonkilling creativity throuought the ages also shows
how a life-enhancing media is possible. Previous works and efforts have
proven this. Keever’s (2007) pioneering article on nonkilling media, developed as an instructional resource that included a webcast with Glenn Paige(video available at CGNK’s YouTube), highlighted how media provides “vicarious learning for lethality and desensitization of the value of human life”,
also contributing “to a sense of naturalness and inescapability.” In Nonkilling
Psychology, Mitch Hall and Marc Pilisuk (2012: 128) explain how the often
distorted vision that media portray creates an unrealistically violent view ofthe world that leads to fear regarding everything that sorrounds us:
Despite the highlighting of violence in media, people mostly cooperate,share, care, compete peacefully, act altruistically, and forgive. Despite thefrequency of conflict, most humans go through a typical day without being
either a perpetrator, victim, or witness of any type of physical violence (id).

In Nonkilling Linguistics, Lauren Chamberlain (2012: 60) calls attention to
the fact that exposure to media violence has also shifted the nature andcontent of play as “young children both imitate the violence they see and attempt to make sense of the violence present in various ways through out
their lives”. Regardless of the will of media conglomerates and policymakers to take action regarding this problem, families and educators need

30

Nonkilling Mediato take action. We have also decided to reproduce in this volume two essays from the book Nonkilling Futures (2012) that analyze the role of film in
reproducing, reinforcing and casting into the future the lethality-centeredvision of human society that currently prevails. At the Center for Global
Nonkilling we sincerely hope that the contributions compiled in this volume
may help shape an alternative to the lethal ideology that permates media(including journalism and entertainment) that may enhance the value of life
and the importance of nonkilling societal values.
References
Adams, William C. (1986). “Whose Lives Count? TV Coverage of Natural Disasters,” Journal of Communication, 36: 113-122.
Bauman, Melissa, and Hannes Siebert (2001). “Journalists as Mediators,” in Reychler, Luc,and Thania Paffenholz, eds. Peacebuilding. A Field Guide. Boulder: Lynne Rienner.
Browne, Kevin D. and Hamilton-Giachritsis, Catherine (2005). “The influence ofviolent media on children and adolescents: a public-health approach,” Lancet,
365: 702-710.
Chamberlain, Lauren (2012). “Teaching Peace Peacefully,” in Friedrich, Patricia, Ed.,
Nonkilling Linguistics: Practical Applications. Honolulu: Center for Global Nonkilling, pp. 39-65.
Christie, Daniel J., and Evans Pim, Joám, Eds. (2012). Nonkilling Psychology. Honolulu:
Centerfor
GlobalNonkilling.
Available
onlineat:<http://www.nonkilling.org>.
Eron, L. D.; Gentry, J. H. and Schlegel, P. (1996). Reason to hope: A psychosocial perspective on violence. Washington: American Psychological Association.
Federman, J., Ed. (1998). National Television Violence Study. Santa Barbara: University of California.
Galtung, Johan (2007). “Peace Journalism as an Ethical Challenge.” Asteriskos, 3-4: 7–16.
Geelen, Michiel van (2002). The Role of the Media in Conflict Prevention, Conflict
Management and Peace Building: An Overview of Theory and Practice. The Hague:
Netherlands Ministry of Foreign Affairs..
Grossman (2013: 45). “Counterpoint”, in Variety, 429(10): 45.
Hall, Mitch and Pilisuk, Marc (2012). “Some Causes and Consequences of Direct
and Structural Violence,” in Christie, Daniel J., and Evans Pim, Joám, Eds., Nonkilling Psychology. Honolulu: Center for Global Nonkilling, pp. 125-142.
Herman, Edward S., and Noam Chomsky (1988). Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media. New York: Pantheon.
Howard, Ross, et al., eds. (2003). The Power of the Media. A Handbook for Peacebuilders. The Hague: Global Partnership for the Prevention of Armed Conflict.
Keever; Beverly Ann Deepe (2007). “De-escalating Media Language of Killing: An Instructional Model,” Conflict & Communication Online, 6(1).

Introduction

31

Kelly-Gangi, Carol (2003). Mother Teresa. Her Essential Wisom. New York: Fall River.
Lynch, Jake and Annabel McGoldrick (2005). Peace Journalism. Stroud: Hawthorn Press.
Paige, Glenn D. (2009). Nonkilling Global Political Science. Honolulu: Center for
Global Nonkilling. Available online at: <http://www.nonkilling.org>.
Simon, A. F. (2006). “Television news and international earthquake relief,” Journal ofCommunication, 47(3): 82-93.
Variety (2013). Variety: Special Report on Violence and Entertainment, 429(10): 80 pp.
Available online at: <http://variety.com/violence>.
Wolfsfeld, G. (2004). Media and the Path to Peace. Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 2004.

Chapter One

Nonkilling MediaA Normative Framework
Philip Lee
World Association for Christian Communication

A concise definition of nonkilling is offered by Joám Evans Pim, based on thework of Glenn D. Paige (2009), in which “nonkilling refers to the absence ofkilling, threats to kill, and conditions conducive to killing in human society” (Pim,2009: 15). Summarising the concepts encompassed by nonkilling, he states that,“Nonkilling... is the affirmation of the act of not taking the life of another person” (ibid.). In this sense, nonkilling media can be described as those that respect the sacredness of human life and the universality of human dignity.
The theory of communicative action expounded by philosopher and sociologist Jürgen Habermas (1987) explicitly recognizes and affirms the dignity and worth of other human beings. Communicative action depends onthe capacity and willingness of everyone to dialogue and to understand or
temporarily adopt each other’s perspectives and, from that starting point,
to develop actions that have just consequences for everyone involved. Mutual understanding, not merely reciprocal influence and certainly not onesided coercion, are crucial. In this respect, the proactive elements of nonkilling (affirmation and recognition) harmonize with those of communicative
action, which asserts that systematic discussion can reveal universal truths
and codes of appropriate conduct that enable everyone involved to reachagreements from which they can benefit equally. As Habermas notes,
The rationality potential in action oriented to mutual understanding can bereleased and translated into the rationalization of the lifeworlds of socialgroups to the extent that language fulfils functions of reaching understanding, coordinating actions, and socializing individuals; it thereby becomes a
medium through which cultural reproduction, social integration, and socialization take place (Habermas, 1987: 86).

Among other things, communicative action tries to resolve the problem
of universal truths that posit extending morality across all cultures despite
differing cultural values and belief systemsa controversial proposition thatis the subject of intense debate, for example, in the field of communication

35

36

Nonkilling Media

ethics (Christians and Traber, 1997; Boltanski, 1999). Communicative action challenges the notion of relativismthat each culture or community
has belief systems that cannot conform to universal principles because ofcultural practices and experiences. It contests this idea with the foundational assertion that reason is a universal capacity inherent to all human beings. Implementing communicative action would ideally create a globally justsociety in which all members adhere to a shared principlethe ethic of reciprocity or the “golden rule”that:
Is found and has persisted in many religious and ethical traditions of humankind for thousands of years: “What you do not wish done to yourself,
do not do to others.” Or in positive terms: “What you wish done to yourself, do to others!” This should be the irrevocable, unconditional norm for
all areas of life, for families and communities, for races, nations, and religions (Declaration Toward A Global Ethic, 1993: 7).

Implicit in communicative action is a process of reconciliation with people“whose freedom has been taken away”, based on the core values of genuine
communication: “truth-telling, commitment to justice, freedom in solidarity,
and respect for human dignity” (Traber, 1997: 335, 341). That process ofreconciliation can only begin in a context of mutual trust in a shared reality:“Reconciliation requires seeing the world as it is, not as we wish it to be. We
cannot make compassion dependent on a transformation to the ideal; wemust begin with reality if we want to have any hope of influencing reality”(Sivaraksa, 2001: 41). A clear starting point for genuine communication andcompassion is engaged dialoguea dialogue that involves a desire to hear andunderstand what other people are saying and how they see the world. It iswhat Adam Kahane (2004) calls “deep conversation”.
Kahane models four ways of talking and listening. The first is“downloading”, consisting of polite, socially acceptable, conventional exchanges in which people do not listen carefully and nothing new is explored.
The second is “debating”, when people actively search for new informationor perspectives and engage in argument. The third is “reflective dialogue”,
characterized by placing oneself in the position or circumstances of anotherperson and listening to oneself through his or her eyes and ears. The fourthand most powerful is “generative dialogue” in which two or more people
experience a sense of common purpose and are fully engaged with what istaking place and its potential for change. The premise is simple:

A Normative Framework

37

The way we talk and listen expresses our relationship with the world.
When we fall into the trap of telling and of not listening, we close ourselves off from being changed by the world and we limit ourselves to being
able to change the world only by force. But when we talk and listen with
an open mind and an open heart and an open spirit, we bring forth ourbetter selves and a better world (Kahane, 2004: 4).

This kind of engaged dialogue is the most democratic, in which everyone
is listened to and everyone can take part on an equal footing. It is reminiscentof the talking circle, a traditional instrument for dealing with conflicts, misconceptions, disagreements, or deeper problems that interfere with the everyday
concerns of a person or community. Talking circles are where people cansearch for new directions, abandoning the old, making amends, righting
wrongs, and creating new pathways toward conflict resolution and possible
reconciliation. They represent a model of “integrative conversation” that reinforces the skills of listening attentively, making connections, and working
cooperatively to address problems and challenges. Individuals place thecommunity in the foreground of their thinking and response and themselvesin the background in order to participate in a conversation involving:A genuine exchange of ideas, feelings, perspectives, opinions, and so forth,where for each person involved there emerges a sense of self as part of
the whole. To participate in integrative conversation, one accepts responsibility not only for actively listening to every perspective, but for creating
an integrative story along the way. In doing so, the underlying dynamics ofpower shift from traditionally myopic, self-centred, and rigid to inclusive,interconnected, and fluid (Cowan and Adams, 2002: 3).

How might it be possible for mass and community media to adopt theposition of communicative action, deep conversation, and engaged dialogue? What models of mass and community media are conducive to the establishment of nonkilling societies and how can they contribute to the paradigm shift identified by Thomas Kuhn (1962) resulting in fundamental alterations to the fabric of society and culture? In attempting to answer thesequestions, we do well to bear in mind the caveat that:
A paradigm shift is a long social process that implies significant changes in
how disciplines function, slowly modifying views on what is thinkable or
unthinkable, altering intellectual strategies for problem-solving and modifying terminology usage and conceptual frameworks in a changing universeof discourse (Evans Pim, 2009: 19).

38

Nonkilling MediaIn today’s information and knowledge sharing societies, such a paradigm
shift is unthinkable without the complicity of mass and community media
and without reconceptualising the role of public service communication in a
globalized context of cultural and religious diversity.
A paradigm shift in media content and practice?
The principles of journalism ethicsincluding professional journalism’s
much lauded “objectivity”rest on truth-telling, independence and fairness,
and a sense of solidarity with humankind. In addition to factual accuracy,
truth-telling requires anticipating the possibility of error, rigorous research,and cross-checking based on a sure grasp of the issues in play. Independence
and fairness mean striving to avoid bias, giving space to reasonable disagreement, providing alternative points of view and solutions, and avoiding partisaninterests. Solidarity with humankind means minimizing harm and standing up
for the rights of the “other”. All these principles implicate those working in
the media in an indiscriminate sense of individual and collective moral responsibility. As the MacBride Report underlined thirty years ago:
Communication, with its immense possibilities for influencing the minds
and behaviour of people, can be a powerful means of promoting democratization of society and of widening public participation in the decisionmaking process. This depends on the structures and practices of media
and their management and to what extent they facilitate broader accessand open the communication process to a free interchange of ideas, information and experience among equals, without dominance or discrimination (MacBride, 1980: 265).

The concept of journalistic objectivity has been critiqued by many
commentators and has decisively influenced the burgeoning field of “peace
journalism” studies. Advocates of peace journalism are attempting to articulate a new set of norms and practices aimed at changing the way the media
frame and report war and conflict situations. Critics argue that peace journalism is synonymous with good journalism, but fail to see that journalists’choice of stories, angles, sources, and ways of structuring narratives
strongly influence readers’ and viewers’ attitudes and beliefs. While public
consumption of mass media journalism rests firmly on the assumption thatstories are fair, balanced, and objective, we do not have to look far for evidence to the contrary.

A Normative Framework

39

With a few notable but ultimately ineffectual exceptions, it is now generally accepted that the mass media in the U.S.A. colluded in the so-called“war on terror”, aiding and abetting the wars on Iraq and Afghanistan andhelping to generate a politics of fear that enabled the Bush Administrationand its allies to further their right-wing agendas. Many U.S. broadcasting
networks (notably Fox News) and newspapers (such as The New YorkTimes) offered a sanitized view of the war, emphasizing patriotism, militarytechnology and heroism, and celebrating “legitimate” weapons of mass destruction (such as “smart bombs”) as opposed to “illegitimate” ones such as
those used by Saddam Hussein. Apart from notable alternative media
sources such as the Indymedia network, the absence of critical judgement
or, rather, the presence of government control and the now notorious role
played by embedded journalists, led one commentator to observe that:
Dominant media are complicit in a culture and politics of fear... that fuels
the military-industrial complex, the private security industry, the smallarms trade, a gated community/fortress mentality, and a foreign policy
that, arguably, practices state terrorism, economic exploitation, and cultural domination, fostering hatred amongst subordinate populations(Hackett, 2007: 4).

A more recent but equally disturbing example can be found in media
coverage of the Haiti earthquake of January 2010. Governments and humanitarian agencies around the world responded with immediacy and compassion to the unfolding drama of thousands of people killed and madehomeless by the devastation. The mass media descended on Haiti to coverstories of the havoc wrought by the earthquake, the lack of water, food,medicine and shelter, and the “miracle” of people pulled alive from the
rubble. Within days, however, leading newspapers on all continents were
publishing stories criminalizing people desperately searching for a means tokeep themselves and their families alive. On its web site The Los Angeles
Times ran a series of photos with captions that included descriptions of “looting” and “looters”. The New York Times published an op-ed column (January
14, 2010) blaming Haiti’s ills on cultural inadequacies and the Washington Post
published an op-ed column (January 18, 2010) denigrating the Haitian people’s ability to determine their own post-earthquake future. It would not havetaken an unduly perceptive or sensitive editor to have contextualized what
was reported, to have asked “What would you do in this person’s place?”, orto have put more faith in the resilience of a people that has struggled for solong against imperialism, corruption, and grinding poverty.

40Nonkilling MediaThis kind of reporting is an obstacle to distinguishing between what is
morally right and what is morally reprehensible. We cannot assume that themass media represent reality and certainly not the whole truth and nothing
but the truth. For this reason, the mass media stand in urgent need of thekind of corrective proposed by peace journalism, since:
The approach of peace journalism is geared toward the stimulation andmaximization of readers’ judgement ability and prudence. By challenging
routine coverage methods and by providing the broadest possible range ofaccounts, peace journalism writers entrust the onus of interpretation totheir readers. By doing so they do not treat the audience as a passive
monolith, but rather supply an elementary and essential commodity for all
readers... In summation, peace journalism is about supplying backgroundfor questions rather than furnishing answers (Peleg, 2007: 7).

It is recognized that “war journalism” is an inadequate term, limited asmuch by language as it is by a notion of journalistic reporting by aggressors
or victors. The Oxford English Reference Dictionary (1995) is not alone in defining “peace” as “freedom from, or the cessation of, war... a treaty ofpeace between states etc. at war.” It took the pioneering wisdom of Johan
Galtung to shape a broader, more inclusive definition, although the whole
notion of “peace journalism” still has its critics and detractors. Recent research findings seem to imply that there is still a long way to go to validate
both its concept and practice, since:
Neither war journalism nor peace journalism is being consciously practiced on a wide scale, and the prevalence of the former over the latter canbe related to news organizations’ structures and routines, including journalism’s anchorage in the ideologies and power structures of the broader
society (Hackett and Schroeder, 2009: 52).

Yet, it was in 1670 in his Theological-Political Treatise that Spinoza wrote,“Peace is not an absence of war, it is a virtue, a state of mind, a disposition for
benevolence, confidence, justice.” If that is true, we need a broader conceptof “peace” as one that takes into account all the sites and forms of humanconflict and misunderstanding in societyespecially those impacting on themost vulnerable (children, women, and minorities). “Peace journalism” thenbecomes “benevolent journalism” or, since that is rather obscure and what
we are really talking about is human dignity and justice, “just journalism”.

A Normative Framework

41

Just journalism can challenge theinjustices and impunities that lead to killing
Writing in The New York Times (March 2, 2009), Archbishop Emeritus
Desmond Tutu called on Africa’s political leaders to take sides and support
the International Criminal Court (IIC) in its attempt to have President Omar
Hassan al-Bashir of Sudan indicted for the crime of genocide. Tutu pointedly asks if African leaders are “on the side of justice or on the side of injustice? Are they on the side of the victim or the oppressor? The choice isclear but the answer so far from many African leaders has been shameful.”Tutu’s appeal was in response to the culture of impunity that appears to exist among many of the world’s political leaders, few of whom are evercalled to account for dubious or downright criminal acts. Bosnia, Rwanda,
Chile, and Cambodia may be exceptions (when the political climate is right),
although many questions remain unanswered, although we already knowthat few of the perpetrators of injustice will actually be convicted.
If one takes into consideration the leaders of democracieswho neverwage war on each other but only on “rogue” statesimpunity is also thename of the game. France’s actions in Algeria, Britain’s during the Malvinas/Falklands war, Russia’s in Chechnya, the USA’s in too many Latin
American countries to name as well as in Iraq and Afghanistanit has to beconcluded, as has long been known, that there is one international standard
for the power-brokers and another for the rest. Impunity has deep roots.
On March 4, 2009, the International Criminal Court finally issued an arrest
warrant against Omar Hassan al-Bashir of Sudan on charges relating to theconflict in Darfur, including war crimes. He was accused of running a campaign that killed 35,000 people outright, at least another 100,000 through“slow death”, and forcing 2.5 million people to flee their homes in Darfur.
But the IIC stopped short of charging Sudan’s leader with genocide because“it did not find sufficient evidence of a specific intent to destroy ethnic
groups in Darfur.” Yet, the UN reported that up to 300,000 people diedfrom the combined effects of war, famine, and disease and more than two
million people fled their homes. Al-Bashir stands accused of being criminallyresponsible for intentionally directing attacks against the civilian populationof Darfur that included murdering, exterminating, raping, torturing, forciblytransferring large numbers of civilians, and pillaging their property.
Western media were uncritical in their reporting of the conflict in Sudan
and found it difficult to determine what position to take. When the violenceand oppression went relentlessly on and on, news editors turned their at-

42Nonkilling Media

tention elsewhere. Similarly, African and Arab-language media have been
criticized for ignoring the worsening situation. While it is clear that the mass
media cannot prevent war, they can alert, explain, and offer more balanced
and insightful opinion. The just journalism optionchoosing stories thatcreate opportunities for civil society to consider and value nonkilling responses to conflictis also an antidote to impunity. The more people know
about what is done in their name, about which governments, organizations
and groups are doing what to whom, the more likely they are to challenge,
contest, andwho knows?act to prevent.
In his Op-Ed contribution, Tutu commented that, “African leaders
should be the staunchest supporters of efforts to see perpetrators broughtto account. Yet rather than stand by those who have suffered in Darfur, African leaders have so far rallied behind the man responsible for turning that
corner of Africa into a graveyard.” The leaders of the world’s democratic
countries need to take that lesson to heart. They, too, should be the staunchest supporters of international efforts to see the perpetrators of gross injustice brought to account. And those responsible for media enterprises of any
kind have a public duty to expose them. When it comes to war, genocide,and human rights violations, there can be no impunity. Only justice.
It is not only the news media as such that can be scrutinised for theirtake on moral and political responsibility and accountability. The entertainment media are notorious for a rather cavalier attitude to objectivity, balance, and issues of representation. William Randolph Hearst is credited with
instructing artist Frederic Remington not to return from Havana, Cuba, in
1898 without images of war: “You furnish the pictures and I’ll furnish thewar.” Indeed, American and Cuban forces soon attacked the Spanish at
Guantánamo Bay which led to the eventual defeat of the Spanish and the
U.S. military establishing a naval base there. In the James Bond film Tomorrow Never Dies (1997), media mogul Elliot Carver is a fictional charactermodelled on Robert Maxwell, although many viewers saw Carver as a satirical take on Rupert Murdoch. Elliot Carver, head of the Carver MediaGroup Network, plans to use an encryption device to provoke war between China and the United Kingdom. As the existing Chinese leadership is
not receptive to giving Carver Media Group Network exclusive broadcast
rights in their country, Carver wants to use a war to eliminate them in favour of politicians more friendly to his plans. Carver quotes newspaper
magnate William Randolph Hearst towards the film’s climax, updated to“You furnish the photographs, I’ll furnish the war.”

A Normative Framework43

It is to the power of cinema that we turn for a case study of how themass media can consistently and persistently misportray and misrepresent awhole race of people with lethal consequences.
Case study: Reel Bad Arabs
In a groundbreaking book published in 2001 Jack G. Shaheen provided
conclusive evidence that Hollywood films have spent several decades maligning, caricaturing, and misrepresenting Arabs. They portrayed them, deliberately or not, as “uncivilized religious fanatics and money-mad cultural ‘others’.”
Reel Bad Arabs reviews feature films with leading Arab characters, the overwhelming majority of which, such as Prisoner in the Middle East, Wanted Deador Alive, The Delta Force, and Executive Decision negatively stereotype Arabs.
Only a handful of screenplays that surfaced in the 1980s and 1990s featured
Arab characters as heroes, such as The Lion of the Desert and The 13th Warrior.
In this first comprehensive review of Arab screen images ever published, I
document and discuss virtually every feature that Hollywood ever made –more than 900 films, the vast majority of which portray Arabs by distorting at every turn what Arab men, women, and children are really like. In
gathering the evidence for this book, I was driven by the need to expose
an injustice: cinema’s systematic, pervasive, and unapologetic degradationand dehumanization of a people (Shaheen, 2001: 1).

Shaheen describes a symbiotic relationship between cinema’s ability tocreate fictional narratives and images and its power to create social attitudes, to shape thoughts and beliefs, and to construct prisms through whichpeople view the world and other people. It is an argument that can be extended to mass media generally and especially to the news media.
The first section of Reel Bad Arabs, “The Genesis”, discusses the negative
stereotyping of Arabs in American pop culture. It is followed by “Real Arabs”
whom Shaheen has known: family, friends, colleagues, and people he has met
and worked with. A third section, “The Stereotype’s Entry”, articulates how
Arab images entered American popular culture as an embellishment of preexisting caricatures found in European literature, opera, and paintings. One
example of this genre is Oriental Stories (later retitled The Magic Carpet Magazine), a magazine of 1930-34 and an offshoot of Weird Tales, the American
fantasy and horror fiction pulp magazine first published in March 1923. Oriental
Stories specialized in adventure and fantasy stories with Mid-Eastern or North
African settings and elements. Its stories were peopled by “cheating vendors

44

Nonkilling Mediaand exotic concubines held hostage in slave markets” and Shaheen concludes
that the American public’s acceptance of such images tremendously influenced
American culture in its relationship with the “Oriental” Arab.
Reel Bad Arabs describes how Hollywood movies depicted the desert
habitat of the Arab: “The Desert locale consists of an Oasis, oil wells, palm
trees, tents, fantastically ornate palaces, sleek limousines, and, of course,
camels.” The screen Arab male lives in the desert like Ali Baba with “curved
dagger, scimitars, magic lamps, giant feather fans, and nargelihs” (tobacco
water pipes). The Arab female passively accompanies the Arab male inevery sort of film imaginable, beginning with two silent, black and white
shortsone censored, the other uncensoredFatima (1897) and Fatima’sDance (1907). Both feature the star of the 1896 Chicago World’s Fair, as aveiled bosomy belly dancer. To see Arab belly dancers appearing in earlyfilms is not surprising. At the turn of the century, dancers were a familiar
turn in vaudeville and burlesque. In transferring vaudeville to the silver
screen, Hollywood merely emulated themas did Roscoe “Fatty” Arbucklein The Cook (1918), in which Buster Keaton consorts with a belly dancer at
the Bull Pup Café. The trend continued:
In Arabian Nights fantasies such as The Sheik (1921), Slave Girl (1947), and John
Goldfarb, Please Come Home (1964), Arab women leer out from diaphanousveils, or as unsatisfied, disposable ‘knick-knacks’ lounging on ornate cushions,scantily-clad harem maidens with bare midriffs, closeted in the palace’s
women’s quarters and/or on display in slave markets (Shaheen, 2007: 27).

Shaheen puts Walt Disney’s Aladdin (1992) on trial. The film’s opening
song immediately turns the Middle East into a dangerous and barbaric placein the minds of young children. The cartoon was unstinting in its depictionof scantily clad belly dancers and moustachioed angry guards with big
swords. All good fun, some might argue, until one recalls a reverse scenario. In 1943 Disney produced an animated short film for RKO Radio Pictures called Education for Death: The Making of the Nazi. The film featured
the story of little Hans, a boy born and raised in Nazi Germany, who is bred
to become a merciless soldier. Intended as anti-Nazi propaganda during
World War II, a voice track of Adolf Hitler in full demagogic rant is used in atorchlight rally scene and a sequence follows in which Hans becomes a Nazi
soldier along with other Hitler Youth. One might struggle to distinguish between the “propaganda” of Education for Death and that of Aladdin.

A Normative Framework

45

True Lies (1994) with an all-star cast that included Arnold Schwarzenegger and clearly touted as a comedy portrayed Palestinian freedom fighters
as bumbling, angry, and fanatical terrorists. Not intended to, it never theless did nothing to acknowledge the grievances of real Palestinians forced
from their homes in neo-colonial Israelin contrast to the non-Hollywood
film Lemon Tree (2008) directed by Eran Riklis, which sought to offer a Palestinian perspective. Shaheen describes as yet more disturbing the “inoculation” attempted in Rules of Engagement (2000), which begins by making it
appear as if Col. Childers was at fault for ordering his men to fire on a
crowd of Yemeni citizens. Yet, later in the film the same crowd is portrayedas actually having fired first, even a sweet one-legged girl shown earlier.
Shaheen does not give an entirely negative account of Hollywood productions. He highlights Three Kings (1999)on which he happens to have consultedwhich presents a balanced portrayal of Iraqis during the first Gulf War.
Some are loyal to Saddam Hussein, but others are depicted as having families
and even as victims of State oppression. One scene memorably shows laughing
teenage girls: not wrapped from head to toe in black but as human beings. Reel
Bad Arabs makes a genuine attempt to answer the question: Why the stereotyping? One answer can clearly be found in U.S. foreign policy interests in the
Middle East. To further such ends, the Pentagon has collaborated in making
movies that portray Arabs as terrorists out to kill Americans and destroy “theWestern way of life.” One example is Black Hawk Down (2002), which Shaheen places on his “worst list”. Backed by the U.S. Department of Defence, itdistorts what actually happened in Somalia in 1993 and omits key facts. “Viewers are never told why so many Somalis are fighting against American soldiers;
nor does the film explain that one year earlier, in 1992, the Somalis were very
friendly to the Americans” (Shaheen, 2008: 100).
After 9/11, President Bush called a meeting (widely reported) between executives and high-level managers and producers from Hollywood and theWhite House to discuss how cinema can contribute to “combating terrorism”.
Jack Shaheen’s second book (2008) asked if Hollywood’s powerful post-9/11
images had smashed stereotypes or reinforced them and, if images had solidified viewers’ perceptions of the Arab as the evil “other”, what steps should betaken to resolve the problem. He underlined the essential point that:
Filmmaking is political. Movies continuously transmit selected representations of reality to world citizens from Baghdad to Boston. Dehumanizing
stereotypes emerging from the cinema, TV, and other media help support

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Nonkilling Media

government policies, enabling producers to more easily advance and solidify stereotypes (Shaheen, 2008: xviii).

Noting that at the time of publication there were in excess of 1,150
films that defiled Arabs, he analyzed some 100 post-9/11 films in which 22that otherwise had nothing to do with Arabs or the Middle East contain gratuitous slurs and demeaning scenes, 37 in which Arabs do dastardly things,
12 containing sheikhs caricatured as ugly, evil, or over-sexed, and six inwhich there were stereotypical portraits of Palestinians.
The survey did, however, commend 29 films that projected worthy Arabs and decent Arab Americans leading Shaheen to comment that,“thoughtful imagemakers are beginning to rollback slanderous portraits andcreate fuller, more complicated Arab characters and stories” (Shaheen,
2008: 87). Even so, television has not followed suit. More than 50 post-9/11
TV shows vilify Arab Americans and Muslim Americans, in particular West
Wing, Navy NCIS, Criminal Minds, The Unit, and 24. Clearly, much work remains to be done before the entertainment industries begin to constructbridges of understanding and trust, “illustrating that regardless of color,
creed, or culture, we [humans] are bound together” (Shaheen, 2008: 89).
The “reel bad Arabs” case articulated by Jack Shaheen serves as a criticalpoint of reference for the discussion of other areas of media content (eventhough they are becoming increasingly cross-platform and digitally incestuous). How far do today’s mass medianewspapers, television channels, radio stations, magazines, books, blogsalign themselves with the practical
implications of Habermas’s “communicative action” explicitly to recognize
and affirm the dignity and worth of other human beings? How far do they
explicitly or implicitly promote or condone “conditions conducive to lethality” (Paige, 2009: 77), those in which war, conflict, and violence are not
only found to be acceptable but are seen as necessary and inevitable? How
far do they negate or denigrate other peoples’ cultures, or beliefs? Here,
we are not talking about freedom of expression and opinion: the sine qua
non of critical reflection and debate, whose purpose is to tease out political,
social, and cultural conundrums in order to question, to understand, and totry to reach consensus about ways forward. What is at issue is communication conceived of as a revolutionary political practice leading to socialchange. As Richard Keeble has pointed out,
Change will, in fact, only come if based on a radical political analysis of themedia and society. This will incorporate an awareness of the possibilities

A Normative Framework

47

of journalistic activities both within and outside the corporate media andas part of a broader political project to democratise the media and society
in general. The strategy will also ultimately involve a radical broadening of
the definition of journalism to include intellectuals, campaigners and citizensall of them articulating their ideas within the dominant and alternative public spheres (Keeble, 2009).

The questions articulated above apply equally to “community media”(those genuinely owned and operated by a local community and having the interests of that community at heart) as well as to alternative and citizens’ media, Indymedia, and Web 2 networks. Today’s world is an exceedingly complex hierarchy of interrelated information and communication networks thatexist to a greater or lesser extent in every country. The blogger in Afghanistan is not so far distant from his or her counterpart in Estonia or Chile. Access to technology may be an obstacle, but once in place, access to sources ofglobal information and opinion tends to be a given. The question is how suchaccess can be used to agitate for the reformulation and reconstruction of political, economic, social, and cultural frameworks that are more equitable andmore just, and which, in the broadest definition, are “nonkilling”. Participatory development experts, at least, are forcibly clear that:
Citizens’ media are part of a process of redefining dominant norms andpower relations that marginalise and exclude people. Through having thecapacities, the ownership, and the control to manage their own media,
people can reshape and create the social, cultural, and political spaces inwhich their voices find expression. This gives meaning and legitimacy todiverse expressions of citizenship, adding depth and value to formal
mechanisms of voice and representation (Pettit, et al., 2009: 451).

What would nonkilling media look likeand how might they come about?
A necessary condition of nonkilling media is discernment, a willingness
to challenge principalities and powers, to serve truth, and to denounce
falsehood. In communication terms, discernment includes stimulating critical awareness of the multiple realities constructed in the mass media (and,today, in the virtual worlds of social communications and Web 2.0 technologies) in order to enable people to distinguish reliable information frompropaganda, to take into account different positions, and to empathize inthe course of reaching decisions. It often means investigating, exposing, andhelping rebuild trust as vital steps towards conflict resolution and the long

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Nonkilling Media

road to reconciliation. The concept of “just journalism” discussed above is agood example of communication as discernment. Just journalism illuminates
structural and cultural inequities as they impact the lives of ordinary people.
It equips people to distinguish between self-interested positions and morepositive aims and it places the emphasis on conflict prevention or thepeaceful resolution of conflict.
A second necessary condition of nonkilling media is an ethical imperative
guaranteeing people enough information and knowledge to make criticaldecisions and providing a framework for acts of indignation that affirm human dignity, sympathize with and take the part of people who are suffering.
Michael Traber puts the matter succinctly:
All affirmation of human dignity takes place through various modes ofcommunication: through intrapersonal reflections and interpersonal andsocial communications. As the mass media are an important source of
meanings for many people, they contribute to our understandings of human dignity and respect for life. When their images and messages rob
people of their dignity, we do not remain unaffected. The way they describe and depict acts of violencefrom street crime to warsare of
special relevance. They disclose what life is worth and how human dignity
is valued or devalued (Traber, 1997: 341).

The Declaration Towards a Global Ethic endorsed by the Parliament of theWorld’s Religions (1993) identifies such an ethical imperative as “a fundamental
consensus on binding values, irrevocable standards, and personal attitudes.”Leonard Swidler (1994) has pointed out that the Global Ethic was specifically
aimed at uniting religious and nonreligious positions and can, therefore, beseen as a humanist endeavour. Swidler went on to propose combining theprinciples of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights with those of the
Global Ethic to create a Universal Declaration of a Global Ethic based on thefollowing assumptions: that every human possesses an inalienable andinviolable dignity; that no person or social institution exists outside the scope of
moral order; that humans as beings endowed with reason and conscienceshould act rationally; and that humans are an inextricable part of the universe
and as such should act in harmony with nature.
Based on Swidler’s claim that the principles of universality, of humanity,and of the autonomy of the human will are found and empiricallyformulated in all cultures, religious and secular ethical traditions as practicalprecepts of the ethic of reciprocity, it is possible to formulate at least two
characteristics of nonkilling media:

A Normative Framework49

1. Nonkilling media should treat all human beings as ends, never as means,respecting their intrinsic worth and dignity. Such respect should be
extended to individuals, communities, nations, the world, and the cosmos.
2. Nonkilling media should observe the right of all humans to hold their own
opinions and beliefs, fostering rational dialogue as the only method ofreaching a consensus in which people can live side by side in peace.
As such the content of nonkilling media will be impartial, accurate, honest,
gender aware, and contextual.
However, content is by no means the whole problem. There are key
issues of corporate ownership and control of the media; government
interference and/or censorship; and, crucially, deeply embedded political,
social, and cultural ideologies that dictate prejudice, hatred, and injustice.
Corporate media giants are silencing diverse voices, abandoning quality
journalism, and eliminating local content. In the USA, Free Press(<http://www.freepress.net>)a national, nonpartisan, nonprofit organization
working to reform the mediahas identified General Electric, Walt Disney,
NewsCorp, TimeWarner, Viacom, and CBS as the “Big Six” with revenues in2009 in excess of US$ 276 billion from television, film, publishing and online
holdings (<http://www.freepress.net/ownership/chart/main>). Government
interference or censorship in relation to freedom of the press and editorial
independence has been a contentious issue since the Vietnam War, notably
during the Falklands War (1982), the U.S.-led invasion of Grenada (1983), theFirst Gulf War (1990-91), the second Gulf War (2003- ), and the war in
Afghanistan (2001- ). Last but certainly not least, political, social, and cultural
ideological differences have led to tension and conflict throughout the world.
Independent media, alternative media, and social media offer better
possibilities for communicative action, deep conversation, and generative
dialogue. They also challenge the hegemony of traditional mass media
enterprises by increasingly providing organized material that is (to a certain as
yet ill-defined extent) credible and reliable. Since corporate media are unlikely
willingly to diminish their profitability any time soon, and since there will always
be a demand for independent public service media, we might imagine a futurescenario in which there will be three tiers of media activity that are interwoven
and which interact. There will be some kind of integrated public service media
at the national level, offering credible in-depth news, information and opinion
mainly focused on political, economic, and cultural issues. There will be both
independent and commercial media at the community level, offering less

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Nonkilling Media

structured news, information, and opinion mainly focused on local interests.
There will be social media at the ultra local level, offering highly partisan news,
information, and opinion mainly focused on small groups of followers. People
will dip in and out of all three tiers to varying degrees.
Is it a plausible notion that these three tiers of media activity will take up
the principles of nonkilling? The obvious answer is “no”, and yet there isroom for optimism. There is increasing awareness and activism around global
poverty, ecological and environmental issues, climate change and global
warming, gender equality and justice, forced migration, food and water
shortages, violence, conflict, and security. These are signs of a growing
awareness (acceptance?) of collective responsibility for what are, inevitably,
global problemsin short, all the imperatives that challenge the creation of anonkilling society. More than twenty years ago, Hans Küng wrote:
For the next millennium a way must be found to a society in which men
and women possess equal rights and live in solidarity with one another... away must be found to a reconciled multiplicity of cultures, traditions andpeoples... to a renewed community of men and women... to a society inwhich peacemaking and the peaceful resolution of conflicts is supported...
to a community of human beings with all creatures in which their rights
and integrity are also respected (Küng, 1990: 67-9).

This is the role of nonkilling media. A genuinely democratic world will only
accept a communications infrastructure that respects basic notions of justice,equality, and human dignity. Within that framework, nonkilling media would
be duty-bound to maintain high standards of probity, accountability, andimpartiality, as well as to mediate political, economic, social, and cultural
conflicts in constructive and conciliatory ways. Access to public service media
would be guaranteed to civil society groups and people’s movements,
providing openings for ordinary people to dialogue about issues of global,
national and local interest. Such a system would be deliberately aimed at
actively encouraging a politics of dissent in the interests of greater democracy.
There are many tyrannical institutions and individuals that would object tosuch a realignmentbeing content to profit from misery. Nonkilling media
would elucidate that reality. Nonkilling media would highlight what Karl
Jaspers identified as a form of metaphysical guilt, “the lack of absolutesolidarity with the human being as suchan indelible claim beyond
meaningful duty” (Jaspers, 1947: 71). Metaphysical guilt resonates throughout
today’s globalized world, yet all is not lost:A Normative Framework

51

Something can be done if we all accept and practice the humanity, the indivisibility in plurality, of one another. Then we might care for human being as such; we might demonstrate a certain solidarity with those whom
we feel to be distant otherwise and accord to each person a due measureof the dignity they deserve. That would involve solidarity with the aspiration and need of others to secure the resources of dignity. It would also
involve the condemnation of any institutional policies or economic practices which deny access to, or the provision of, the security of those resources of dignity or which allow a surfeit to be allocated to specificgroups at the expense of others (Tester, 1997: 151).

Humanity, indivisibility in plurality, solidarity, and empathy: these are
exemplary watchwords and normative principles for nonkilling media.
References
Boltanski, L. (1999). Distant Suffering: Morality, Media and Politics. Cambridge University Press.
Christians, C. G. and Traber, M., Eds. (1997). Communication Ethics and Universal
Values. Thousand Oaks: Sage Publications.
Cowan, D. A. and Adams, K. (2002). “Talking Circles as a Metaphor and Pedagogy for
Learning.” Paper presented at the Association of Leadership Educators’ Conference,
Lexington.
Available
onlineat:<http://www.leadershipeducators.org/Archives/2002/cowan_and_adams_talking_circle.pdf>.
Declaration Toward A Global Ethic (1993). Section I. Available online at:<http://www.weltethos.org/dat-english/03-declaration.htm>.
Evans Pim, J., Ed. (2009). Toward a Nonkilling Paradigm. Honolulu: Center for Global
Nonkilling. Available online at: <http://www.nonkilling.org>.
Habermas, J. (1984). The Theory of Communicative Action. Vol. I: Reason and the Rationalization of Society. London: Heinemann.
Habermas, J. (1987). The Theory of Communicative Action, Vol. II: Lifeworld and System: A Critique of Functionalist Reason. Cambridge: Polity Press.
Hackett, R. A. (2007). “Media terror?” Media Development, 3. Available online at:<http://www.waccglobal.org/en/20073-media-and-terror/469-Media-terror.html>.
Hackett, R. A. and Schroeder, B. (2009). “Does Anybody Practice Peace Journalism?
A Cross-National Comparison of Press Coverage of the Afghanistan and IsraeliHezbollah Wars,” in Ross, S. D. and Tehranian, M., Eds., Peace Journalism inTimes of War. New Brunswick: Transaction Publishers.
Jaspers, K. (1947). The Question of German Guilt. New York: Dial Press.
Kahane, A. (2004). Solving Tough Problems: An Open Way of Talking, Listening, andCreating New Realities. San Francisco: Berrett-Koehler Publishers.

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Keeble, R. (2009). “The Basics of Journalism: Concepts of Ethics, Responsibility andQuality in media and journalism”. Paper given at the Catholic University Eichstaett-Ingolstadt School of Journalism, September 18-20. Available online at:<http://www.ku-eichstaett.de/fileadmin/1303/Downloads/Keeble_Paper.pdf>.
Kuhn, Th. (1962). The Scientific Structure of Scientific Revolutions. Chicago: Universityof Chicago Press.
Küng, Hans (1990). Global Responsibility: In Search of a New World Ethic. London:
SCM Press.
MacBride, S. (1980). Many Voices, One World. Communication and Society Today andTomorrow. Paris: UNESCO; London: Kogan Page.
Paige, G. D. (2009 [2002]). Nonkilling Global Political Science. Honolulu: Center for
Global Nonkilling. Available online at: <http://www.nonkilling.org>.
Peleg, S. (2007). “In defense of peace journalism: A rejoinder,” Conflict & communication online, 6(2). Available online at: <http://www.cco.regeneronline.de/2007_2/pdf/peleg.pdf >.
Pettit, J.; Salazar, J. F. and Gumucio Dragón, A. (2009). “Citizens’ media and communication,” Development in Practice, 19(4-5).
Shaheen, J. G. (2001). Reel Bad Arabs. Northampton: Olive Branch Press.
Shaheen, J.G. (2007). “Hollywood’s reel Arab women,” Media Development, 2: 27-29.
Shaheen, J. G. (2008). Guilty: Hollywood’s Verdict on Arabs after 9/11. Northampton:
Olive Branch Press.
Sivaraksa, S., (2001). “Culture and reconciliation,” Media Development, 4: 38-41.
Tester, K. (1997). Moral Culture. London: Sage Publications.
Swidler, L. S. (1994). “Toward a Universal Declaration of a Global Ethic,” Dialogue andHumanism, The Universalist Journal, 4(4): 51-64. Available online at:<http://www.jsri.ro/old/html%20version/index/no_7/leonardswidler-articol.htm>.
Traber, M. (1997). “An Ethics of Communication Worthy of Human Beings,” In
Christians, C. and Traber, M., Eds., Communication Ethics and Universal Values.
Thousand Oaks: Sage.

Chapter Two

The Media’s Untapped Potential
Contributing to the Reduction of Conflict-Related Deaths
Virgil Hawkins
Osaka University

Introduction: conflict, death and the media
Armed conflict since the end of the Cold War may well have resulted inas many as 12 million deaths (Hawkins, 2008: 7-25). At any given point intime there are 20 or 30 conflicts going on at varying degrees of intensity
throughout the world. Obviously, stopping this killing would be achieved bybringing each and every one of these conflicts to a permanent end. Policymakers and mediators have a variety of tools at their disposal if they arewilling to engage themselves in helping to bring conflicts to a halt. But there
are a number of other more immediately achievable measures that have thepotential to significantly reduce the level of killing associated with conflicts
even if the conflict itself cannot be so easily stopped. Parties to conflict canbe pressured and/or shamed into being more restrained in their conduct ofconflict, and efforts can be devoted to controlling the activities of those
who facilitate and support conflict. Furthermore, the effective provision of
emergency aid can serve to reduce the nonviolent effects of violent conflict.
It is important to emphasize at this point that promoting nonkilling inconflict is not simply the act of stopping bombs, bullets and blades from violently claiming human life. For it is not only the acts of violence themselvesthat kill. In fact, the vast majority of deaths related to conflictin somecases more than 90 percentare not caused by violent means, but are
rather a result of conflict-related illness and starvation. We know that these
deaths can be attributed to conflict because of meticulous mortality surveys
that compare the incidence of such deaths before conflict with that during
or after the conflict (see, for example, IRC, 2008). Conflicts force civilians
from their homes and into hostile environments where there is inadequate
access to clean water, food, shelter, sanitation and health services. Where
civilians are able to remain in their homes, conflict may still destroy theirsources of income, wreak havoc on agricultural activity and on the provisionof health services. Each of these impacts can and does take human life. As

55

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Nonkilling Media

indirect as it may appear, this destruction of social function must also be
considered as part of the killing associated with conflict, and nonkilling
strategies must take this into consideration.
What role do the media play in stopping killing associated with conflict?
Considering how little coverage media corporations devote to the world’s
conflicts (and the world beyond the boundaries of the “home” country ingeneral), perhaps the more appropriate question is, what role could the
media potentially play in stopping killing associated with conflict? It should
be noted that the role of media corporations based in areas of conflict issomewhat different from that of those based outside. This chapter focuseson the latter media corporationsthe “distant” observers.
Coverage of foreign affairs by the media in general has fallen considerably since the end of the Cold War and has not recovered. A study of the
proportion of front page articles of 16 US newspapers, for example, foundthat whereas foreign affairs stories made up 27 percent of the total numberof front page articles in 1977 and 1987, in 2004 they made up just 14 percent (Journalism.org, 2005). It must also be noted that much of the news
that is “foreign” is in fact closely centred on events or issues directly involving governments, organizations or individuals from the “home” country.
These trends also apply to foreign conflicts. A study found that for the year
2009, coverage of just four conflictsAfghanistan, Israel-Palestine, Iraq andPakistanaccounted for 97 of the coverage of conflicts throughout theworld by key US television channels (Hawkins, 2011). Needless to say,these were conflicts in which the US was either directly involved as a belligerent, or for which the US government had strong political interest. Television coverage of the remainder of the world's conflicts was negligible.
The media may well have the power to influence belligerents and policymakers in a way that reduces the killing that ensues from armed conflict, but
by choosing not to cover most of the world and its many conflicts most of thetime, it largely removes itself from the equation. In doing so, it also takes away
much of the potential power of civil society and the general public as well, who
tend to rely heavily on the media for information on, and cues about the importance of, conflicts in the world. This means that belligerents (in terms of
how far they will continue to fight) and foreign policymakers (in terms of how
much effort they are willing to expend to halt or reduce conflict and its effects)
are left largely to their own devices.
Much has been made of the rise of the internet and its effects on the news.
For some it even seems that mobile phone cameras, internet news and social
networking sites are making the traditional news irrelevant. This is certainly

The Media’s Untapped Potential

57

not the case. The revolutionary changes that the internet has brought notwithstanding, the traditional media maintain a solid role in credible newsgathering,and performs the vital role of sifting through, filtering and prioritising potential“news”, providing cues informing the audience of their “importance”. It also
provides the vital background and context that connects the dots and attaches
meaning to individual events/phenomenon, in a way that no atrocity video or
series of Tweets can. The traditional media remain (and will continue to remain) a powerful force in the setting of the global media agenda.
In more ways than one, there is a far greater potential for influence on
conflict by the mediatraditional and newthan is currently being exerted. This chapter explores the ways in which the media can, and at times
do, contribute to the reduction of killing associated with armed conflict.
Belligerents, policymakers and the media
It is clear that the media matter to belligerents. Those involved in conflictare aware of how damaging critical media coverage can be to their cause, andhow beneficial that which is supportive can be. They are also aware of thebenefits of the absence of coverage in the course of the conflict. Examples ofsuch effects were seen in Iraq. Having invaded and occupied Iraq, US forces
attempted in April 2004 to capture the city of Fallujah, which had become afocal point of resistance to the occupation. Coverage of the assault by Al
Jazeera, which focused on the humanitarian tragedy and included graphic
footage of civilians killed, proved very damaging to the US forces, and the assault was called off. US forces returned to Fallujah again in November thesame year. In the interim, Al Jazeera had been expelled from Iraq, and theonly journalists allowed to cover the second assault (perhaps appropriately
named “Phantom Fury”) were embedded and thus effectively under the control of the US military. Negative publicity did not hinder the operation thistime and the city fell. In general, the US military has proved quite adept at influencing the media during conflict. It allows generous access to informationand footage of the military's choosing through hi-tech media centres and theembedding of journalists, while discouraging in the strongest terms independent entry by journalists into the conflict zone. Based on circumstantial evidence from numerous incidents, Phillip Knightley (2003: 536-41) suggests thatindependent journalists may now be considered as enemy targets.
Some belligerents go further in their attempt to avoid disadvantageous
media coverage, choosing to keep the media out of the conflict zone altogether. In its conflict in the Darfur region, for example, the Sudanese Gov-

58

Nonkilling Mediaernment prevented journalists from entering the region. Those that did enter,did so together with rebels across the border with Chad. Similarly, in its final
assault on rebel forces in 2009, the Sri Lankan Government also imposed a
media blackout on the conflict zone, which was relatively effective in preventing concentrated criticism of the humanitarian consequences of the offensive(Mortimer, 2010). In 2011, as anti-government demonstrations began to be
met with violent crackdowns by the security forces in Syria, the Government
ensured that journalists were not able to enter the country.
We also see the perceived importance of media coverage to belligerents inthe effort and money that goes into media relations. Many governments paylarge sums of money to renowned public relations firms in a bid to improvetheir perception by the outside world. While much of this effort and money isfocused at winning the favour of powerful foreign policymakers through direct
lobbying (see, for example, Kelley, 2011), a considerable amount is also directed at shaping media perception. The Government of Kuwait, for example,
hired a public relations firm (Hill and Knowlton) to help make the case for military intervention after it had been invaded by Iraq in 1990. Together, they fabricated the (ultimately effective) story of Iraqi soldiers throwing babies out of
incubators at hospitals (Knightley, 2003: 486-8). By the time it was found to bea lie, the desired effect had already been achieved. At times, policymakers go
to great lengths to influence or respond to the media in the interests of image
management. While not in a conflict situation, the President of Rwanda took
the trouble (apparently personally) to respond to critical statements over thehuman rights record of the Rwandan Government by a UK-based journalist on
Twitter, sparking a heated exchange between the two, with Rwanda's foreign
minister also taking part in the discussion (BBC News, 2011).
Awareness of the importance of positive media coverage is by no means thesole domain of government parties to conflict. Rebel groups also tend to recognise the power of the media in garnering support for their cause and work to
broadcast their point of view, counter the views of their opponents, and generally shape a favourable image of themselves and their cause in the media. Rebels
in Darfur, for example, maintained a “slick PR machine that operated from oneof the Land Cruisers,” from which they maintained a website and posted videos
to YouTube (Crilly, 2010: 87. See also Sengupta, 2004). Rebel groups also work
to attract the attention and sympathy of the media in collaboration with powerful foreign nongovernmental organizations (Bob, 2005).
But as many of these examples show, the fact that the media matter tobelligerents does not necessarily mean that the media are able to pressure
or force belligerents to act (or refrain from acting) in a certain way. The

The Media’s Untapped Potential

59

same can be said of policymakers that are not directly involved in a particular conflict, but are seen as having the capacity to respond to it. The media
are but one of many forces that exert pressure on belligerents and otherpolicymakers, and these actors have a number of options at their disposal
when dealing with the force that is the media. While the media may serve
as a source of pressure for belligerents, belligerents tend to aim (often successfully) for the opposite effect, with the media becoming (to a degree) atool for belligerents to further their causes. Free press or not, one of therealities of journalistic practice is that the media rely heavily on policymakers as sources, and the power of entrenched nationalism give policymakers
enormous influence over media corporations that cater to domestic audiences. Furthermore, a leader (government or rebel) that is charismatic orotherwise appealing to the media can at times win over journalists, which
can lead to their cause being portrayed in a positive light (Al Jazeera, 2011).
Where the media cannot be won over, where negatively framed coverage
threatens support for belligerents or policymakers, media pressure is somethingthat belligerents and other policymakers may simply choose to deal with or live
with, without bowing to pressure to act (or not act). This may mean responding with rhetoric, defending actions (or the lack thereof), diverting attention
from the issue by providing new information to journalists on a different issue,or by acting in a way that gives the appearance that 'something' is being done
without making a substantive change in course. At times, when media attention
is deemed altogether unacceptable, the choice may simple be made to prevent
access, shutting out the media. After all, on television, news that is not accompanied by images simply is not considered, and does not become, news.
But the potential of the media to exert influence on armed conflict andthe resulting humanitarian suffering goes far beyond the question of the direction and effectiveness of the influence between the media and belligerents, and as the discussion below finds, it is clear that the full potential ofthe media in this regard is not being utilized.
Potential avenues for influence
There are two key areas in which media coverage can have an impact inreducing conflict-related killing: stopping or limiting acts of violence, and reducing the humanitarian effects of conflict. More specifically, the media has
the potential to reduce killing by encouraging policymakers to take action in
response to conflict, encouraging increases in humanitarian aid, encouraging
restraint on the part of the belligerents in their waging of the conflict, and by

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limiting the actions of those who facilitate conflict (those involved in the arms
trade and the sourcing of funds). In a more general and long-term sense, themedia also have the power to contribute to better policymaking in responding to conflict, by providing detailed information and context to the public andpolicymakers, and encouraging discussion and debate. One related area inwhich the media coverage is less successful (and may in fact be counterproductive) is peace negotiations (Wolfsfeld, 2004). The media tend to instinctively seek out action and controversy, neither of which are generally welcome around peace negotiations. Nor are peace negotiations receptive tomedia pressures to produce results in a short time span. Furthermore, peace
negotiations require privacy, most importantly to allow parties to conflict theability to make compromises without appearing weak to their constituencies.
This considered, media pressure may not be helpful in this field.
The following section examines each of the areas in which the media areable to have an impact on the levels of conflict-related deaths. It is by nomeans an exhaustive list, but it does highlight the key areas. It explores thepotential for influence, referring to examples of actual influence in the past
while also noting pitfalls and weaknesses in the media’s ability to influence.
Encouraging action by policymakers
A considerable amount of research has been conducted on the impact ofmedia coverage on policymaker response to distant conflicts. Much of thiscan be traced to the early 1990s, when a notion came to prominence suggesting that concentrated and emotive real-time media coverage of certain
conflicts and the associated humanitarian suffering was largely responsible forpolicymakers’ decisions to respond. Research on this so-called “CNN effect”
has focused largely on the power of the media to provoke a response that involves military intervention and much of it has found that initial assumptions
on media power in this regard have been considerably overestimated (Gilboa,
2005). Conversely, research has also demonstrated a considerable amount ofinfluence in the opposite directionthe media agenda being influenced bypowerful policymakers (Bennett, 1990, Entman, 2004).
The role of the media in influencing policy decisions is, of course, farmore complex and nuanced than those initial assumptions (Robinson,2011). Findings that the media were not solely responsible for intervention
decisions does not negate the fact that media coverage does have an impact
on policy decisions. Piers Robinson (2002) demonstrated that during theBosnian conflict, there were examples of identifiable media influence on in-

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61

tervention decisions (intervention using air power rather than troops on the
ground) in specific instances in which there was policy uncertainty. Babak
Bahador (2007) showed how the coverage of atrocities in Kosovo gave certain US policymakers who supported military intervention a window of opportunity to push their agenda through.
Perhaps more importantly, it must be noted that military intervention isan exceptionally rare form of response. Policymakers have a wide range ofother options to choose from when responding to conflict, all of which arecheaper and less risky than military intervention. This includes diplomaticpressure (bilaterally, multilaterally, and/or through the UN Security Council), mediation, political and/or economic sanctions and prosecution (seeGeldenhuys, 2004: 43-7). Unless a country’s national interests (or their government’s political interests) are threatened by a foreign conflict, or opportunities for considerable gains in terms of national/political interest are identified, risk-averse governments with tight budgets are most likely to opt fora minimalist approach in responding to foreign conflictdoing as little as
they can. But importantly, response options that cost less and are less risky
are more susceptible to media pressure than more extreme forms of intervention – namely military intervention (Robinson, 2002: 124-5).
Accompanied by the right forms of leverage, diplomatic pressure has
the potential to be quite effective in reducing conflict and the associatedkilling. In the DRC, for example, the escalation of hostilities by rebel leader
Laurent Nkunda in late 2008 and early 2009 was eventually brought to an
end when his Rwandan patrons, seeing Nkunda as liability, had him arrested. His group, the National Congress for the Defence of the People(CNDP) was subsequently integrated (officially at least) into the Congolese
national forces. This turn of events was attributed in large part to the pressure Western governments applied to Rwanda (Philp, 2009). The threat
was not military intervention, but rather the withholding of budget supportand military aid. Interestingly, many Western governments had been relatively sympathetic towards Nkunda and his Rwanda backers, but media
coverage of the rebellion grew considerably during this period, and, particularly as massacres came to light, coverage became increasingly critical.
The media also have a role to play in encouraging action through what is
known as the ‘boomerang effect’ (see Tarrow, 2005: 145-9). This effect refers
to cases in which local groups working to address grievances that are unable tobring sufficient pressure to bear domestically, enlist the support of more powerful actors outside the area of contention, including state and nonstate actors.
These foreign actors are able to generate and redirect pressure back to the62

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state in question, resulting in far greater leverage. The role of the media in thismodel is obvious. Generating pressure in an outside country means building
awareness of an issue that can be converted into demands (and support) for action. This requires media coverage. NGOs working to generate pressure focus
their efforts both on advocacy aimed specifically at policymakers and on efforts
directed through the media to attract the attention and interest of the public.
Darfur is also an example of policymaker response coinciding with media
coverage. Western powers chose not to intervene militarily in this case, but
their diplomatic efforts and financial contributions were instrumental in achieving the deployment of a hybrid UN/African Union force in Darfur. Other responses included numerous diplomatic expressions of condemnation, the imposition of sanctions, and an arrest warrant by the International Criminal Court for
the Sudanese head of state. Media coverage of the conflict was relatively high,particularly between 2004 and 2006, and tended to aim to evoke an emotive
response and thereby serve as pressure on policymakers to act. The sequenceof media coverage and policy action suggests that in general, as in Somalia in theearly 1990s, policy preceded media coverage, but it is also clear that both fed
off the other, with media coverage contributing to further policy responses.
While many would argue that the response has been a case of “too little toolate”, and that it has failed to bring the conflict to a halt, it can also be argued
that no other conflict in Africa since the 1990s has been able to attract such levels of sustained attention from Western policymakers or from the media. It canalso be argued that, without the media pressure and policymaker action that
there was, far greater levels of death would have been observed.
The media is generally not the determining factor that forces the formation or changing of policy in response to conflict, but it does serve as one of
the factors that influence policy (see also Miller, 2007). It is less a matter ofwhether or not the media provoked a response from policymakers, andmore a matter of recognizing that the relationship is interactive and dynamic at several levels.
Encouraging increases in humanitarian aid
Considering that illness and starvation are responsible for the vast majority
of conflict-related deaths, the provision of humanitarian aid is an area of criticalimportance in preventing deaths associated with conflict. There is a number ofways in which the media have the potential to influence this provision.
Governments provide the bulk of humanitarian aid, so this is an appropriate starting point. In a number of comprehensive studies covering gov-

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ernment assistance in response to disasters throughout the world (not only
those associated with conflict), it has been found that during the Cold War,media coverage had a consistent and substantial influence on the levels of
disaster assistance (Van Belle et al., 2004). It has since been found that thisconsistency failed to apply in the decade following the end of the Cold Warthere were select situations in which the media continued to have a major impact on levels of humanitarian aid, but the more modest yet consistent influence across the full spectrum of disaster response seemed to disappear (Van Belle, 2009). This decline in media influence was attributed tochanges in the global systemwith the end of the Cold War, the relatively
stable set of priorities in the making of foreign policy that had ensured the
media its influence no longer applied. This change also needs to be considered in the context of the decline in the quantity of coverage of foreign affairs in general that accompanied the end of the Cold War, and the fact thatthe majority of conflicts receive negligible coverage in the media.
It is also clear that, on the whole, humanitarian aid does prevent nonviolent deaths associated with conflict. The levels of humanitarian aid per person per year for the DRC in 2004, for example, stood at 3 USD, while for
Darfur, the figure was 89 USD (Nolen, 2004). In Kosovo, in the space of justthree months in 1999, the UN spent more than 110 USD per person (Fisher
1999). These discrepancies are reflected in the levels of death caused by illness and disease in these conflicts. Mortality surveys have found that nonviolent deaths caused more than 90 percent of the conflict-related deaths in the
DRC, with the figure dropping to 69 percent in Darfur. For Kosovo, nonviolent deaths were virtually negligible (Geneva Declaration, 2008: 40). Of
course this is not simply a matter of differences in the levels of humanitarianaid. While Kosovo did receive far more humanitarian aid than did the others,
the difference in the proportion of nonviolent deaths between the conflict inKosovo and its African counterparts can also be explained by the fact that thevictims of conflict in Kosovo were economically and environmentally in a better position to respond to the effects of conflict without their situation becoming life-threatening. The difference in mortality levels between Darfur
and the DRC is less-easily explained in this sense. This difference can perhaps be attributed in large part to higher levels of humanitarian aid reaching
Darfur than that reaching the DRC. In any case, the fact that millions ofpeople have died from illness and starvation associated with conflict in the
DRC is in itself a clear sign of a critical lack of humanitarian aid.
The links between media coverage and humanitarian aid are not limited
to the work of governments and international organizations. There is a con-

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Nonkilling Mediasiderable amount of evidence of the impact of media coverage on donations
to NGOs and other aid agencies (Brown and Minty, 2006, Moeller, 2006).
NGOs are keenly aware of the power of the media in this regard, including
the dangers of unfavourable coverage and its impact on the flow of donations, and the importance of branding, in light of increasingly tough competition among NGOs and aid agencies for donations (Cottle and Nolan, 2007).
NGOs employ media/communications officers who work to raise the profilein the media of certain humanitarian emergencies, and encourage journalists
to visit and report on their implementation of humanitarian relief in the field,
which will then result in more donations to support their activities in thoseplaces. NGOs are also well aware of the difficulties in raising money for
emergencies in which there is little media interest. A media officer for Oxfam,
for example, spoke of the need to be particularly creative in crafting messages
that the media will be receptive to, in the case of complex conflicts to which
the media typically give scant attention, such as those in Somalia and the
DRC (telephone interview with the author, June 2011).
One problem with the media’s ability to generate humanitarian aid is thatwhile it can it can have a powerful and immediate effect on aid, the coverageand the effect tend to be highly selective and short-lived. The BBC's Nik Gowing (1994: 57-9), for example, used the case of the high-profile evacuation to
the UK (and treatment there) of a five-year-old girl wounded by shrapnel in
Bosnia in 1993 to demonstrate how selective and disproportionate media coverage can lead to a selective and disproportionate response. Observers werecritical of the way in which resources were being devoted to this one girl, whenmany others in similar situations were not being attended to. The girl’s name,Irma, became a cynical acronym for Instant Response to Media Attention. Sympathy for the girl as an individual did contribute, however, to a degree, to ashort-term rise in concern and donations for others suffering from the conflict.
Improvements in the selective and instant yet here-today-gone-tomorrow nature of the media’s coverage of conflict will undoubtedly contribute to similar
improvements in the allocation and effectiveness of humanitarian aid.
Encouraging restraint
Focusing the glare of the media spotlight on conflict situations has thepotential to encourage restraint on the part of belligerents in their waging
of conflict. Parties to conflict (governments in particular) are well aware of
the negative impact of media coverage that exposes and criticizes illegal andquestionable measures employed during conflict, including massacres, theThe Media’s Untapped Potential

65

bombing of civilian targets (whether intentionally or by mistake), tortureand other forms of human rights abuse. Such coverage is not only damaging
to the image and reputation of the party in question, but can also have aconsiderable impact on the levels of support (political, financial, and/or military) the party can garner. It can therefore be expected that belligerents
will work to avoid exposure to such coverage.
But the evidence of the actual effectiveness of such media power ismixed. On the positive side, there is a fair amount of anecdotal evidence ofthe presence of the media helping to prevent atrocities. The BBC’s Nik
Gowing points to incidents during the Bosnian conflict in which belligerents
engaged in atrocities halted these activities or reversed course when they
became aware that there were television cameras on the ground filming. In
one incident, a captured humanitarian convoy whose truck drivers were being murdered was allowed to go through, and in another, prisoners whose
execution seemed imminent were released following the broadcast of television footage of their plight (Gowing, 1994: 55, 59). Johannes Botes (1996)
also points to instances during the Bosnian conflict, in which it was reported
that the presence of journalist helped prevent (or at least postpone) atrocities. For some, the conflict in Darfur is considered one example in which
the impact of media coverage far exceeded that during individual incidents
or atrocities. Jan Egeland, former UN Under-Secretary-General for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs and United Nations Emergency Relief
Coordinator, asserted that the pressure of media coverage was “instrumental” in the Sudanese Government’s decision to open up to humanitarian aid
in the spring of 2004 (telephone interview with the author, May 2011).
Advances in information and communication technology also appear to
be making a difference in terms of the power of the media to encourage restraint. Deborah Amos, a journalist with the US National Public Radio,
points out that the levels of atrocities committed by Syrian security forces
during anti-government uprisings there in 2011 were far below those witnessed during brutal government crackdowns on uprisings in 1982, with thepresence of images from the ground serving as a major inhibiting factor on
the part of the security forces (BBC World Service 2011). It was not thepresence of journalists on the ground that made the difference in thiscasejournalists were almost entirely shut out.
This generally held belief that belligerents and oppressive regimes will be
deterred by the fact that they are being watched and recorded was the idea
behind the creation of the WITNESS, an NGO co-founded by musician Peter
Gabriel. WITNESS trains and supports local groups in using video to put a stop

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Nonkilling Mediato human rights abuse. There are no guarantees, however, that the availabilityof cameras on the ground, or even footage of atrocities successfully captured
and showed to the world, will lead to coverage by the mainstream media orconcentrated pressure on the parties responsible. A massacre of unarmed
women at an anti-government rally in Cote d’Ivoire in early 2011, for example,
attracted little international attention, despite the fact that footage was successfully captured on a mobile phone camera and the footage uploaded onto
the internet. It can be exceptionally difficult to attract and maintain attention
and indignation regarding atrocities in the absence of audience knowledge ofthe background and context, a role that previous coverage is supposed to havefulfilled. Furthermore, it is ironic that the more atrocities for which there isfootage, the less attention each is able to garner. There is a limit to the amountof audience attention and indignation that can be generated.
But there are other, less positive dimensions of the perceived power ofthe media as a deterrent to belligerents. Sometimes the presence of the media in a conflict situation can serve to inflame tensions, rather than encourage
restraint, with some parties taking advantage of the media’s interest in action
and violence to attract further attention to their cause. Tim Butcher, former
Middle East correspondent for the UK’s Daily Telegraph, points out that thearrival of a camera crew in Gaza can often serve as the spark that leads toPalestinian youth throwing stones at Israeli positions, and the appearance ofarmed Hamas gunmen on the scene (telephone interview with the author,
June 2011). Furthermore, coverage that is particularly sympathetic to one ofthe parties to the conflict may encourage or embolden that party to step up
acts of violence to bolster its position. In such cases, it is often the weaker
party that attacks the stronger, deliberately provoking an excessive counterreaction and taking advantage of the sympathy generated in a bid to attract
greater political, financial and even military support from the more powerfulmembers of the international community (Crawford and Kuperman, 2006).
It is also clear that in some instances, working to avoid the negative effects of critical media coverage means just thatrestraint is not observed
and atrocities are not curbed, it is just that greater efforts are made to prevent critical media coverage of those atrocities. This may mean shutting out
the media from areas where atrocities are being committed, as seen in Darfur, Sri Lanka and Syria. In other cases, it may mean that while the conflictremains in the media spotlight, media relations efforts are stepped up to
keep coverage from becoming more critical than the belligerents are able
to handle. Masako Yonekawa, formerly the UNHCR’s head of office inGoma, DRC, observed little impact of the media in restraining the actions

The Media’s Untapped Potential

67of CNDP rebel leader Laurent Nkunda. Atrocities continued in large part
because Nkunda was aware of where the media could and could not access(interview with the author, June 2011). Similarly, Tim Butcher saw Nkunda
as a “media performer”, whose confidence in his ability to control theWestern media may well have played a part in the overextension of hisforces, which ultimately led to his being reigned in by his patrons in the
Rwandan Government (telephone interview with the author, June 2011).
Limiting the facilitation of conflict
Conflicts cannot be fought without weapons, and, considering that mostparties to conflict do not produce their own weapons, these must be bought
and transported. In order to maintain and extend their participation in conflict, belligerents require sources of funding (both for weapons and for sustaining their organizations), which generally includes local resources that canbe sold on the international market, and/or financial support from abroad.
Media coverage has the potential to contribute to the reduction of conflict by
exposing (and thereby deterring) the facilitation of conflict through the trafficking of arms, trade in natural resources associated with conflict, the transportation of these commodities, and financial support for belligerents.
Arms production and trade is a difficult area for media pressure to be effectively applied. The vast majority of arms traded globally are done so legally andthe governments buying them are quick to claim that they have a legitimate
right to obtain arms to protect themselves. Illegal transfers often occur only after the arms reach their “final” destination. Furthermore, as Peter Danssaert, aresearcher focusing on the arms trade, points out, companies involved in thetransport of arms may handle both licit and illicit arms transfers, and the same
companies may also handle the transport of humanitarian aid (email interview
with the author, May 2011). Companies involved in the brokering or transporting of arms can change their names or shift their operations to another country
if under pressure. All of this makes it difficult to trace illegal transfers and to
generate media/public condemnation of the arms trade and those involved in it.
In the long term, it may be difficult for media pressure to contribute in a
major way to positive changes in the arms trade, but there are examples where
media pressuring has played a significant role in exposing and limiting arms
transfers. The media were instrumental in uncovering arms salesin violationof arms sanctions imposed by the UN Security Councilthat supported the return to power of the Sierra Leone Government-in-exile in 1998, as well as therole of Sandline International (a private military corporation) and the UK Gov-

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Nonkilling Mediaernment in the affair (Cornwell, 1998). In 2005, media pressure in Belgium,
based on concerns over the proliferation of arms in the central African region,
helped halt the transfer of ammunition manufacturing capability from the Walloon Government to Tanzania (interview with Peter Danssaert, May 2011).
Media attention also helped clean up Ostend Airport in Belgium, which was exposed as a transfer point for arms trafficking (Association for a Clean Ostend).
Although coming long after the actual incident, the media also helped expose the transfer of arms from Ukraine to southern Sudan in 2007 and 2008
in violation of the terms of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA). The
transfer had originally raised suspicions when a ship carrying 33 battle tanks,ostensibly from Ukraine to Kenya was captured by Somali pirates in 2008. US
State Department cables leaked by Wikileaks in 2010 revealed that the pirates
had in fact been telling the truththe tanks were destined for southern Sudan
and the US Government was aware of and had condoned the sale (Gettleman
and Gordon 2010). And it is not only UN Security Council resolutions andgovernment action that have the power to actually put a stop to arms deals.
Strong public opposition to a shipment of arms from China to Zimbabwe following controversial and violent elections in that country in 2008, including therefusal of dock workers to offload the weapons in the South African port of
Durban, put a stop to the deal. It can be said that the media’s focus on theelections and the arms shipment played a role in this development.
In terms of limiting the trade in natural resources associated with conflict, the media also has a role to play. Combinations of advocacy campaigns
by NGOs and media attention in several cases have helped bring about the
introduction of policies in this regard. Such pressure was largely responsible
for the establishment of the Kimberley Process Certification Scheme in2003, which requires governments to certify that shipments of rough diamonds are conflict-free. Legislation in the USA aimed at curbing the conflict-related trade in tantalum, tin, tungsten and gold originating in the DRC
is also largely the result of advocacy and media campaigns. The Dodd-Frank
Act, passed in 2010, requires the Securities and Exchange commission toorder US-based companies to report on whether or not their products that
contain such minerals are conflict-free.
And it is not only the policymakers that have been moved by such pressure. In many cases, the corporations involved have taken great lengths to ensure that they are seen as being cooperative in limiting the trade in conflictminerals (Campbell, 2004). The diamond industry is particularly susceptible topublic pressure because of the value of the image of the diamond itself, unlike
other minerals like tantalum that simply serve as one of many “invisible” parts

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69

in electronic circuit boards. But the tantalum industry has also proven sensitive to the damaging effects of negative publicity (Cuvelier and Raeymaekers,
2002). Cabot, a major US-based supplier of tantalum, for example, advertises
extensively with Google, such that online news articles about the DRC arefrequently accompanied by an advertisement entitled ‘Cabot’s position on
Coltan’, simply stating that ‘Cabot has not, and will not, mine tantalum in theDem. Rep. of Congo’. The Belgian-Swiss airline consortium Sabena/Swissair
was quick to put a stop to its shipments of Coltan to Europe in 2001 to avoid
negative publicity after it was named in a UN report (IRIN, 2001).
From the perspective of belligerents, while some may not be particularly
susceptible to pressure exposing their atrocities, most are certainly susceptible
to pressure that limits their access to arms and funding. The success in cutting
off support for increasingly unpopular rebel movements in Angola and Sri
Lanka, for example, played a major role in their eventual downfall. In the case ofAngola, the crackdown on “conflict diamonds” robbed the rebels of their prime
source of funding that could have helped sustain their military struggle. The
crackdown on international remittances in the wake of the September 11 terrorist in the USA weakened the military power of the rebel group in Sri Lanka,
which was designated by the US Government as a terrorist organization.
Contributing to better policymaking
The impact of the media on conflict and its humanitarian consequences
goes beyond the kinds of relatively clear and immediate cause-effect relationships between pressure and response outlined above. In a more general
sense, the media can also contribute to better policymaking in response toconflict. By providing the public and policymakers with a more substantial
flow of information about, and in-depth analysis of, conflicts in the world,
including detailed information on root causes and regional context (or“joined up reporting”) (Dottridge, 2007: 244), the media can also contribute to a broader and better informed discussion and debate about conflicts.
This will feed into the policy formation process and contribute to policymaking that is likely to be better suited to alleviating or bringing to an end
the conflict, or at least reducing the humanitarian impact.
Media coverage of most distant conflicts tends to be patchy at best, often
marked by occasional stories briefly mentioning a major event that has takenplace, but with little in the way of background, context or continuity that would
contribute to a comprehensive understanding of the problem. Even when aconflict does become the focus of concentrated coverage, this is often related

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Nonkilling Mediato the fact that it is framed in a simplistic innocent victim versus aggressor(“good” versus “evil”) format, making it easier for viewers/readers to become
emotionally attached and therefore to “stay tuned”. While the something-mustbe-done sentiment generated by such coverage (McLaughlin, 2002: 166-77) canlead to pressures on policymakers to take action in some form or another, to
do “something”, this “something” may not be the most appropriate or effective
form of action. It may even be counterproductive. Furthermore, emotive coverage tends to focus almost entirely on the humanitarian problems associatedwith conflict, with little appreciation for the political problems that perpetuate
it. Where response to distant conflict is designed more to satisfy domestic pressures that have been formed around an overly simplistic understanding of thatconflict, and less to actually contribute to the solution of the problem at hand,the effectiveness of the response is likely to be compromised.
At the other extreme, simplistic coverage using distance framing, or anothing-can-be-done type of coverage can serve to hinder an effective response to conflict. Conflicts that are framed as intractable “tribal bloodletting” that has simply been repeating itself since ancient times, encourage observers to wash their hands of the matter and pay no further attention. Suchmisleading portrayals ignore the political dimensions of the conflict and leave
no room for innocent victims worthy of our sympathy or indignation. Similarly, conflicts that are portrayed as being “chaotic” rather than “complex”
send a signal to viewers/readers that a solution does not exist and that the
only option available is to avoid involvement in any form. By its nature, groupviolence serves to entrench hatred and polarize groups which contributes tothe intractable nature of conflict. As such, responding to distant conflict with aview to achieving resolution or even an improvement in the situation is certainly an extremely difficult endeavour, one that does not often result in success. But there remains a wide range of options between committing to fullengagement and doing nothing, and even responses that are limited to addressing the humanitarian effects are clearly better than doing nothing.
In summary, simplistic coverage that encourages emotional involvement
and indignation on the part of the viewer/reader can lead to pressures for a
response, but not necessarily one that is best suited to the problem, while
simplistic coverage that sees the problem as one best left alone discourages
a response. But conflicts are always a highly complex form of social activity,
and are never as simple as a “good-versus-evil” or “tribal bloodletting”
storyline. More (and more in-depth) information and less reliance on emotional attachment may lead to more reasoned and effective responses toconflict. While it may be argued that it is difficult to generate policy re-The Media’s Untapped Potential

71

sponse in the absence of powerful emotional attachment and indignation,
many policy responses to conflict do take place in the absence of concentrated media coverage. It can also be argued that a modest yet appropriate
response to a conflict may be better than one that is powerful and explosive, yet potentially ineffective or counterproductive.
There certainly is a limit to the amount of information that can be provided by news media corporations. Newspaper and television news space islimited, as is the human capacity for paying attention, particularly when itcome to matters happening in distant places. To a degree, it is inevitablethat the media be selective in their coverage of the world. But the internet
gives media corporations far greater scope to provide readers with more
information and depth in reporting what is going on in the world. And thenotion that the media don’t cover foreign affairs issues because there is little
public interest in them comes across as a rather convenient excuse. The
public will clearly not take an interest in an issue if it has no information
about it to begin with. People seem to have a far greater capacity to absorb
information and to pay attention to (and take an interest in) world affairs
than sceptical media executives tend to give them credit for.
Conclusions
This chapter has identified a number of areas in which the media cancontribute to the reduction in conflict-related killingboth violent and nonviolent. It should be emphasised that these are potential ways in which themedia can exert influence. The actual influence that is brought to bear depends not only on the media coverage itself, but also in large part on the circumstances surrounding the conflict and those waging it. There are many factors that may reduce the power of the media, render it ineffective or evencounterproductive, and the influence that its does have may be very shortlived. And more coverage does not necessarily translate into more influenceor a positive outcome. By the same token, it is also clear that, given how little
coverage the media tend to devote to conflict throughout the world, andgiven the evidence from cases in which media coverage has helped make adifference, there remains a considerable amount of untapped potential for the
media to contribute to the reduction of conflict-related killing.
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Chapter ThreeCovering Killings
A Nonkilling Approach
Xu Xiaoge
University of Nottingham Ningbo China

Introduction
Killings occur almost everywhere in this world due to war, homicide, suicide, murder, or death penalty. According to a report released by the Work
Health Organization on progress in preventing violence, 1,798,047 people
were killed in 2009. The breakdown is as follows: 300,000 people were killedduring wars, accounting for 17% of the total, 500,000 were killed in homicide(28%), 800, 000 committed suicide (44%), 197,333 were murdered(11%), and 714 were killed as death penalty (.04%) (see Table 1).
Table 1. Killing Statistics Worldwide
Categories
War
Homicide
SuicideMurderDeath penalty
Total

Number
300,000
500,000
800,000
197,333714
1,798,047

Percentage
17%
28%
44%
11%
.04%
100%

Sources: World Health Organization and Amnesty International.

Killing, however, is neither inevitable nor imperative, regardless of its
cause. Although humans are capable of killing “biologically and by conditioning,” they are also capable of nonkilling by the same token (Paige, 2009: 9).
To kill or to nonkill can be cultivated or stimulated by many different factors. In either process, humans can be influenced by news coverage of killings in terms of their notions, perceptions, understandings of killing or
nonkilling on the one hand and their attitudes and responses towards killingor nonkilling on the other hand.
To stop killing is a global call, gaining strength and momentum aroundthe world. In that call, news media can play a vitally important role throughits coverage of killings. How should news media cover killings in light ofnonkilling principles and practices? To address this central question, it is es-

77

78

Nonkilling Media

sential to get an idea of what previous studies have found on news coverageof killings or related topics. And it is equally essential to map the current
situation regarding news coverage of killings. What is more vital is, based on
the findings of the current study, to make recommendations regarding whatpractitioners and professors of journalism should do in covering killings orteaching how killings should be covered from a nonkilling perspective.
Academic Studies on Coverage of Killings
Earlier studies are predominately on deaths, but not so much or directly
on killings. Although private deaths are largely absent from news media
coverage, the deaths of public figures or public deaths of private individuals
can be regularly reported in the news, either boldly headlined or significantly portrayed (Walter et al., 1995). In news stories on famine, killingsand victims, certain social groups, such as women, children or elderly men,tended to dominate news coverage (Gerbner, 1980; Moeller, 1999; Ho ijer,
2004). Besides, social status can also influence how death is perceived. For
instance, the death of a public figure will be more prominently portrayedthan that of a stranger, slave or child (Palgi and Abramovitch, 1984). And it
is more likely for news media to cover violent death than normal death.
Newspapers tended to place more emphasis on homicides, accidents anddisasters over deaths caused by diseases (Combs and Slovic, 1979).
Differences also exist in covering deaths or killings in foreign news. And
different coverage may be more culturally oriented in that news media tend
to provide “more gruesome photographs” but “less detailed written accounts” of a victim if culturally removed (Sontag, 2003; Walter et al., 1995).
Among other identified differences is the fact that “the more an audience
could identify with the victims, the more interest was shown in the story, theso-called “it could have happened to me” effect (Walter et al., 1995: 587).
Further differences also lie in news photos, where the dead during ‘‘one of‘our wars’’’ were also less likely to be depicted in photographs, whereas‘‘their dead’’ were more acceptable to be shown (Carruthers, 2000: 277).
Differences were also identified in that as there were ‘‘worthy victims’’(people abused in enemy states) and ‘‘unworthy victims’’ (those abused by
the media’s own country or its clients), “coverage of worthy victims wasmore generous, included gory details and quoted expressions of outrage
and demands for justice, while coverage of unworthy victims was more
low-key” (Herman and Chomsky, 1988: 39, cited in Hanusch, 2008: 343).
More directly related to studies of killings by news coverage, Eke’s study

Covering Killings

79(2008) found inadequate coverage of the killings in Darfur kept the public in
the dark, which helped “prolong the plight of Darfurians who have been
killed, raped, starved and displaced”. Lack of media coverage of killings resulted in “little public pressure on policy makers, or outcry from the international community to stop the atrocities” (Eke, 2008: 277).
Killings can be legitimated or de-legitimated in news coverage as foundin the study of how the New York Times and Chicago Tribune framed IsraeliPalestinian conflict. The two newspapers “legitimate(d) Israeli killings by
implicitly justifying Israeli violence and assigning more prominence to the Israeli perspective” while “the newspapers de-legitimated Palestinian violenceby implicitly condemning Palestinian killings” (Elmasry, 2009: 1).
As indicated by the brief review of previous studies on deaths, none ofprevious investigations has ever taken a nonkilling approach to examinenews coverage of deaths. Although killings were examined in relation todeaths, few devoted studies have been conducted to examine coverage ofkillings from the nonkilling approach.
Research Questions and Methods
To fill the void, it is imperative, first of all, to find out how killings werecovered by news media. The second pressing need is to find out if there wasany congruence between news coverage of killings and nonkilling principles.
-

RQ1 How are killings covered by news media?
RQ2 To what extent is news coverage of killings congruent with thefundamental principles of nonkilling?

To investigate how killings were covered by news media, eight leading
newspapers were selected from eight countries and regions. They are The
New York Times (US), The Globe and Mail (Canada), The Australian (Australia),
South China Morning Post (Hong Kong, China), The Jakarta Post (Indonesia),
The Times of India (India), Straits Times (Singapore), and China Daily (China).
News stories on killings were selected from the selected newspapers fromthe database Factiva. The key word of killing was used to generate relevant
stories. The period under study was the calendar year of 2010, consisting of
53 calendar weeks. For each week, one major article on killing was selectedin the presence of multiple stories on killings. Altogether, 339 news stories
were selected. The New York Times has 53 news stories, The Globe and Mail,
39, The Australian, 51, South China Morning Post, 51, The Jakarta Post, 28, The
Times of India, 53, Straits Times, 33, and China Daily, 31 (see Table 2).

80

Nonkilling MediaTable 2. News Stories on Killing in Seven Selected Newspapers
Newspaper
1. The New York Times
2. The Globe and Mail
3. The Australian
4. South China Morning Post
5. The Jakarta Post
6. The Times of India
7. Straits Times
8. China Daily
Total

Expected
53
53
53
53
53
53
53
53
424

Selected
53
39
51
51
28
53
33
31
339

Percentage
100%
73.6%
96.2%
96.2%
52.8%
100%
623%
58.5%
80%

Specifically, all news stories were coded into the following categories ofstory source: (a) newspaper own story, (b) from other domestic news media,(c) from foreign news media, and (d) others. And then they were grouped into
seven categories of story nature: (a) domestic killing news, (b) domestic killingnews with foreign involvement, (c) foreign killing news (killing in another country), (d) foreign killing news with domestic involvement, (e) international killingnews (killing in more than one foreign country), (f) international killing news
with domestic involvement, and (g) other. Thirdly, they were also coded todetermine the country or countries, where killing occurred. Fourthly, the frequency of using the term “killing” or its equivalent was used in the headline,
the lead and the rest of the story (such as killing, kill, murder, slay, slaughter,massacre, assassinate, homicide, genocide, or its equivalent).
Crucial to the investigation are two coding items. They are “to legitimate killing” and “to de-legitimate killing”. For the legitimacy of killing, six
categories were used to code news stories: (a) war as a way of justificationof killing, (b) self-defense as a way of justification of killing, (c) accident as away of justification of killing, (d) explicit rationale as a way of justification ofkilling, (e) other, and (f) cannot determine. For the de-legitimacy of killing,
another seven categories were used: (a) aggression, (b) criminality, (c) cruelty, (d) humanization (details on the killed indirectly condemn killing), (e)public health issue, (f) other, and (g) cannot determine.
To investigate the possible congruency with the nonkilling approach, anumber of coding items were designed to reflect the following action principles of nonkilling (Paige, 2009: 77):
Draw strength from life-respecting inspiration, religious or humanist. Respect your own life and lives of others. Seek the well-being of all. Killing divides; nonkilling unites. In conflict, from beginning to end seek reconciliation
not humiliation, degradation, predation, or annihilation. Join in constructive

Covering Killings

81

service to remove conditions of suffering of those in need. Be creative. It has
taken great creativity to reach present conditions of technological and structural violence. It will require greater creativity for nonkilling transformation.
Adopt an experimental approach to change. Seek successive approximationsof nonkilling societies, learning from successes and failures. Respect both individual and large-scale social action, from the influence of moral example tomass nonkilling people’s power. Be constructively courageous. Withdraw
support from violence and commit it to strengthen nonkilling alternatives.
Walk lightly upon the earth, reduce demands upon nature and fellow humanbeings that contribute to killing.

The list of coding items includes the following fifteen categories: (a) focus
on factual coverage of killing, (b) focus on sensational coverage of killing, (c)focus on prevention of killings, (d) focus on interventions in killings, (e) focus
on causal explanation of killings, (f) focus on human rights and responsibilities,(g) focus on life-respect, (h) focus on “killing divides while nonkilling unites”,(i) focus on reconciliation, (j) focus on constructive service to remove conditions of suffering, (k) focus on efforts to build nonkilling societies, (l) focus onefforts to strengthen nonkilling alternatives, (m) focus on reduction of demands that contribute to killings, (n) other, and (o) cannot determine.
Two coders were trained on how to code the collected killing stories according to a codebook consisting of 13 coding items. Excluding the coding
items which would not invite any possible disagreements (Coding Items 1-9:
newspaper code, story code, story length, story source, story nature, countryof killing, use of killing in headlines, use of killing in leads, and frequency of using killing in stories), two coders agreed 98% on the 10th coding item “causeof killing”, 93% on the 11th coding item “legitimate killings”, 95% on the 12th
coding item “de-legitimate killings”, and 90% on the 13th coding item “story
focus” according to Hoslti’s intercoder reliability test formula.
Findings
RQ1. How are killings covered by news media?
This question was addressed by comparing story sources, story nature, useof the word killing or its equivalent in headlines, in leads, and in the rest of stories, causes of killings, countries of killings, legitimating or de-legitimating killings.
Most killing stories are actually the respective newspaper own stories, i.e.
stories reported by respective newspaper journalists. In the case of The Globe
and Mail, South China Morning Post, The Times of India, The Jakarta Post, andStraits Times, news stories are 100% produced by the respective newspa-

82

Nonkilling Media

pers. The News York Times published more than 94% of news stories andChina Daily produced 87%. The Australian is only newspaper under examination that published only 20% their own stories while 89% are foreign news
stories on killings (see Table 3). The results tend to suggest that killing stories
are largely dominated by newspaper own stories. As killings are by nature
eye-catching, sensational, and newsworthy, no newspaper would publish killing stories from other domestic news media or foreign news media.
Table 3. Comparing Sources of Killing Stories
Newspaper
Own Story
The New York Times
The Globe and Mail
The AustralianSouth China Morning Post
The Jakarta Post
The Times of India
Straits Times
China Daily
Total

50 (94.3%)
39 (100%)
10 (20%)51 (100%)
28 (100%)
53 (100%)
33 (100%)
27 (87%)291 (85%)

Other
Domestic
Media
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
3 (10%)
3 (1%)

Foreign
Media

Other

Total

3 (6%)
041 (80%)00000
44 (13%)

0
0
0
0
0
0
0
1 (3%)
1 (1%)

53
39
51
51
28
53
33
31
339

As shown in Table 4, most killing stories (75.4%) had the word “killing”
or its equivalent such as murder, slay, slaughter, massacre, assassinate
homicide, or genocide highlighted in headlines. Killing or its equivalent was
highlighted in headlines of The New York Times (60%), The Globe and Mail
(79%), The Australian (76.5%), South China Morning Post (74.5%), The Jakarta Post (66.7%), The Times of India (94%), Straits Times (75.8%), andChina Daily (71%) (see Table 4).
Table 4. Comparing Killings in Headlines
The New York Times
The Globe and Mail
The AustralianSouth China Morning Post
The Jakarta Post
The Times of India
Straits Times
China Daily
Total

Yes
32 (60%)31 (79%)39 (76.5%)
38 (74.5%)
18 (66.7%)
50 (94%)25 (75.8%)
22 (71%)255 (75.4%)

No
21 (40%)8 (21%)
12 (23.5%)
13 (25.5%)
9 (33.3%)
3 (6%)
8 (24.2%)
9 (29%)
83 (24.6%)

Total
53
39
51
51
27
53
33
31
338

Covering Killings

83

Besides in headlines, killings were also emphasized in leads, with 89% ofnews story leads containing the word killing or its equivalent while only
11% having none. Table 6 shows the detailed breakdown of killing or its
equivalent being highlighted in leads of The New York Times (88.7%), The
Globe and Mail (76.9%), The Australian (76%), South China Morning Post
(88.2%), The Jakarta Post (74%), The Times of India (98%), Straits Times(84.8%), and China Daily (96.7%) (see Table 5).
Table 5. Comparing Killings in Leads
Yes
47 (88.7%)
30 (76.9%)
49 (76%)45 (88.2%)
20 (74%)52 (98%)28 (84.8%)
30 (96.7%)
301 (89%)

The New York Times
The Globe and Mail
The AustralianSouth China Morning Post
The Jakarta Post
The Times of India
Straits Times
China Daily
Total

No
6 (11.3%)
9 (23.1%)
2 (24%)
6 (11.8%)
7 (26%)
1 (2%)
5 (15.2%)
1 (3.3%)37 (11%)

Total
53
39
51
51
27
53
33
31
338

Besides headlines and leads, the word killing or its equivalent was also used
at least four times in the rest of the story in most cases (Mean=4.79, Std Deviation=2.987). The maximum of using killing or its equivalent was 18 while theminimum was 0. The identified frequency spectrum was divided three parts: (a)low (0-6), (b) medium (7-12), and (c) high (13-18). Most of news stories in all
newspapers under scrutiny fell into the low category, meaning the word “killing” or its equivalent was used below six times (77.4%). And between 6% and
33% of news stories used killings between 7 and 12 times or 22.5% of the total
while the high range accounted for 2.1% of the total (see Table 6).
Table 6. Comparing Frequency of Killings in Story
The New York Times
The Globe and Mail
The AustralianSouth China Morning Post
The Jakarta Post
The Times of India
Straits Times
China Daily
Total

0-6
34 (64.2%)
27 (69.2%)
36 (70.6%)
44 (88%)23 (85.2%)
47 (88.7%)
29 (87.9%)
21 (67.7%)
261 (77.4%)

7-12
17 (32.1%)
10 (25.6%)
15 (29.4%)
5 (10%)
4 (14.8%)
6 (11.3)
2 (6.1%)
10 (32.3%)
69 (20.5%)

13-18
2 (3.8%)2 (5.1%)0
1 (2%)
00
2 (6.1%)0
7 (2.1%)

Total
53
39
51
50
27
53
33
31
337

84

Nonkilling MediaAs far as story length is concerned, news stories on killings vary greatly fromstory to story among the selected newspapers. The minimum length was 47
words, while the maximum reached as many as 1,767 words (Mean=502.35,
Std Deviation=278.810). Most news stories fell between 301 and 600 words inlength, accounting for 48.7% of the total. Stories below 300 words accounted
for 21.5% while stories between 601 and 900 words accounted for 20.9%.
Stories above 901 words accounted for 8.8% (see Table 7).
Table 7. Comparing Story Length
Newspapers
The New York Times
The Globe and Mail
The Australian
S. China Morning Post
The Jakarta Post
The Times of India
Straits Times
China Daily
Total

1-300
4 (7.5%)2 (5.1%)10 (19.6%)
24 (47.1%)
9 (32.1%)
18 (34%)2 (6.1%)
4 (12.9%)73 (21.5%)

301-600
17 (32.1%)
11 (28.2%)
34 (66.7%)
21 (41.2%)
15 (53.6%)
27 (50.9%)
16 (48.5%)
24 (77.4%)
165 (48.7%)

601-900
14 (26.4%)
19 (48.7%)
5 (9.8%)5 (9.8%)4 (14.3%)
7 (13.2%)
15 (45.5)
2 (6.5%)71 (20.9%)>901
18 (34%)7 (17.9%)2 (3.9%)1 (2.0%)0
1 (1.9%)0
1 (3.2%)30 (8.8%)

Total
53
39
51
51
28
53
33
31
339

When it comes to countries of killings, it was found that 34 countries
were located in news stories where killings took place. They are Afganistan,
Australia, Britain, Canada, China, Congo, Finland, France, Germany, Israel,
Italy, Iraq, Iran, India, Indonesia, Kenya, Kyrgysttan, Mexico, Nigeria, Pakistan, Philippines, Russia, Senegal, Singapore, Somalia, Sweden, Thailand, US,
Uganda, Wazaristan, Northern Ireland, South Korea, Malaysia, and Turkey.
Among these countries, nine countries mentioned between 13 and 68 times
as places of killings: Afghanistan was mentioned 25 times, Canada 22, China 68,
Iraq 22, India 59, Indonesia 32, Pakistan 31, and Singapore 13 (see Table 8).
Table 8. Mentions of Countries Where Killings OccurredCountries
Afghanistan
Canada
China
Iraq
India
Indonesia
Pakistan
Singapore
Total

Frequency
25
22
68
22
59
32
31
13
272

Percentage
7.4
6.5
20.1
6.5
17.4
9.4
9.1
3.8
80%

Covering Killings

85

The rest of the 25 countries were mentioned between 1 and 6 times asplaces of killings. A further closer look at mentions of countries as places ofkillings showed that 272 stories or 80% of the total mentioned 20 undeveloped or developing countries as places of killings while only 67 killings or
20% of the total mentioned 14 developed countries as places of killings.
As for the causes of killings, it was found that genocide was reported as thecause of killings in only 3 stories (.9%). Murder was reported as the major
cause of killings in 169 stories (50%). Terrorist attacks were the cause of killingsin 82 stories (24.3%). Conflict was the cause of killings in 80 stories (23.7%).
But suicide was the cause of killing in only four stories (1.1%) (see Table 9).
Table 9. Comparing Causes of Killings
Newspapers
The New York Times
The Globe and Mail
The Australian
S. China Morning Post
The Jakarta Post
The Times of India
Straits Times
China Daily
Total

Genocide2 (3.7%)0
1 (2%)
00
0
0
0
3 (.9%)

Murder
8 (15.1%)
24 (61.5%)
13 (25.5%)
45 (88.3%)
14 (51.9%)
27 (50.9%)
22 (66.7%)
16 (51.6%)
169 (50%)

Terror27 (51%)8 (20.5%)
25 (49%)2 (3.9%)2 (7.4%)10 (18.9%)
1 (3%)
7 (22.6%)
82 (24.3%)

Conflict
16 (30.2%)
7 (17.9%)
12 (23.5%)
2 (3.9%)11 (40.7%)
15 (28.3%)
9 (27.3%)
8 (25.8%)80 (23.7%)

Suicide000
2 (3.9%)0
1 (1.9%)1 (3%)04 (1.1%)

Total
53
39
51
51
27
53
33
31
338

Killings can be legitimated or de-legitimated in news stories. As indicated inTable 9, killings were de-legitimated in most stories (91.2%) while killings werelegitimated in fewer stories (8.8%). Specifically, The New York Times delegitimated killings in 92.5% of its killing stories, The Globe and Mail 95%, The
Australian 94%, South China Morning Post 98%, The Jakarta Post 77.8%, The
Times of India 92.5%, Straits Times 87.9%, and China Daily 87.1% (see Table 10).
Table 10. (De-)Legitimate Killing in Comparison
The New York Times
The Globe and Mail
The AustralianSouth China Morning Post
The Jakarta Post
The Times of India
Straits Times
China Daily
Total

Legitimate Killing
4 (7.5%)2 (5%)
3 (6%)
1 (2%)
6 (22.2%)
6 (7.5%)4 (12.1%)
4 (12.9%)30 (8.8%)

De-legitimate Killing
49 (92.5%)
37 (95%)47 (94%)50 (98%)21 (77.8%)
49 (92.5%)
29 (87.9%)
27 (87.1%)
309 (91.2%)

Total
53
39
50
51
27
53
33
31
339

86

Nonkilling Media

RQ2. To what extent is news coverage of killings
congruent with the fundamental principles of nonkilling?
The way most of the news stories under scrutiny covered killings was notcongruent with the core perspectives of nonkilling approach (76.9) while only
23.1% of killing stories could be considered congruent. Newspaper wise, The
New York Times was noncongruent with the fundamental principles of nonkillingin 71.7% of its killing stories, The Globe and Mail 74.4%, The Australian 78.4%,
South China Morning Post 84.4%, The Jakarta Post 70.4%, The Times of India
70.4%, Straits Times 78.8%, and China Daily 70.1% (see Table 11).
Table 11. Comparing Congruency with Nonkilling Perspectives
The New York Times
The Globe and Mail
The AustralianSouth China Morning Post
The Jakarta Post
The Times of India
Straits Times
China Daily
Total

Congruent15 (29.3%)
10 (25.6%)
11 (21.6%)
8 (15.7%)
8 (29.6%)
10 (18.9%)
7 (21.2%)
9 (29.9%)78 (23.1%)

Noncongruent
38 (71.7%)
29 (74.4%)
40 (78.4%)
43 (84.3%)
19 (70.4%)
43 (81.1%)
26 (78.8%)
22 (70.1%)
260 (76.9%)

Total
53
39
51
51
27
53
33
31
338

Discussion and Recommendations
As shown by the results of the comparative content analysis of story
sources, most of the newspapers under study had their own journalists report killings in most cases. The results demonstrated a tendency among thenewspapers not to use or to limit use of other domestic media or foreign
media in covering killings, whether they were domestic killings or foreign
killings. That is one of the common features identified by this study.
How to report killings, however, is far more crucial than what to report,
to the advocacy of nonkilling principles. As shown by the findings of thisstudy, most news stories tend to play up killings by either using the word
killing or its equivalent in headlines to grab attention, followed by use of theword killing or its equivalent in leads. Even within the rest of stories, it wasused at least four times. Therefore, most killing stories are quite attention
grabbing via headline and leads. And they also maintain that momentum
through the rest of stories, which in most cases are quite substantial interms of story length. But the job is not done to simply have killings “boldly
headlined or significantly portrayed” in news stories. More importantly, inCovering Killings

87

light of nonkilling approach, news media should focus why killings occurred
and what should be done to prevent them from happening again. Therefore, a mere account of killings is not enough. Further efforts should be directed to applying nonkilling principles and practices in covering killings.
Most killing stories mentioned far more underdeveloped or developing
countries than developed countries as places of killings. This finding points
to the possible unbalanced news flow even in covering killings around theworld between developing or underdeveloped countries and developed
countries. Since the outset of the debate on the New World Information
and Communication Order, which started in the late 1970s and early
1980s, unremitting efforts have been made to address various issues of unbalanced information flow. Against this backdrop, this finding also set us tothink if killings in developing or undeveloped countries tend to be morecovered by news media in general. Since the purposive sample in this study
is small, the finding may be more explorative and explanatory than conclusive as some other killing stories, less important but in other developed
countries, may have been excluded. This finding, however, does alert us to
the need for further studies on the possible imbalance of news flow in news
coverage of killings. For further research, a larger sample should be used toguarantee a better representation of reality.
And among the causes of killings, murder was the major causes, followed by terrorist attacks and conflicts. Other causes, such as wars and aggressions, have not been identified in news stories under scrutiny. This may
due to the period of study selected and also the weekly-based purposive
sampling, which may have excluded killings caused by other types of causes.
So for further research, a larger sample is needed. This finding, however,
did alert us to the legacy of newsrooms identified in earlier studies that violent and abnormal killings would be more likely covered by news media at
the expenses of killing of other kinds. In the eyes of nonkilling advocates,
killings of any kind should be condemnable and avoidable as long as the public sees eye to eye on nonkilling. In light of the nonkilling fundamental principle of respecting life, lose of life as a result of killing in any form or format
is newsworthy in itself, which should be covered by news media to alert the
public and government alike. Along that line, news media can play a crucialrole in not just how killings should be covered but also what to cover. By
exposing killings, news media can play a key role in alerting the world to the
topic, which is a serious violation of a human right of life. No excuses orwhatever reasons should be accepted to kill human beings.

88Nonkilling MediaIn covering killings, the majority of news stories de-legitimated killings incondemning them as (a) aggression, (b) criminality, or (c) cruelty. But thefindings showed that there were a number of news stories did legitimate
killings as (a) war as a way of justification of killings, (b) self-defense as a wayof justification of killings (c) accident as a way of justification of killings, (d)explicit rationale as a way of justification of killings. The legitimation of killings, regardless of its excuse, size or impact, is definitely a big concern toadvocates of nonkilling. Loss of life, as a result of killing in war, self-defense,
accident or any other rationale to justify it, is a serious violation of respecting human lives and therefore unacceptable to nonkilling advocates.
De-legitimation of killings is just one of the first steps to be taken bynews media in covering killings. But it is still far away from the action principles of nonkilling. As demonstrated in this study, the way news media cover
killings was largely noncongruent with the nonkilling approach. As a newacademic discipline, the political science of nonkilling remains little known
to the public including news media. Even if news media are aware of it, it
has not been embedded in the way they cover killings.
Since news media can play a crucial role in building a nonkilling society,they should be equipped with this new approach to their coverage of killings.
To beginning with, to translate the nonkilling concept and paradigm into theguiding principles of covering killings in the newsroom, nonkilling advocatesshould cooperate with both practitioners and professors of journalism incoming up with a set of specific guidelines on how to cover killings.
Specifically, nonkilling views and responses should be covered including
those of “life-respecting inspiration, religious or humanist.” More emphasisshould also be placed on information or topics on how “remove conditionsof suffering of those in need.” “In conflict, from beginning to end,” news
media should “seek reconciliation not humiliation, degradation, predation,or annihilation”. Other topics should also be covered that are conducive tocreating killing free societies, such as “seek(ing) the well-being of all, “respect(ing) your own life and lives of others,” or anything information orviews that are closely related to the idea that “killing divides; nonkilling
unites,” and “respect(ing) both individual and large-scale social action, fromthe influence of moral example to mass nonkilling people’s power.” On topof that, news media should also “be constructively courageous” and “withdraw support from violence and commit it to strengthen nonkilling alternatives”. And finally, news media should also join the global nonkilling communities to “walk lightly upon the earth, reduce demands upon nature andfellow human beings that contribute to killing” (Paige, 2009: 77).

Covering Killings

89

For more effective translation from the action principles of nonkilling
into the actual practice of news coverage, further studies should be conducted to locate more effective ways of following the nonkilling approach.
More studies should be conducted to compare different practices of bothold and new news media, including social and mobile media, of implementing nonkilling principles in covering killings around the world.
Ultimately, what is more crucial is to expose news media professionals
to nonkilling concepts, paradigms, principles and practices so that theywould not be either biased or blinded to nonkilling approach. Beyond increasing awareness of nonkilling practices, journalism practitioners and professors alike, should also incorporate in their journalism practice or education the action principles of nonkilling, especially in gathering, producing andpresenting news stories on killing.
References
Amnesty International. (2009). The death penalty in 2009. Available online at:<http://www.amnesty.org/en/death-penalty/death-sentences-and-executionsin-2009>.
Carruthers, S. L. (2000). The Media at War. London: Macmillan.
Combs, B. and Slovic, P. (1979). “Newspaper Coverage of Causes of Death,” Journalism Quarterly, 56(4): 837-43, 849.
Eke, C. (2008). “Darfur: coverage of a genocide by three major US TV networks on theirevening news,” International Journal of Media and Cultural Politics, 4(3): 277-292.
Elmasry, M. (2009). “Death in the Middle East: An Analysis of How the New YorkTimes and Chicago Tribune Framed Killings in the second Palestinian Intifada,”
Journal of Middle East Media, 5(1): 1-46.
Herman, E. S. and Chomsky, N. (1988). Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media. New York: Pantheon Books.
Hanusch, F. (2008). “Valuing Those Close To Us͒A comparison of German andAustralian quality newspapers’ reporting of death in foreign news,” Journalism
Studies, 9(3): 341-356.
Höijer, B. (2004). “The Discourse of Global Compassion: the audience and media
reporting of human suffering,” Media, Culture and Society, 26(4): 513-31.
Gerbner, G. (1980). “Death in prime time: Notes on the symbolic functions of dying in themass media,” Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, 447: 64-70.
Moeller, S. D. (1999). Compassion Fatigue: How the Media Sell Disease, Famine, War
and Death. London: Routledge.
Paige, G. D. (2009). Nonkilling Global Political Science. Honolulu: Center for Global
Nonkilling. Available online at: <http://www.nonkilling.org>.
Palgi, P. and Abramovitch, H. (1984). “Death: A cross-cultural perspective,” Annual
Review of Anthropology, 13: 385-417.

90Nonkilling Media

Sontag, S. (2003). Regarding the Pain of Others. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux.
Walter, T., Littlewood, J. and Pickering, M. (1995). “Death in the news: The public
Invigilation of private emotion,” Sociology, 29(4): 579-96.
World Health Organization (2009). Progress in preventing violence. Available online
at: <http://www.who.int/mediacentre/>.

Chapter FourPublic Discourses for
Nonkilling Societies
Peace Research and Communication Trends
Eloísa Nos Aldás
Universitat Jaume I de Castellón

Introduction
This chapter approaches “media” from a broad understanding of communication, as all the different discourses that articulate societies. Specifically, it focuses on the capacities of public discourses to configure -or notnonkilling cultures. In the same line of thought as Urbain in his “Nonkillingarts” (2009: 73-94), here I focus on public discourses as tools and scenariosof communication towards positive ethics (assuming also the principles
stated by Lee in his normative framework to this book). As such, this chapter will be structured in three different parts. First, I present a conceptualand methodological framework on the educative and transformative possibilities of communication from the basis of Peace Research (peace culture
and cultural violence), discourse theories, communication efficacy and collective memory. Second, these concepts challenge public discourses to influence an active global civil society aware of the causes of present-day violence and engaged in the alternatives for nonkilling world societies. Third, I
review some good practices in order to reach conclusions.
All in all, this piece of work deals with the limits and possibilities of theinteraction of all kinds of discourses and communication actions for the articulation and activation of a responsible and committed society in order tocounteract the influence of mainstream media and official discourses andthe dangers of a dehumanized social system based on a war economy. With
this goal in mind, this chapter analyses the present discursive scenarios created by civil society actors (NGOs, social movements and other civil institutions or groups) to spread “the universality of human dignity” (Lee, 2011)
and reflects on possible criteria in order to plan, design and evaluate thecommunicative actions of civil society actors in terms of long-term cultural
efficacy (defined from the conceptual approach of cultural peace).

93

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Discourse and Peace Research:
A different efficacy based on educative memory
I understand nonkilling media through the concept of cultural peace tofocus on the symbolic construction of violence and peace in present-day societies, its implications and consequences. That is, I probe how discourse
becomes a core concept as related to others such as “communication”,“publicity”, “public discourses”, “social discourses”, “global civil society”
and “nonkilling cultures”, all criteria to work on a long-term educative efficacy on the symbolic level that leads to nonkilling social systems.
This approach arises from the initial reflections of Galtung on “cultural
peace” (1990; 1996) as the counterpoint to “cultural violence” (understoodas the legitimization of “direct violence” and “structural violence” throughdiscourse, symbols and metaphors).1 This approach is tightly related to theconcepts of justice and development, theoretical tools to overcome thelimitations of thinking about peace in negative terms (as being just the absence of war) and proposing a global concept of cultures of peace as a wayof integrating all different variables ranging from identity and freedom to basic needs (symbolic, structural and interpersonal aspects).
Therefore, I emphasize the focus of this approach and methodology on
the role of discourses (symbolic mediations which foster certain behaviours)
as forms of legitimizing or fostering violence (cultural violence, killing) but also
as main tools in order to denounce these injustices, delegitimize and transform them into nonkilling paradigms. Galtung states: “the major causal direction for violence is from cultural via structural to direct violence” (1996: 2).
Therefore, that is also the arena in which we want to work: on a “cultural
peace” (Galtung, 1990), via nonkilling discursive status quos, in order to reachnonkilling cultures, or, in other words, nonkilling societies.
The conceptual framework to approach this problem from communication theories arises from the origins of “publicity” (Detienne, 1996; 2008: 91).
Publicity understood as public communication in terms of the discursive relations among individuals as a community in the public sphere in order to negotiate their ideas and representations on the scenarios of social interaction.
Publicity means how societies work through communication on sharing their
proposals and identities and getting recognition for them (Benavides, 1997;

1

Direct violence is understood here as the immediate deprivation of life by a specific actor and structural violence as a slow deprivation of life resulting from structural conditions such as bad living conditions (poisoned water, for example).

Public Discourses for Nonkilling Societies

952011). I also relate this concept to Habermas’ interpretation of publicity as“the process of informing the public on important matters (...) [with] educative and critical functions” (1988: 200). The main aim then becomes spreading
and discussing nonkilling discourses (social imagery), structures and behavioural proposals. For such a communicative project we need to recover the
double sense of publicity both as the persuasive usage of language in order tocommunicate with our community in the public arena and make our speechcomprehensible and interesting (rhetoric), and also as a way of making public,
visible (spreading) those issues that concern everyone (strategy).
This challenge takes us to the next and core concept embedded in thisreflection, “public discourses”, which binds the two main approaches tocommunication chosen for this research: a discursive and a collective focus.
Hereby, I consider discourses as the specific spaces where publicity canconfigure civil society. In this sense, we need to highlight that the notion of“communication” here is linked to the concept of “discourse” as an act ofcommunication (composed by certain discursive elements that orientate
the interaction patterns among interlocutors) that takes place in a specificscenario with a history, a culture, a symbolic universe (certain production
and reception contexts) and leads to certain social discourses through interpretation and behavioural processes (Benavides, 2011). These spaces ofinteraction can be composed of all sorts of communicative elements(words, images, music, silence, etc.). This definition, therefore, involves allof the different types of discourses (interpersonal, media, street, creative,
art, factual and fictional, official or alternative, digital, etc.).
This concept of discourse is understood here from the tradition that emphasizes the role of the utterance itself, the contexts and the intertexts in theconfiguration and interpretation of meanings and values (Benet, 2004). The way
discourses are uttered (their discourse choices) reflect their meanings, values
and interests and articulate the communicative relations established, and the reactions that are derived from such communicative situations (Benveniste, 1971;
Todorov, 1978; Ricoeur, 1988; Bakhtin, 1986; Nos Aldás, 2007). In this sense, I
understand discourse as a communicative act which takes place at communication scenarios where interlocutors interact and negotiate certain meanings, attitudes and values (Austin, 1976; Lakoff and Johnson, 1980; Galtung, 1990).
This leads us to “social discourses” (Benavides, 1997: 253-255; 2011): discourse as a cultural and social mediator plays a role in the representation ofreality (Hall, 1997) and influences the way interlocutors configure their relations with each other and with the contents they interpret. Discourse takes
part in the interpretation of realities and also introduces proposals about how

96Nonkilling Mediato think about and deal with them. As Austin (1976) explains in his Theory on
Speech Acts and the performativity of language, when we communicate, we
act; utterances are facts and they imply certain commitments in the senderand particular expectations and reactions in the receivers. We look at “language” (metaphorically, as a way to refer to all discursive and creative formsof communication, to discourse) in terms of commitment. Form (using theSaussurean distinction between form and content) derives into social behaviour. The way contents and realities are stated and represented influence theway people think about them and act in relation to them.
The cultural influence of discourse in configuring the world in nonkilling or
violent terms is based therefore on this approach: how discourse performs
actions and establishes certain relations among peoples, groups and topics. In
this sense, the way we design and perform our communication, transmits-

a certain image of the reality presented
a certain type of relation with that reality on the senders sidea kind of reaction sought in our interlocutor (hatred, reconciliation,
political engagement).

In other words, every discourse proposes a specific conception of reality
which reflects the attitude of the sender towards the contents and the people
they are communicating about and with; it also reflects the real aims of that
communication, and through these intentions and proposals shows the coherence and consistency between their actions and discourses. Rhetoric,
therefore, is closely related to thought, to the way the receiver will relate tothose contents, trusting them, for instance, or getting involved in the projects
proposed. In turn, this process plays an important role in their final behaviour,
what takes me to define communication as informal education, as far as it
configures the public sphere, what society considers “reality”, politics, ethics.
We are dealing therefore with the short term and long-term cultural consequences of all the discourses that configure societies and cultures, which cancontribute towards killing or towards nonkilling. In other words, this approachto communication takes into account all discourse elements that construct the
public presence of people (groups) and ideas (relations) with the aim of contributing to a culture of nonkilling through communication scenarios based oncollective intercultural interests and justice. In other words, I want to emphasize the role of discourse for constructing social relations and social change.
Henceforth, communication actions towards nonkilling societies implies
acting consistently on these ideas through the interaction among all social
actors in present-day scenarios, from civil society individuals to top politi-Public Discourses for Nonkilling Societies

97

cians or power groups. Specifically, we head towards scenarios of collective
reflection where individuals and groups recognize each other and negotiate
their interests in the public sphere from collective concerns. Due to the imbalance of power and the reign of private interests, many times we are talking about the need for lobbying or advocacy actions, including nowadays theengine of social networks such as Facebook, Twitter or different blogs andother web 2.0. platforms. In this sense, this paper debates the challenge of
involving global civil society in the project of nonkilling societies through thereconfiguration of the common scenarios of communication which give
voice to the local and the global and construct the shared stories that maintain present-day hegemony (Gramsci in Gramsci and Forgacs, 2000).
Therefore, communication is approached here from the core conceptof peace cultures, collective aims and long-term cross communication, sothat we can share some criteria that can help us to think about the role ofcommunication in spreading nonkilling cultures through long-term communicative projects developed from grassroots actors to mass media and mainstream discourses2. In order to translate this way of looking at discursive cultural scenarios into practice, we apply the epistemological shift proposed by
Martínez Guzmán for Peace Studies and Peace Research (Martínez Guzmán,
2001; 2006a; Martínez Guzmán, Comins Mingol and París Albert, 2009; Comins Mingol and París Albert, 2009: 273-274). Accordingly, this chapter assumes that there are as many different ways to practice peace as there arecultures, narratives and logics. From his proposals, I understand communication and discourse effects from a value-based epistemology committed tohuman suffering and to the promotion of nonkilling societies.
The above mentioned proposals have to be further developed from Lee’s“paradigm shift in media content and practice” based on Spinoza’s “just journalism” and Martínez Guzmán’s “epistemological turn” for peace research andpeace studies. These convergent approaches take us to the following characteristics for communication for nonkilling cultures, contrary to the trends of“hatred communication”, war propaganda or hegemonic discourses”:
2
Mainstream mass media is referred to here as one of the main sources of “control
memes” (Reinsborough and Canning, 2010) in present-day communication scenarios. I
will not go in detail on them because they have been largely analysed from power andpeace analysis as the alternative of peace journalism (Kempf, 2008; Shinar & Kempf,
2007; Wolfsfeld, 2004; Fawcett, 2002; European Centre For Conflict Prevention and
IMPACS, 2003; Melone, Terzis and Beleli, 2002; McGoldrick and Lynch, 2000; Galtung,
1998; Manoff, 1997; Adam and Thamotheram, 1996; Bruck and Roach, 1993).

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-

-

-

-

-

Utter discourses from subject to subject. Configure communication
through the interaction among interlocutors, recognized as equals, andresponsibility-based discourses which always talk about people as subjects and take care not to represent them as objects, thereby avoiding
the dangers of dehumanization or disrespect (cultural violence).
Discourses that make the effort of presenting the complete picture of
the situations or experiences; discourses that face the complexity ofhuman relations, with their mistakes and assets, without bipolarity or
dichotomies of good and evil but including the multiple sides and perspectives of every conflict from the different actors (accepting anddealing with vulnerability but also recognizing responsibilities).
Ethically-committed discourses, not neutral ones. Discourses that
explicitly state the interests behind them. At the same time thatthey present alternatives, they point out who is responsible forwhat as well as the real causes of injustice, and claim for justice.
They are performative. They share a participant approach. These
are not objective (detached) discourses. They search for intersubjectivity. They take part in the action. They search for effective discourses, for changes, for results. This also leads to present a representative individualization of experiences (the narrator being part of
the realities talked about) so to help to understand their complexity
and idiosyncrasy and to foster awareness and remembrance.
All of these characteristics imply a dialogic rhetoric in order tostructure interactive and horizontal discourses.

This way of understanding communication leads us to introduce here theidea of a cultural, educational and transformative efficacy (and efficiency) as
the only way to really have a cultural impact and instigate the processes of social change. In this sense, we need to combine the traditional concepts ofcommunication and advertising efficacy, usually based on quantitative criteriaof impact and behavioural short-term change, with a more qualitative analysis
based on the forms of relating to each other (of communicating). In otherwords, it is essential to pay critical attention to the “styles of communication”(Erro, 2002) we use and how they influence our beliefs, values, attitudes andlong-term behaviour analysis.
We link the style of a nonkilling communication to a cultural responsibility:
a socio-cultural efficacy (applying all the ideas of cultural peace aforementioned) as part of an awareness, education, advocacy and constituency pro-Public Discourses for Nonkilling Societies

99

gram (Smith, 2004). In this framing, in which how we relate to each other,which discourses represent us and our proposals, are of utmost importance.
Nonetheless, if we look at the general picture of all the senders who workin the field of peace culture and nonkilling (all the potentially nonkilling discourse producers), we realize thatmostly in the case of the most structured organizationstheir communication usually does not have education
and advocacy as their unique objective. Their communicative needs and programs (actions) are quite varied, ranging from lobbying to funding. For thisreason I distinguish between “cultural efficacy” and “cultural efficiency”. “Cultural efficacy” can be seen as the goal for those discourses that arise from social and collective aims and have social education as their final and unique aim.
They are born within social change, advocacy or educative programs. In thiscase, every creative choice needs to go towards that communicative horizon(transformation), and their discourses will have to be examined and evaluatedin relation to sociocultural objectives (reframing cultural assumptions) rather
than purely quantitative ones. However, as we are aware that many communication practices need to combine educational aims with other specificneeds, such as management, branding or funding, among others, here we also
consider the term “cultural efficiency” as a criteria to implement a cultural responsibility for any message uttered by a sender working towards a nonkillingsociety. This means that actors with such a communicative personality will
always have to take into account long-term education as a cross responsibilityof any of their messages or actions in spite of their immediate goals. They
need to put both of them into dialogue. I uphold that they need to be communicatively “efficient” in the sense of, at least, not diseducating society, notfalling into the trap of using “killing” imagery (or legitimizing it) for the sake ofincreasing the impact of a specific campaign for funding or social visibility.
These symbolic goals (a cross responsibility, global to every communicative action) have to become central claims and methods for the nonkilling
agenda, not only in specific awareness campaigns but evenor mostlyinfunding or branding campaigns, sometimes even more aggressive and “dangerous” from the cultural perspective. These senders cannot forget thatthey are actors of civil society with public education as an ultimate aim.
As part of this challenge, memory becomes a core part of these learning/transformation processes so that people really grasp and apply new proposals or behaviours. Memory is the way of connecting the past and the present,
the known and the new. In this context, memory is the key approach to relate
new needs and changes to collective and historical experiences. Specifically, we
refer to a useful memory, an “exemplary memory” as Todorov (1996) defines

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it: a memory constructed and used with ethical and educational aims. In thisconceptual framework, memory put into practice learns from the past in order
to be useful to the present. It functions as a way to as a way to help new generations to understand and to learn the lessons of history, either the dangers
and suffering of violent events or the benefits of social change good practices.
Therefore, cultural efficacy, as we understand it here, is based on humanrelations, on people, on working on the meeting points among a global civilsociety understood as an intercultural committed citizenship (Erro, 2002) ona cosmopolitan arena where we all have the same rights and responsibilities(Martínez Guzmán, 1999). We work on communication efficacy at the levelof messaging and discourse production from a global civil society focus, understood, as Kaldor puts it, “in terms of what one might call deepening andwidening, a move away from state-centered approaches, combining moreconcern with individual empowerment and person autonomy, as well as territorial restructuring of social and political relations in different realms” (2003:
6). Cultural efficacy for social change searches for certain styles of communication with multiple challenges: information, awareness (short-term), remembrance, education, behavioural change, social mobilization and action (allfrom the local to the global and in a short-term and long-term scope).
The capabilities and responsibilities of communication tostrengthen a global civil society towards nonkilling cultures
From the scope of Communication, Discourse and Peace Studies presented in the first part of this chapter, I look here at the awareness, education and mobilization capabilities of discourse and how social civil actorsthat work for nonkilling cultures can try to involve civil society worldwide in
their projects and proposals by spreading and making visible alternative
public discourses for nonkilling.
In this scenario, communication is defined from advocacy. It plays a central role in embodying awareness, education and political will in the processof social change, and therefore also relates to constituency in terms of creating the support for new political agendas of society. That is why, whenapproaching public discourses towards nonkilling cultures, it is necessary to
work on their interaction with formal education programs and policies, political action and decision making as well as on legislation as concrete ways
to foster social change. However, we will not deal directly with all of these
spheres, but will focus on public discourses in themselves as informal education (in dialogue with formal and nonformal education) and how narrativePublic Discourses for Nonkilling Societies

101

power rules society (Reinsborough and Canning, 2010) and is a supporting
element for lobbying, advocacy and constituency work.
Talking about discourses for nonkilling is also talking about the actors involved in these communication scenarios where nonkilling efforts are taken
as a collective work towards nonkilling societies as the alternatives to thedefense culture imposed today and based on a war economy and logic.
These actors range from individuals (citizens, civil society members) to International Non Governmental Organizations (INGO) and Governmental or
Official International Organizations. Governments themselves (States) andMarket actors are also part of the picture, but civil rights and social change
networks and social movements are implicated too.
In order to draw a basis for this debate, I have drafted a schematic representation of the actors and spheres involved in communication, citizenship and the challenge for nonkilling cultures (see also Nos Aldás, 2010):
Figure 1. Communication challenges (cultural / public) andactors of communication, citizenship and nonkilling cultures
Public Discourses/ Narratives

Public Sphere
Information
Awareness

Communication Education

Informal
Education

Legislation
Decision making
Political will

Lobby

MarketingSilencing
Misinformation
Disinformation

MARKET

STATE

3rd
SECTOR

Advocacy
Constituency

To deepen and critically analyze these scenarios, I focus specifically on
civil society actors, including from the most structuredthird sector/INGOto the more unstructured or spontaneous onessocial movements or other civil society actions such as grass roots organizations (GRO).
I am interested in approaching what has been called “narrative power
analysis,” the people’s power to changing hegemonic/conventional wisdom(Gramsci, 2000; Reinsborough and Canning, 2010: 21-23).
Therefore, there is a good number of actors, target groups, discourses andinterests that take part simultaneously in these scenarios (consciously or uncon-

102Nonkilling Media

sciously) and play a role in the possibility (or not) of fostering public discourses
for informal (peace) education and the transformation of the present-day global
war culture into a nonkilling culture. The state, the market, the third sector, social movements and civil society could be defined as main variables when looking at the gears of social relations, as Smith (2008) also states. Global civil society actors can act as gears that work on the mistakes created by the market,
governments and the way we all have written and interpreted History (capitalized) and the stories, meanings and assumptions that support it (Reinsboroughand Canning, 2010). One of the main strategies for these transformations is making explicit the presence of cultural violence in the underlying stories and myths
that rule our cultures and legitimize a certain life style and economy. The relations among these actors, their actions and their discourses configure cultures.
As movements and institutions born from civil society, they have a very
specific communicative personality. They are socially committed organizations or groups with collective aims (“public good before private interests,”
Kaldor, 2003: 23), which have among their goals social transformation towards nonkilling or peace cultures. In other words, these organizations, orgroups, are closely linked to the idea of global civil society as a new politicalarena. They are born from it and have as one of their aims to take its goals
and needs towards the rest of spheres, to spread the story and influence
those which silence injustice and violence.
The core of this debate is the existence of (or the need to recover) a
common awareness of the links and power among people and their sharingof certain values as responsibility (accountability) towards the constructionof a fair and nonkilling world for all and everyone. I dialogue here with
Alexander’s emphasis on solidarity and communication as the node thatmakes sense of the definition of civil society:As the scale of other institutions, interactions, and discourses expands, so
might the organization of the civil sphere. / If it were possible to organize a
global sphere, the systematic problem of earthly war would cease, for civil
virtue could not be demonstrated by exterminating the other side. It
would be extraordinarily difficult to achieve this new resting place for the
spirit of civil utopia. There would have to be a world state or something
like a state for civil communication to become regulation on a global scale
and for civil repair to proceed. (…) Only the civil sphere can regulate
force and eliminate arbitrary violence. It does so through persuasion andcivil power and, if necessary, by dispensing force to defend democraticsolidarity and to keep the aspirations of civil society alive. As violence becomes global, so must the civil sphere (Alexander, 2006: 552).

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103

This brings into the picture the complexity of the project of a nonkilling
global citizenship networking, a cross project in which communication plays acentral role as a tool to denounce and call attention to what are considered
priority problems from a nonkilling paradigm, to spread its proposals and alternatives and take the necessary steps to make these reforms “real” ones
(that means, part of the dominant or hegemonic culture). Nonetheless, I amaware that at present I am talking about counter-cultural actions. Rewording
Castells (1997; 2009) when he refers to the challenges of social movements,
communication for nonkilling goes against the established order. The main aim
here, therefore, is to open spaces on the opaque and thick wall of mainstream
discourses (meanings) which are officially the “accepted” ones, because they
are the most visible, repeated and numerous ones. They are the “control mythology of the dominant culture” (Reinsborough and Canning, 2010: 24-25).
The proposal here is that communication for nonkilling societies needs
to work on sound and persistent narratives about the legitimacy of nonkilling. The challenge is that the values of a sustainable and fair society become,although they should already be, the criteria for world policy making: thenorm, the accepted ones, not the margins. In this regard, a strategic communication is necessary (and a communicative strategy at the same time),such as the one Reinsborough and Canning (2010) propose through storybased strategies that reframe present control narratives and foreshadow
nonkilling scenarios in ways we all “re:imagine” change.
Beyond strategy, deepening the idea of messaging itself, proposing
nonkilling cultures implies a number of topics which go against the routinesof society, the media, the market and states, and the discursive strategies
we use become central. We face the challenge of communicating between
the mass and the personal; that is, spreading the message as much as possible without losing the personal approach, the human focus. We face theneed to not only to talk about very specific information, but also about very
abstract concepts, usually unknown to the larger majority and which may
even be unpleasant for them or opposed to what they have learnt in school,in their families or even through their previous experiences.
This challenge therefore implies communicative experiences which go frommaking people realize their mistakes (or the market’s or the government’s
ones, even some of our cultural trends mistakes), protest and propose. It needsinterlocutors to open themselves to new topics and perspectives, to pay attention to them and incorporate them into their references and images and, once
affected by them, to act consequently (Aranguren Gonzalo, 2000: 183-184).

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These processes work from indignation (Freire, 2004; Hessel, 2010) to
effective actions, from demonstration to advocacy, lobbying, negotiation,accountability and assessment. It is a complex and long transformative communication process which has to be taken into account by the actors involved in these cultural nonkilling projects as a cross criteria that anticipates
the social imaginaries and the behaviours that are being proposed to the society by every communication action. Therefore, these styles of communication are defined by a particular dialogue between emotions and reasons,feelings and arguments, information and persuasion. As we are talking about
a cultural role of communication, as far as its final aim is behavioural and beliefs change, this communication seeks an educational process. Furthermore, as Freire himself considered (1994; 2004), education is linked to persuasion. An educative and transformative communication, therefore, faces
the challenge of combining denunciation and hope and closing the gap between the ideas for a nonkilling society and the everyday worries of citizens, so that they become part of their interests and agenda.
To this end, this communicative approach joins with certain discourse
strategies and modes of discourse presentation which have been traditionally used to represent and keep memory. These strategies have been used
once and again by witnesses, writers and all kinds of artists who were protagonists of different violent experiences in their attempts to compose thecollective experience they went through in the form of an “exemplary
memory” (Todorov, 1996), as defined previously. In other words, the communicative epistemological shift we apply here, based on an educative
memory, uncovers useful characteristics for culturally effective discourses
for nonkilling in the traits of testimonial discourse:3--

3

Discursive strategies used by witnesses are a way to personalize
narrations through individual experiences and feelings but with collective and exemplary memory aims which focus on its representative side for a whole collective (usually through diaries, letters orlife stories, among other genres).
Personalizing is one of the main witness strategies used in order torepresent the human side of events (as personal, individual, specific)
and subvert or transform the dehumanized constructions of the

The strategies presented here have been extracted from testimonial works by exile and concentration camps writers and artists and from corpus based analysis ofpresent-day awareness campaigns and other discourses with educational aims.

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other as an enemy historically used in hatred discourse. Personalizing
is used to avoid the distance of abstractness (mass, general) throughstrategies such as focusing on orality (the traits of oral discourse) ortalking about common aspects, as daily routines, for instance.
The strategy of polyphony and dialogism (Bakhtin in Holquist, 1996) isalso one of the most used and more effective. It implies a plurality ofperspectives (which allow for intersubjectivity and interculturality andhelp to present the whole image of a situation. Through this strategy
dialogue becomes part of the configuration of discourse (in literature,
painting, or cinema, for instance). It becomes unfinished, open, expecting participation; it accepts disagreement (Eaglestone, 2000).
Irony (humour) is also very common, as it helps to reflect on certain
issues, to look at them from a distance or very closely (Bakhtin in
Holquist, 1996: 23).
Defamiliarization or estrangement can also help to stop automatic
perceptions or stereotypes on certain collectives and situations andlook at them from a different perspective.
Also playing with the grammatical person in discourse (“I”, “we”,“they”), the time of verbs or the space in which the action takes
place, helps the interlocutors to put themselves in the shoes of others or get more involved with the events presented.

All these strategies can help to bring distant or complex realities closer
to those who are not familiar with them or are desinterested in certain social problems, thus introducing them to the imaginaries and priorities of thedifferent social actors. They are the result and the means to interpret experience through discourse from a truthful, trusting (Pipet, 2000: 19) andhonest perspective that searches for memory and understanding.
In this way, they can help to challenge todays advertising rationality andcrisis of memory (Benjamin, 1992; Ferrés i Prats, 2008)4 and to awaken the4

Apart from realizing that the trend of present-day rationality is fragmentation and consensus, as for mass media influence on how publics interpret reality and think about it(Stein, 1979; Postman, 1986; Ferrés i Prats, 2000; Pérez Tornero, 2000 or García
Matilla, 2003, among many others), it should also be taken into account that our discursive proposals have to dialogue with the rest of discourses in public scenarios. In mass
media and advertising public spaces we face many apparently “social”, “responsible” or“collective” messages. That is, in the latest trends of advertising and corporate communication many times the values of “green”, “ethical”, “sustainable” are used just as an“aesthetical” element, rather than reflecting real policies or traits. This takes us to the

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consciousness and indignation against injustice towards ethical responses.
Rhetoric can help to emphasize the ideas of nonkilling cultures, to make themvisible and to interpret them for society so that people are motivated bythem (Calle Collado, 2000; Pinazo, 2003) public debate and action for nonkilling societies. In this sense, in terms of rhetoric and narration, telling andshowing become more effective in terms of awareness than explaining andarguing. They are an effective way of involving people in human stories,
showing the connections and the nonsense, confronting them directly withthe untold and the unexplainable and letting them get involved at their own
pace. As a result, ideas are not imposed or forced on them to accept themwithout reflecting on them. All of this needs of course to be done by giving
them evidence of the benefits and goods of nonkilling philosophy.
The style behind this is what Lederach has called a “moral imagination”
which through its relation with reality opens new ways for exploring it, asalso occurs with Japanese haiku, embedded with humbleness and sincerity.
This concept is related to Aristotle’s sense of a “rational and deliberative
imagination” which slows down the interpretation of interlocutors and allows them to make conscious decisions (Martínez Guzmán, 2006b). This is
the idea emphasized by Ricoeur (1988) regarding the way fiction and discourse work through imagination to create a distance between reality andits representation where interpretation and thinking processes take place.
Testing theory with practice:
the efficacy of discourses for nonkilling societies
The heterogeneity of the actors and discourses that are part of this field ofcommunication, in terms of the specific topics and areas they work in, presents a broad range of concerns that goes beyond what has been traditionallycalled the antiwar movement. We could call “nonkilling” organizations those
who work on the cross-fields of justice, democracy, development and cooperation, conflict transformation, interculturality, equality or the environment5.
Therefore, in these scenarios of communication we find coexisting public disneed of recovering authentic socially focused discourses for nonkilling cultures and denouncing those which are not. In this sense a good practice I would like to focus on isthat of Adbusters (in Canada) and Ecologistas en Acción (in Spain).
5
In order to frame this range of actors and discourses we need to refer to all the literature on the definition of nonkilling plus the UNDP definition of human development(plus further thinking such as Streeten, 1997 or Sen, 1999) and the many proposals ofpeace and development education (Mesa, 2000; Celorio, 2006; 2007; Boulding, 1991).

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courses from human rights organizations, anti-capitalist initiatives, peace education networks, environmental projects, development cooperation agencies
and NGOs, international organizations campaigns and governmental messages in addition to traditional pacifist or anti-war movements.
In this sense, looking at public communication for nonkilling societies as
informal peace learning (Boulding, 1991: 36) takes us also to the latest
trends in development education, in the sense that both projects aim at thedevelopment of a critical global citizenship empowered from the ideas ofPeace and Development Studies and based on transnational networking(Boulding, 1991), a capacity building necessary to change the world and to
be able to prevent slaughters. These approaches have distinct specific aims,
but at the same time they share basic principles such as global partnership(Eisler, 2002; 2004) rooted in a communicative global civil society.
In the crossroads between all these different interlocutors and areas,
and when we explore the experiences of communication for the articulation of a global peace culture based on nonkilling, we realize that the challenge of articulating public discourses as new nonkilling legitimized narratives lacks an actual general coordinated long-term scope. There exist thousands of successful effective experiences which have been taking place andcontinue doing so towards nonkilling societies.6 The challenge of making
6
Mailing (e-mail) lists asking for signatures to foster certain causes (like Avaaz.org or Amnesty International), or people on the streets doing so (lobby campaigns against governments that do not respect human rights, actions for non weapon proliferation, boycotts
against brands which finance wars…); innumerable newsletters by individuals or groups
that make a big effort to spread news of injustice and to inform about alternative projects
taking place to transform them; initiatives which launch web pages and blogs, conferences, workshops, trainings and brochures for specific actions; walkouts and protests
with speeches on the streets and other actions (such as street theatre, for instance); specific one day actions to make people remember certain anniversaries or injustices theyneed to act against (like the “Stop the Machine! Create a new World! Call for October
2011”, http://october2011.org/, for the 10th anniversary of the invasion of Afghanistan or
the Global Day of Action on Military Spending); documentaries and films by directors
who believe in a culture for peace; film festivals, art festivals and exhibitions to denounce
injustice and tragedies, to work on a reconciling memory, and also to spread information
about alternatives and projects that exist; other civil initiatives and performances such as
cyclists or runners going out onto the streets of the cities to call attention to the necessity
for alternative transportation to protect people’s health and promote environment sustainability and a peace culture without wars for oil, or other actions such as smart mobs
or graffiti and many other kinds of street art; T-shirts; buttons; community radios; community gardens; alternative media, most of them on the internet, etc.

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these different projects global and interconnected is also present in thesecommunication scenarios. We find a high number of international networks
and calls to coordinate large numbers of initiatives and organizations to try
to reach effectiveness in terms of social change, fostering initiatives in favour of a better world based on democracy, solidarity, justice and respect.7
Nonetheless, in these coalitions and programs, communication is underemployed. A story-based long-term and cross-cutting strategy to counter-act
the hegemonic discourse of war is not approached collectively. Communication plays a central role in very instrumental terms (as sharing information
among members, contacting each other, managing resources, having a web
page, etc.). We find lots of stories for nonkilling in the international scene.
However, the discourses created by these initiatives stay fragmented and do
not filter into the international status quo. They keep on being alternative andaccepted by reduced groups. These actions communicate with limited groupsof people, usually with groups that are already aware of these topics andcommitted to them. In other words, they do not reach the public sphere,
they do not “battle the story” (Reinsborough & Canning, 2010: 43-47) of
war-based structures (that is, include as a main aim in all organizations to introduce those alternative nonkilling discourses as part of a new status quo).
You just get to know these proposals if you look for them. Nonkilling organizations work brilliantly on denunciation and political actions. However, there
is not a global coordination project in order to make the story, the discourseof nonkilling, part of the political, cultural and educational global agenda.
The challenge remains to reach those with war or violence logics or those
who are not aware of (or are not interested in) nonkilling proposals (in all thedifferent spheres we have drafted before). These discourses are not legitimized nor placed on the global collective accepted imaginary so that theprocess of transforming war structures can take place. This would be linked
to the possibility of broadening working networks with the capacity for quick
and global responses before a crisis of war during the “transition” towards
nonkilling societies (Reinsborough and Canning, 2010). This takes us again to
the relevance of formal education for peace cultures and global citizenships tohave people ready and empowered to react when injustice arises, but also
7
The Global Campaign for Peace Education, the Global Partnership for the Prevention of Armed Conflict (which gathers also the initiative People Building Peace), theGlobal Action to Prevent War and Armed Conflict, the International Peace Bureau(IPB) for a World without War, the Global Call to Action Against Poverty related to
the Millennium Campaign… and so many other associations and projects.

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formal, nonformal and informal media literacy; to be able to network and act
and create communicative organizations; and to keep the process moving until structures are changed. As Alfaro proposes, the project is to activate global“societies in movement” beyond “social movements” (2005: 57-80).
The question remains unanswered: how can these publicity actions findan echo in the global cultural scenarios (including mainstream media) so that
we articulate public discourses for nonkilling cultures and make them partof a global citizenship consciousness? How do we make sure all of our actions have a long-term focus which takes into account the informal education every discourse and action implies? How do we make sense of all theseheterogeneous but at the same time related projects? How do we reach allof the different public and private spaces, including media, cinemas, theatres, streets, political arenas, as well as formal and nonformal education?
In these scenarios, most of these initiatives have found the new technologies and the Internet to be a perfect space to articulate their communication challenges due to its flexibility, interactivity, global scope and low
costs, particularly, social networks such as Facebook, Twitter or Youtube.
This is why I do not want to finish without analyzing one of the social
movements taking place as I write, which shares most of what has been discussed in this paper. As a case study, I will focus on a case study on the discourses (in posters, graffiti and other signs) used and spread by the “15M”
Movement in Spain in 2011 (or the so called “Spanish Revolution”, “the Indignated” or “Real Democracy Now” camps, assemblies and protests).
Figure 2. “We are the yeast that will raise the dough” (Spanish).8

8

Examples included in this section which do not have a specific reference are from theconsumehastamorir.org website: <http://www.letra.org/spip/spip.php?article4060>.
Most are slogans used at Sol (Madrid) in the 15th of May Revolution.

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Nonkilling MediaIn the line of the aforementioned text by Hessel (2010), the 15th of May
2011 many people in Spain said “enough”. Under the meme “indignated” (“indignados” / “indignadas”), people occupied the public space (Sol Square in Madrid and Cataluña Square in Barcelona, among many other spaces all overSpanish cities and supported worldwide) to convey a message to their politicians days before the municipal elections of May the 22nd. The relation to Hessel’s analysis is not only found on the signs “Indignados/as”, but also in the one I
include here, referring to his sentence: “una minoría activa (...) será suficiente(…) para elevar la masa” (an active minority will be enough to raise the masses).
Figure 3. “Indignadas for a Real Democracy”. Outside the
Spanish Consulate, Sutter Street, San Francisco (May the 19th, 2011).

This movement recovered the historical memory of all the different
events leading us to the present-day economic crisis, and asked for “reinitiating the system,” playing with a computer language based metaphor. Smartslogans summarized all the different sensitivities joined in their protests. Many
used an expressive style, sometimes similar to a haiku or popular saying, very
effective in catching people’s attention by utilizing a combination of emotion
and reason (of data and interest), many of them even humour, irony and everyday life language (strategies we have talked about earlier).
Their concise and clear use of words helps people to understand theimportance of the topics discussed and to get involved in their proposals forchange. Learning, understanding and remembrance are fostered at thesame time, mostly through witness discourse. As far as all these posters areheld up by the people protesting themselves, they are the product of theirexperience and their personal, but collective, claimsmostly while theymarch, but also when they hang around the squares as people camp close
by. More importantly, they are memes that are addressing the real causesof the actual situation. And at the same time, they are proposing and foreshadowing alternatives (Reinsborough and Canning, 2010).

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Figure 4-6. 4. “Democracy: from the Greek  (‘people’) and  s (‘sovereignty’). Is that what we have now? It’s a joke, right? Let’s fight for a real democracy”.
2. “Democracy 1.0 Obsolete / Democracy 2.0 Installing” 3. “System error. Restart!”.

Part of the rhetorical efficacy of these discourses lies in the use of intertextual dialogue. Predominantly, as the reader can observe, with digital language,
the computer based world, part of the engine of this revolution itself, throughsocial networks and web 2.0. technology. An example can be found in the signature of the message below, referring to twitter rhetoric at the same time thatthe poetry of the quotation comes from a song by Javier Krae. These messages
establish a dialogue with mainstream media, as far as most of the protesters areyoung people trying to legitimize themselves in the public sphere against thestereotypes and construction that official media discourses have spread out.
Figure 7-8. 7. “I like you Democracy, but you’re kind of absent”. 8. “Without botellón9 we do not appear on television” (in Spanish, botellón and televisión rhyme).

At the same time, a very interesting instance of polyphony and dialogue
is counter advertising. The example included below transforms advertising(with private interests) into publicity (collective interests) using the private
message to foster debate and recover the public space:
9

Botellón does not have a literal translation into English. It is the slang for an informal
street gathering where young people meet to drink and socialize.

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Nonkilling Media

Figure 9-10. 9. “Sol, Madrid, 15th May 2011. From L’Oreal they construct“Democracia Real” (“Real Democracy”). 10. “Yes we Camp” sign.

The communication of the “Real Democracy Now” not only dialogues
with private campaigns, but also primarily with political ones (being presentday politics their main concern). One of the slogans most used has been anintertextual use of the “Yes we can” of the Obama “Hope” campaign.
They have also used other publicity elements recovering public spaces
such as the underground station (“Metro”). This action (“Plaza Solución” =“Solution Square”) foreshadows the search for solutions. It represents thenonviolent and effective intentions of the assemblies at the Madrid camps toreach real results finding solutions to violence caused by the war system.
Figure 11-14. 11. “Solution Sq.” 12. “Earning 600€ is violence”. 13. “Less bombs,
more smiles”. 14. “Neither side A nor side B. We want to change the record”.

All in all, these discourses also share the characteristic of being personal
but meaningful for the community, and one of the main formal traits thatreinforces this is their format, their “imperfect” (personal) design, not trying
to convince through the perfection of persuasive forms, but through words.
We cannot know right now whether these actions (communicative inthemselves) will have a cultural long-term efficacy through the achievementsof their specific demands, as they are still in movement. However, we can say
it has already reflected the way certain communicative actions evolve and af-

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fect determinate groups: how the mainstream media have reacted according
to the “political” and “economical” groups that support them; how this “privatized” media have radicalized their discourse on the 15M movement fostering fear in the society by the way they have represented them and their interests (though they have manifested themselves in every moment as a peacefuland nonviolent movement in itself). Very few of their real proposals have appeared on those media, but they have been widely widespread by social networks, keeping many collectives working together on the project. Most ofthese discourses reflect the fact that many of the proposals discussed by the
nonkilling paradigm are well known by this “indignated” movement. We caneven find the debate on such an important idea as memory, with which we
started and which provided a foundation for this chapter, as opposed to theselection of the news by the mainstream media (also mentioned in the example we included before of “Sin botellón no nos sacan en la televisión”).
Figure 15. “If we do not appear in newspapers, we will in history books”.

As Manuel Castells said at “Barcelona Camp” (#acampadabcn) on the 27thof May, 2011: “Vamos despacio porque vamos lejos” (“We go slow ‘cause we gofar”). The acceptance of these counter-cultural discourses and their transformative proposals will take time, but history has proved that working collectively and patiently can drive society to important changes (jumping in time:slavery abolition, women’s right to vote, anti-personnel mines ban, etc.).
Conclusions
As we have seen, not only explicit violence discourses (direct violence) but
also cultural violence (stereotypes, disinformation and distorted media images,
not only in the news, but also in all different cultural products and discourses,
even from civil society actors and NGOs) interfere in the change process to-

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Nonkilling Mediawards nonkilling cultures. Many cultural and social voices are silenced and discriminated. The serious challenge is achieving visibility and a cross-cutting andsustained presence of these kinds of messages in everyday life and in all the different spaces where culture, politics, legislation and economics are configured
and negotiated. From stories and their rhetoric we can influence people’s identity and engagement in social change (as hegemonic discourses in fact do).
For that, it is necessary to increase the number of new approaches tocommunication based on coherent and collective values through dialogue andinteraction so that through networking they become new social discourses thatlead into new sociocultural relations based on and sustained by a social consciousness for nonkilling societies and cultures. The 15M movement in Spain “asa reflection of many others” is part of this direction, finding in assemblies andsocial networks their local-global institutions for a democratic communication.
Therefore, we propose here to discuss, build together and incorporatea cross-cutting and steady process planned consistently from cultural efficacy strategies. All the ideas summarized here can serve as criteria in orderto evaluate the role of public discourses in the generation of a committed
and responsible global citizenship that articulates nonkilling cultures as partof an open communicative project that leads to political change.
Acknowledgment
This chapter relates to the research project funded by the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness CSO2012-34066 Evaluación e indicadores de sensibilidad
moral en la comunicación actual de los movimientos sociales.

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Notes From Nowhere (2003). We are everywhere. New York: Verso.
Pérez Tornero, J. M. (2000). Comunicación y educación en la sociedad de la información. Nuevos lenguajes y conciencia crítica. Barcelona: Paidós.
Pinazo, D. (2003). “Cambio de actitudes estable, comunicación social innecesaria” inBenet, V. J. and Nos Aldás, E., Eds., La publicidad en el tercer sector: tendencias yperspectivas de la comunicación solidaria. Barcelona: Icaria.
Pipet, L. (2000). La notion d’indicible dans la littérature des camps de mort. Paris:
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Postman, N. (1986). Amusing ourselves to death. Public discourse in the Age of Show
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Wolfsfeld, G. (2004). Media and the path to peace. New York: Cambridge University P.

Chapter Five

Catastrophe and Progressin Nonkilling Futures
Imag(in)ing Technology and the Cultural
Conditioning Zone of the Dream Society
John A. Sweeney
University of Hawai Ӂi

As the recent uprisings in the Middle East and North Africa suggest, thestruggle for equality and justice that underly nonkilling futures remains justthat—a simultaneously inspiring, for what might come to be, and frightening,
for what has been allowed to persist, image of a present whose inegalitarian
misgivings have come home to roost. While it might seem prudent and perhaps even necessary to focus one’s gaze firmly upon the tumult of the present
and the (presumed) future to follow, as Dator’s first Law of the Future suggests: “’the future’ cannot be ‘predicted’ because ‘the future’ does not exist.”
In radically de-temporalizing the future and consequently problematizing thepresent, Dator’s assertion strikes down the commonly-held, if not intuitive,
premise that tomorrow will look a whole lot like today, and this maxim
serves as a reminder that it was, if anything, a lack of foresight that bothmasked and encouraged the violent incursions within the Arab Awakening,
especially as archaic governance systems lashed out in response to dissidents
employing social mediation technologies, primarily Facebook, Twitter, etc.,that were beyond the control, at least initially, of the region’s provincial hegemons. As this tangible trend relates to the future, Dator’s suspension of thedefinite article, which affirms that there are indeed futures, presences a fragmentation on both spatial and temporal planes; thus, alternative futures exist
as identifiable, examinable, and experiential phenomena, even if only as imaginings in and of the present. Indeed, one can argue that it was such an imagining of the future(s) that led thousands of citizens to occupy peacefully Tahrir
Square in Egypt and other public spaces across the region in protest, and as
many continue to risk life and limb against their own governments, it is certainly the prospect of an as yet undetermined and alternative future(s) thatclearly inspires such resolve—an image that gives many outside these regions
hope that more equitable and just futures are being birthed.

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Nonkilling MediaIn the wake of these seemingly viral protests, the place and function oftechnology has ascended in importance among those seeking to situate thishistoric turn of events. In the parlance of Marshall McLuhan, was the medium the message? Did social media generate, metaphorically if not literally,social change? Technology as a driver of social and political change hascome to the fore through the events of the present, and the impact of mediation technologies require further examination and analysis. As such, it is
crucial to be clear about what is precisely meant by technology, and eventhough most deploy the term intuitively, it is necessary to instantiate a definition of how it is understood and contextualized for the purposes of thisproject. As used in this examination, technology refers to nothing less thanthe defining characteristic of what it means to be human—an attribute internal to the conditions of possibility for humanity to subsist. As Dator explains, “For good or ill (and it may be ill), humans become humans andchange the meaning of what it means to be human (i.e. change ‘human nature’) in large measure by interacting with themselves and their environment through their technologies. The technological-human relationship isthus symbiotic and not parasitical” (Dator 1983: 29). To be human is to engage intimately with the technological, but it is very much apparent that
present technologies have set humanity on a course toward the trans- andpost-human, even though it is already the case that cyborgs, and to a lesser
extent androids, walk among us. In negotiating the relationship between
technology and social change, it is obvious that this interrelation is causal,
but it is equally apparent that the link is inherently imaginative, which is tosay grounded in possibilities and potentialities. As the still unfolding eventsof the Arab Spring suggest, technologies inspire in as much as they transpire
images of the future, and it is this delicate balance between the two, which
is negotiated in the present, that requires clearer articulation.
Dator’s addendum to the first law, which calls for alternative futures tobe forecast, implies that one of, if not, the most crucial dimensions of futures research centers on the critical engagement of the myriad forms ofcultural production from various socio-cultural milieux of the past and present. One cannot begin to understand and/or forecast where things might
go without a firm grasp of where things are and/or were, and as we live inan age of seemingly ubiquitous mediation, which is particularly noticeable in
the U.S. where social media accounts for “one in every six minutes” spent
online, situating the function and role of media in its various forms is paramount (Lippman 2011). Wading through these ceaseless flows of information and media, futurists systematically and rigorously analyze and examine

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these imag(in)ings, as they are hybrids with equal parts imaging and imagining, to create new mediations for considering alternative futures—as such,imag(in)ing is used herein to denote the complex nature and function of theimage from the futurist’s perspective. Consequently, the influence of media
on the formation of these imag(in)ings of the futures is immeasurable, and if
there is one constant in contemporary imag(in)ings of the future and contemporary media, it is certainly killing and/or the threat of killing.
As Hall and Pilisuk contend, “In developed societies, unless we live in highviolence urban zones, our images of how violent humans are derive less fromwhat we witness directly and more from media depictions” (Hall and Pilisuk,2012: 128). As one of the more likely scapegoats as to why cycles of killing
persist in modern culture, media, especially in its popular forms, has become,for better or worse, a means by which one can gauge impressions and contentions as to what the future can and might hold. While violence and killing havebeen part and parcel of media from pre-agricultural to information societies,
film is unique in the way in which it provokes and stimulates the brain, perhaps
most dramatically through mirror neurons, since, as Gallese explains, “the observed action produces in the observer’s premotor cortex an activation pattern resembling that occurring when the observer actively executes the sameaction” (Gallese, 2001: 6). While the neuroscientific impact of film on the brain
is still being explored and cannot be presumed to be fully deterministic in understanding media’s role in perpetuating cycles of violence and killing, thepowerful affects of cinema offer extraordinarily rich resources for analyzing
and studying imag(in)ings of the future(s). As a decidedly mass form of art thatreflects an interpretative context and affective presence by which social, political, and economic issues are revealed and, at times, concealed, film grants onepurchase on facets of one’s experience that escape conscious sensation. As
Benjamin observes, “By close-ups of the things around us, by focusing on hidden details of familiar objects, by exploring common place milieus under theingenious guidance of the camera, the film, on the one hand, extends ourcomprehension of the necessities which rule our lives; on the other hand, it
manages to assure us of an immense and unexpected field of action” (Benjamin, 2005). For Benjamin, film offers a complete nexus between the macroand micro-dimensions of one’s experience of the world, but the ultimate
judgment as to what is seen (and unseen) rests with the spectator, and it isprecisely the “comprehension of the necessities which rule our lives” that ismost useful for situating film within nonkilling futures.
Beyond the limits of the viewer and within the conscious eye of thecamera there are deeper and more subtle phenomena whose value lies in124Nonkilling Media

its recalcitrant invisibility—it is precisely what the screen represents unintentionally or suggestively through an “unconscious optics” that has thegreatest weight in situating contemporary images of the future, and just as
the eyes perceive unconsciously, the ultimate task of the futurist is to see,hear, taste, smell, and touch things that escape sensation in the present(Benjamin, 2005). Uncovering and decoding this latent imagery, futurists
can, and ought to, mine the depths of filmic imag(in)ings in order to study
and engage contemporary images of the future(s) with particular attention
to those that are widely diffused as these mediations shape, even if indirectly, social and cultural conceptualizations of the potentiality for alternative futures, which is simply to say a tomorrow that might not look and feellike today. As method, filmic imag(in)ing considers the unconcealed imagingof cinema as an aesthetic form of sensory engagement, surveys the masked
imag(in)ings inherent within cinematic media and the subsequent internalization inherent to the viewer’s sensory experience on screen and in theworld, and situates the production of certain types and forms of filmic media at specific (and perhaps futures) historical moments, which positions
them within what Paige calls the “cultural conditioning zone” of the funnelof killing, which is a sort of cartography from the neuro-physiological influences through the actual act of killing (Evans Pim, 2002: 23).
Mapping the textures and flows of filmic imag(in)ings, futurists should
engage the distinctly micropolitical aspects of cinema as a means to distill
drivers and inhibitors to preferred future scenarios within the cultural conditioning zone, which encompasses “religions, political ‘isms,’ celebration oftriumphs and atrocities, family traditions, law, mass communications, andthe arts” (Evans Pim, 2002: 75). Engaging contemporary filmic imag(in)ings
of the future, this project reflects upon four popular films to flesh out theskeletal structure of alternative scenarios for post-information societies orwhat Rolf Jensen calls “The Dream Society” (Jensen). Jensen’s neologism refers to market conditions of capitalism within increasingly ubiquitous media
environments, and while it is clear that the global culture industry is hastilyadvancing toward this end, the Dream Society is less a form or type of specific media than a totality of mediation, which pairs nicely with DeBord’s“Society of the Spectacle.” For DeBord, and perhaps for Jensen, the institutionalization of mass communication foments “social relationship[s] between people that [are] mediated by images,” which when aggregated become an all-encompassing, yet amorphous, superstructure (DeBord, 1967:
4). Another prominent deployment of the Dream Society concept stems
from Dator and Yongseok’s analysis of the Republic of South Korea’s calcu-

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lated movement toward a “dream society of icons and aesthetic experience” (Dator and Yongseok). In their estimation, the Dream Society is one
where mediation technologies have become an equally, if not preferred,mode of experiencing reality, and narrative and aesthetic considerations arecentral to an individual’s conscious, material, and perhaps even spiritual
sense of being-in-the-world. The critical dimension among this constellationof ideations about the Dream Society hinges on the question of agency
within a technologically-driven and mediated body politic.
Although seeds of this future continue to germinate in the present, it isprecisely the unthinkable and unimaginable nature of technology within theDream Society that makes it useful for examining the cultural conditioningzones, or the spaces of social mediation, for nonkilling futures. For this project, the Dream Society is useful for exploring the micropolitical possibilities
and potentialities of nonkilling futures within scenarios of advanced technological development as a point of entry to the social conditions requisite fornonkilling future(s) to arise. Utilizing Children of Men (2006), Minority Report(2002), Inception (2010), and The Animatrix (2003), this projects surveys
contemporary imag(in)ings of the future through the Manoa School’s alternative scenarios modeling technique, which uses four generic images of the
future—collapse, disciplined, growth, and transformation. Explaining thefoundation for this division, Dator notes, “These four futures are “generic”
in the sense that varieties of specific images characteristic of them all sharecommon theoretical, methodological and data bases which distinguish themfrom the bases of the other three futures, and yet each generic form has amyriad of specific variations reflective of their common basis” (Dator, 2009:7). While the four futures are generally used to distill distinct alternative
scenarios, the Manoa School method is useful for elucidating disparate potentialities and possibilities while employing similar, if not the same, drivers
to define the parameters for a scenario, especially as the “four genericforms differ from each other fundamentally in cosmology, epistemology,
and often deontology, and are not variations on a common set of themes”(Dator, 2009: 7). Consequently, the four generic images of the future areused herein to map alternative imag(in)ings of the Dream Society with aneye toward probing the decidedly somatic and micropolitical dimensions oftechnology as a driver within nonkilling imag(in)ings of the future(s). Will
further technological development ameliorate or exacerbate the prospectof nonkilling futures? What technologies might forestall and/or inspire anonkilling future? Might the Dream Society portend a truly nonkilling future?

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Collapse: Playing Games with Children of Men
Dirty government hands out suicide kits and anti-depressants in
the rations but ganja is still illegal (Cuarón, 2006).

Alfonso Cuarón’s critically acclaimed 2006 film, Children of Men, takes
place in the highly militarized setting of England circa 2027 amidst a global social, economic, and political collapse. Loosely based on P.D. James’ 1992
novel, The Children of Men, the film’s main narrative follows the harrowing
events surrounding a miraculously pregnant woman, Kee, in a future where
humanity has lost the ability to reproduce and where the United Kingdom isthe world’s only remaining sovereign, yet highly militarized, state. Following
the death of the world’s youngest person, the 18-year old “Baby Diego,” andafter a near-fatal escape from a bombing at a coffee shop, Theo, the main
protagonist, gets ensnared by his former wife, Julian, to help deliver Kee tothe Human Project, a rogue international collective seeking to solve theworld’s infertility epidemic. While this “modern day nativity story” offers acritical imag(in)ing of a future in which nationalist interests foster rampant killing, the film appears to take an ambiguous stance on technology as an aid
and/or restraint to a (non)killing society, even though the film is put forth here
as a collapse alternative of the Dream Society (Stevens 2006). Closing with
Theo and Kee escaping peril at a refugee camp and making contact with the
Human Project, the film’s happy ending is tempered by the micropoliticalimag(in)ing of a highly segregated society where even the threat of no future,generationally speaking, is still not enough of a motivator to inhibit killing.
While there is much that can and might be drawn from the film’s imag(in)ingof the future, the most useful scene for exploring the question and place oftechnology in relation to a nonkilling future derives from a scene where Theo
visits his cousin, Nigel, who works as a minister in the government and who
helps Theo secure transit papers himself and Kee. As Theo and Nigel converse over a lavish meal, they are joined by the latter’s young-adult son, Alex,
who is entranced by an interactive video game, which appears as a sort of virtual rubic’s cube that he controls through a device that rests next to what appears to be an identification bracelet worn on his right wrist.
While Alex, who sports various prominent tattoos and some scarring on
his right cheek as artifacts of a troubled youth, frantically clicks his fingers
and motions his hand as part of the game, the camera shows him ignoring his
dinner and never breaking eye contact with the game’s display, which makes
his presence at the dinner table spurious. During a pause in the conversation
between Nigel and Theo, his father repeatedly whispers to Alex, whose ar-Catastrophe and Progess in Nonkilling Futures

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gyle sweater and tame hair acts as a thin veneer masking his checkered past,that it is time to take his pills, but his son’s lack of response drives his father toscream his name wildly, which jolts Theo from his glass of wine. As one of themost dynamic scenes in the film, Alex’s seemingly narcotic fixation with his
personal gaming device offers an imag(in)ing of how immersive gaming technologies, which have recently become fashionable as a site for exploring
how virtual problem-solving might translate into tackling real-life challenges,
factor into nonkilling futures, and this scene is best read alongside some recent literature concerning gaming technologies and the prospect of creatinga preferred, which is also to say nonkilling, future.
Caption 1 and 2. Children of Men directed by Alfonso Cuarón(courtesy of Universal Pictures)

In 2011, Jane McGonigal released Reality of Broken: Why Games Make Us
Better and How They Can Change the World to great fanfare and widespreadpraise. As a sort of prophet for the positive dimensions of video games,
McGonigal proclaims, “Compared with games, reality is pointless and unrewarding. Games help us feel more rewarded for making our best effort”(McGonigal, 2011). For McGonigal, the negatives aspects of contemporary

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gaming, especially pro-killing first-person shooter platforms and the harmful
effects of playing over twenty hours per week, are secondary to the positives,
particularly the interactive and collaborative components imbued within thecommunity and team-building skills requisite to massive multiplayer online
gaming environments. Indeed, McGonigal willfully overlooks the pro-killingethos endemic to much of contemporary, and likely future, gaming, but when
she does engage the “shoot first and ask questions later” gaming paradigm, it
is only as a means to extract her perspective on the underlying social dynamic
driving such gameplay. She observes, “While the 10 billion kill milestone was asignificant community achievement, Halo players have actually spent moretime working on two other epic projects—both collaborative knowledge projects” (McGonigal, 2011). As one of the world’s most popular and widelyplayed video games, Halo, which grosses billions in related merchandising
revenue, is a perfect example of the types of economies that underly gaming
as a global multi-billion dollar industry now and perhaps in the future(s), andthe creation and maintenance of “epic projects” centered on the game are
but an extension of the transnational industry marketing for a game that hosts
more “active personnel [than] all twenty-five of the largest armed forces in
the real world, combined” (McGonigal, 2011).
McGonigal’s gleeful complicity with this type of economy offers a lensfrom which to situate Alex as an emissary of a future where gaming has
overtaken reality, which is also to say that the transnational corporations
creating and producing games have taken over reality. In this imag(in)ing of
the Dream Society, one’s very sense of self is intimately tied to the way inwhich one is able to navigate the predefined and prescribed challenges ofvirtuality, and as with past and present gaming interfaces as a guide, one candraw on an infinite number of lives, which trivializes killing and positions theact of killing and dying as necessary evils or mere hurdles to the ultimate
goal of mission completion and victory. Furthermore, an individual in this
scenario prefers, if not presumes, that reality should mirror one’s preferred
gaming environment, and this link, which has dire consequences for a nonkilling future, has become trendy among gaming enthusiasts, of which McGonigal speaks the loudest. Explaining her experience as a lead designer at Entertainment 42 working on the popular first-person shooter game, Gun,
which takes place in the American Wild West of the 1880s, McGonigal recounts her work on an alternate reality campaign as part of the marketingfor the game. She explains, “In a world where video gamers are much maligned for being desensitized to violence, it struck me as a particularly provocative idea to send gamers to the real-world graves of characters they had

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killed in Gun” (McGonigal, 2011). When positioned alongside recent studies(Anderson and Dill, 2000; Funk, 2004; Carnagey, Anderson, and Bushman,2007) that have found a tangible desensitization to violence and decrease inempathy after playing pro-killing video games, McGonigal’s “provocativeidea” in concert with Alex’s presence at the dinner scene points toward themisplaced valorization of gaming technology as a potential savior, even if
only virtually, to real-world challenges, especially the potentiality of nonkilling futures. There seems to be as much novelty in asking players to attend
an Italian dinner following a marathon Super Mario Brothers gaming session,and the logic by which this type of media, and its underlying economies,
have been glossed over is obviously problematic.
Noting the ubiquity of gaming worldwide, Elkington reports, “In the US,
there are over 180 million active gamers, each playing over 13 hours aweek on average. Wrap in console and mobile phone games and there are
more than 4 million gamers in the Middle East, 10 million in Russia, 105 million in India, 10 million in Vietnam, 100 million in Europe and 200 million in
China” (Elkington, 2011). As gaming, and the mindset accompanying it, continues to spread across the globe, it is certainly possible, though not probable, that immersive entertainment technologies could usher in a nonkilling
future, but McGonigal’s optimism definitely seems misplaced. Responding toa direct query about the social components of gaming, she explains,“There’s a ton of research that shows playing games with people actually
improves relationships with them. You feel more positive about them, youtrust them more, and you have a better sense of their strengths and weaknesses, so you’re better able to work and collaborate with them in the future” (Bensen, 2011). While her comments give voice to the social bonds ofgaming, the link she draws between potential future collaborations is, atbest, specious, especially if the nature of one’s involvement centers solely
on the eradication of zombie Nazis or the retrieval of magical elements to
use in virtual combat. This latter aspect, which affirms the materialist critique of contemporary video games, recently came to the fore as reports
surfaced from China that prison guards were forcing inmates to mine “virtual gold” as they realized that more money could be made through gaming
than by having the prisoners perform manual labor (Nosowitz, 2011). In thecultural conditioning zone of a collapse version of the Dream Society, gaming might just become an opiate-like technology whose regulation and administration portends dire social consequences upon human agency, including further desensitization to killing.

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Disciplined: Eye Spy a Minority Report
It’s like my daddy used to say: In the land of the blind, the oneeyed man is king (Spielberg, 2002).

Steven Spielberg’s 2002 film, Minority Report, received exceptional reviews
upon release, and some critics even went so far as to say that the awardwinning director was “back” in light of his less than well-received efforts of the
1990’s. Interestingly, but perhaps not surprisingly, Jensen identifies Spielberg,“the great storyteller of the silver screen, as the closest we now have to a
Dream Society icon” (Jensen, 2001: 121). Popular with futurists, especially as
the director “convened a think tank of experts for a 3-day brainstorming session
to help envision a future half a century hence,” and the general public for its
portrayal of Washington, D.C. circa 2054 as a high-tech and nonkilling, at theoutset of the film at least, society—one that most closely resembles contemporary imag(in)ings of the Dream Society—the film follows the personal and professional struggles of John Anderton, whose fall from grace as the chief of precrime sets off a chain of events that eventually brings the entire precrime system, which is on the precipice of going national, to a halt (Wright, 2008: 482).
While Minority Report offers the only genuine nonkilling image of the future among the selected films for this project, it is included here as a disciplined imag(in)ing of the Dream Society since, as Shapiro notes, “Spielberg’s
Minority Report plays out the tension between the machines of capture andthe micropolitics of escape” (Shapiro, 2005: 29). As Anderton unravels themystery behind his (pre)crime—a murder for which he has been deemed
guilty but which he has not actually committed—he retreats into the subterranean haunts and black marketplaces that underly the futuristic cityscape—some of which he is already familiar with due to an illegal drug
habit. In order to abscond from the exacting gaze of ubiquitous monitoring
devices, which are mostly advertisements attuned to one’s unique retinal
signature that the police can use to track one’s movement, Anderton undergoes a complete eye transplant, which coalesces the film’s micropoliticalimag(in)ing of nonkilling as an affect of perception, even if only by theprecognitives, who foresee crimes before they are enacted and have become the society’s primary crime deterrent. To be a criminal in this scenario is to see and be seen by the monitoring agencies that regulate actionsin the present and the future—used here in the singular as the “precogs”
imply more than a modicum of metaphysical determinism.

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Caption 3 and 4. Minority Report directed by Steven Spielberg(courtesy of DreamWorks Pictures)

Although the many and varied technologies at the disposal of the formidable precrime unit, including the retinal-scanning “spiders” that use electric
shocks to subdue assailants, inevitably lead to Anderton’s capture, the film’scounter-balanced take on technologies, particularly those that can and might
be used to foster a nonkilling society, including nonlethal weapons, offers aunique purview from which to examine the potentiality for surveillance technologies to be used within a nonkilling future. Losing sight in one of his neweyes after lifting his bandage too early to elude capture, Anderton loses oneof his original eyes, which he carries around in a plastic bag, when he tries togain access to precrime headquarters. Although this scene provides a moment of comic relief as Anderton is shown chasing his own eyeball as it rolls
down the hallway and into a grate in the floor as one might lose a set of keys,
the micropolitical relevance of this scene centers on “how human fallibility
can undermine even the most advanced security,” especially as Anderton isable to use his remaining original eye to gain access to an underground entrance to the secure holding area for the precogs (Wright, 2008: 45). In thisrendering of the Dream Society, extraordinary surveillance and security technology is beset by its fundamental humanity, and one might imagine an immense bureaucracy built around such mundane tasks as updating security
protocols for subsurface points of entry to precrime headquarters, even and132

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perhaps especially for former police chiefs who have recently become thecity’s top criminal suspect. While this scene can certainly be taken as a weakplot point in the film, it cements the film’s imag(in)ing of technology as being
simultaneously ever-present and yet, at times failingly, indiscernible—a continuous reminder of a society whose false security acts as a facade that can beeasily breached by agents whose field of vision is unencumbered by the hypocrisy of its own law, which allows criminals to be prosecuted and judged
prior to committing the crimes for which they are charged.
Outlining the specific operations underlying intuitive to this imag(in)ingof the Dream Society and its emergence as a form of “Intelligent government,” Bullinga (2004: 32) argues:
In the years ahead, technology will provide government and society at large
with tools for a safer world and for automatic law enforcement. Permits andlicenses will be embedded in smart cars, trains, buildings, doors, and devices.
Laws will automatically download and distribute themselves into objects in
our physical environment, and everything will regularly be updated, just as
software is now automatically updated in your desktop computer. Innovations in government will enable us to have a safer environment for lawabiding citizens because built-in intelligence in our environment will minimize
fraud, global crime, pandemic diseases, accidents, and disasters. Law-abiding
citizens will gain privacy, while criminals will lose it.

Describing many of the experiential facets apparent within Minority Report,
which actually came out two years before his article, Bullinga’s formulation
presumes a degree of fluidity and effortlessness with regard to anti-crime andnonkilling technologies that the film does not, and as anyone who has encountered difficulties updating software on a personal computer, to use Bullinga’s
analogy, can attest, such technologies are often not as simple and seamless as
one might imagine. Furthermore, he asserts that citizens within this society
will gain additional privacy by making their specific results anonymous andgranting them more control over the environment around them. As this plays
out in the film, it becomes evident that for each and every instrument of control, there exists an equal and opposite counter-measure that effectively negates the intended impact of the surveillance technologies.
However, Minority Report makes it abundantly clear that even in a society
without killing, as in the beginning of the film, criminal elements conspire andeven thrive by making certain sacrifices, such as, perhaps not surprisingly, life
without sight. Correspondingly, Bullinga proclaims, “No technology will bevisible. The intelligent environment is about living and being comfortable andCatastrophe and Progess in Nonkilling Futures

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having a nice time and relaxing and resting. The technology is embedded”(Bullinga 2004, 36). The invisibility of the technology is precisely what makes it
so dramatically visible through the subtle, yet exacting, ways in which it manages the spatial flows of bodies and, as the film suggests, thoughts through thepotentiality of precognitive crime surveillance, which has emerged as an issue
in the present. As reported across mainstream media outlets, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security is currently lab-testing Future Attribute
Screening Technology (FAST) for possible use in airports and other critical infrastructure locales to combat terrorism. Dubbed an homage to Minority Report, which Shapiro actually regards as a “notable ideational challenge to thestate’s surveillance practices,” FAST centers on one’s mental aptitude toward
promulgating a “disruptive act” through various neural sensing technologies(Shapiro, 2005: 29). Ultimately, this announcement portends a clear intent todevelop the requisite surveillance technologies to manufacture a nonkilling society, even if the mere apperception that such technologies, which “measures avariety of physiological indicators, ranging from heart rate to the steadiness of aperson’s gaze, to judge a subject’s state of mind” exist and are under development for use (Weinberger, 2011). In this future, surveillance technologies willknow more about one’s innermost thoughts and feelings than perhaps one’s selfeven knows, and it is clear that what is primarily embedded about these technologies is a sense of complete fear that one’s thoughts are no longer private.
As it relates to the film, the opening scene introduces one to the workings ofprecrime through a red ball, which is the code for a murder that is not premeditated and thus barely within reach of the precogs’ awareness, which further extends the film’s argument that any technological effort to secure anonkilling society will inevitably produce a small, albeit manageable, degree ofchance, whose variability rests with the imperfection of humanity—one of thefilm’s main themes—even within a seemingly secure and perfect environ.
As an introduction to the human side of precrime’s chief, Anderton isshown running through a less-then-friendly neighborhood on a rainy night.
While a national advertisement for precrime displays across the sides of buildings and underneath overpasses, Anderton is nearly indistinguishable as a copwith a hood pulled low over his head, and the emptiness of the streets implies
that there is no crime to perceive anyway. Although one gets the sense that
Anderton is simply blowing off some steam, it quickly becomes evident that hisroute is not chance as he answers the call of a dealer waiting to supply him
with his drug of choice. As the two trade pleasantries during the exchange, thedealer catches Anderton off guard by quipping, “sweet dreams, chief,” which
demonstrates that even outside of the city’s surveillance systems, someone is134Nonkilling Media

always watching. Reassuring Anderton that he is not interested in turning him
in, the drug dealer brazenly leans forward to take off his sunglasses revealingthat he has no eyes and proclaims, “It’s like my daddy used to say: In the landof the blind, the one-eyed man is king” (Spielberg, 2002).
Coalescing the film’s take on technology’s ability to deter (pre)crime, particularly killing, this scene rebukes Bullinga’s contention that the intelligent environment can and might provide complete solace and safety through surveillance, which has again become an emerging issue as it has recently been reported that popular smart phones, such as Apple’s iphone and Google’s Android line, secretly create files that “contains the latitude and longitude of thephone’s recorded coordinates along with a timestamp,” which is clearly only aproblem if one does not want any corporate or governmental agency—as thelatter could supeona such information—to have access to such detailed personal information (Arthur, 2011). In the context of a disciplined Dream Society, technological observation becomes tantamount to the obfuscation of
one’s private life in the name of safety and security, even though the film
makes it abundantly clear that such measures are not completely effective.
Whether one is seeing and being seen by retinal scanner or eye-less drug
dealers, the cultural conditioning zone of this imag(in)ing of the Dream Society contends that agency centers on one’s participation within an allencompassing game of eye spy.
Growth: Merrily, merrily, merrily...life is but a dream in Inception
Do they come here everyday to sleep?
No, they come to be woken up. The dream has become theirreality. Who are you to say otherwise? (Nolan, 2010).

Christopher Nolan’s ascent in Hollywood over the last decade is a direct result of his expansive and critically-acclaimed oeuvre, including Memento (2000), Insomnia (2002), and his widely popular reboot of the Batman franchise, particularly The Dark Knight (2008). If Spielberg is, as Jensen
contends, the closest we have to a Dream Society icon, then Nolan is moreakin to a Dream Society prophet as the grandeur and immersive nature of
his work often elicits comparisons between the two auteurs. After nearly adecade of planning and development, Nolan released Inception (2010),
which became one of the highest grossing films of all time as well as a recipient of numerous Academy Award nominations, including Best Picture
and Best Original Screenplay. Exploring the impact of a dynamic technology,
predominantly within the arena of corporate espionage and by extension

Catastrophe and Progess in Nonkilling Futures135

the global economic system, the film follows the story of Dom Cobb, amasterful thief who steals knowledge and ideas from his victim’s unconscious minds while they inhabit delicately-crafted lucid dreams. As the technology was created initially by the military to allow soldiers to simulate
combat, which is to say killing, the film makes no mention of how the technology was made available to the public, but it does make it abundantly
clear that it has become tremendously popular and even a substitute for reality to some, especially as one can create anything one can imagine and dying simply causes one to wake up, most of the time.
Caption 5. Inception directed by Christopher Nolan(courtesy of Warner Bros. Pictures)

As an embodiment of the creatively aesthetic dimensions of a growthparadigm for the Dream Society, Inception’s imag(in)ing of technology offers alens from which to situate the potential neurological impact of a future inwhich the blending between dreaming and reality have become seemingly indistinguishable. This trope, which forms the existential crux of the film, offers
a complex imag(in)ing of the frailties of the human brain, especially when positioned alongside recent investigations on the impact of image-rich advertising on memory and the Internet on the functionality of human perception,
which have a bearing, even if indirectly, on the cultural conditioning zone ofthis imag(in)ing of the Dream Society. As someone who spends an inordinate
amount of time within lucid dreams, Cobb has lost the ability to dream whensleeping normally, and the film chronicles his struggle to distinguish between
waking and dreaming life. To overcome his ailment, he utilizes a totem, which
for him is a child’s spinning top, that only he has access to so as to know if heis awake or asleep, since the top will spin interminably while dreaming and136

Nonkilling Mediafeels differently when he is awake. However, the top also symbolizes Cobb’s
deceased wife, Mol, who haunts his unconscious mind as a projection andsubsequently appears while he is dreaming, often as a subversive figure who
disrupts his jobs so as to have him all to herself.
The totem, then, reminds one of the plasticity of the brain with regards
to its ability to be influenced by mediation technologies, especially thosethat can and might produce false memories, as is the case when consumers
develop “false beliefs about having experienced a brand” that “arise[s] on
exposure to high-imagery advertising” (Rajagopal and Montgomery, 2011).
In this future, as with Cobb’s subconscious mind, one delicately balances
the ubiquitous imagery of one’s own mind with the dream-like imag(in)ings
of an economy requiring incessant consumption as a means to sustain production. In a growth scenario of the Dream Society, all consumers have
Cobb’s affliction, and just as with the film, the planting and stealing of ideas
and knowledge becomes the essential marketplace for a post-informationsociety where perceptions and affects, even if false, are of the greatest significance. As this specifically relates to nonkilling, it is clear that various entities
will go to great lengths to cover over the harmful impacts of their products
and services so as to maintain the appropriate public perception and appearance. As this model is continued growth, which intimately links it with thepresent, this trend is apparent within the rise of Apple, which recently surpassed Microsoft as the most profitable computer company in the world and,for a brief time, eclipsed ExxonMobil as “the most valuable company in theU.S.” (Ortulay, 2011) and whose brand identity is so strong that MRI results
showed that Apple devotees’ brand allegiance “was actually stimulating thesame parts of the brain as religious imagery does in people of faith” (Riley
and Boome, 2011). Although a complete analysis of the ways in which various religions have supported cycles of killing falls outside the scope of this
scenario, it is obvious that the totem takes on a decidedly spiritual purposein the film as the only means by which Cobb can keep from losing himself
within his dreams and the darkness of his unconscious mind.
As Cobb and his team take on the arduous task of planting an idea into
their victim, which is known as inception, they seek out a chemist who canprovide them with the requisite compounds to provide a deep enoughslumber to complete the job, which involves many levels of dreaming—
dreams within dreams. While connected to the dream machine, which allows one to inhabit dreams communally, one will be awakened if killed
unless they are under the influence of a powerful chemical agent, then they
are exiled into the unconscious abyss of the last dreamer to fall into thisCatastrophe and Progess in Nonkilling Futures

137

state. As Cobb confesses to one of his colleagues that he performed inception on Mol, who did not want to leave the comfort and creative power ofthe lucid dream-state, he intimates the timelessness of unconscious lucid
dreaming, which allowed him to build an entire world over 50 years
trapped with his wife in his subconscious. Mol’s codependent, and ultimately fatal, experience with Inception’s dream technology is foreshadowed
by a scene in which Cobb’s team meets Yusuf, the chemist who concocts
the sedative necessary for multi-layer dreaming and runs a dream-farmwhere people pay to come and dream for three to four hours at a time,
which they experience as 40 hours of lucid dreamtime.
Caption 6. Inception directed by Christopher Nolan(courtesy of Warner Bros. Pictures)

Cobb and his team are clearly awe struck by the sight of the twelve
dreamers, even though they are equally impressed by Yusuf’s work. Whenone of Cobb’s colleagues casually queries, “Do they come here everyday tosleep?”, the old man who watches over Yusuf’s clients responds, “No, theycome to be woken up. The dream has become their reality. Who are you
to say otherwise?” (Nolan, 2010). Encapsulating the film’s take on technology as a force of social change, often with severe consequences, this scene
contextualizes the popular contemporary argument that “our brains are always in flux, adapting to even small shifts in our circumstances and behavior,” which is often used to undergird the claim that the impact of Internet
technologies are a-moral (Carr, 2010: 31). From this perspective, the postulate that our brains are fundamentally plastic does little to situate the motives and intent of the (political and economic) forces whose high-imagery

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mediation enacts change, and, perhaps most importantly, if such alterations
contribute toward a more egalitarian and secure, which is also to say nonkilling, future. Employing a religious metaphor for the fragmentary nature ofexistence within the nascent Dream Society, Nicholas Carr explains in The
Shallows: What the Internet Is Doing to Our Brains that “the Net reroutes ourvital paths and diminishes our capacity for contemplation” by, in Heideggerian terms, “welcoming the frenziedness [of technology] into our souls(Carr 2010). In the cultural conditioning zone of this imag(in)ing of theDream Society, agency is an exercise in salvaging the vestiges of our imperfect humanity, whose ultimate end might become saving itself from thinking
that life, even if merrily, is perpetually dreamlike.
Transformation: For a time it was good in The Animatrix
Then man made the machine...in his own likeness. Thus did man
become the architect of his own demise (Maeda 2003).

As part of the Wachowski Brothers’ immensely popular Matrix trilogy offilms, The Animatrix is a composite of animated shorts that gives some background on The Matrix, which chronicles the rise of Neo (Keanu Reeves) as“the one” who is prophesied to end the apocalyptic war with the relentlessmachines. While many of the shorts in The Animatrix are ripe for analysis, parts
I and II of “The Second Renaissance” are useful for situating technological development, particularly sentient and robotic machines commonly referred toas AI (artificial intelligence), within the cultural conditioning zone of a transformational imag(in)ing of the Dream Society. Furthermore, these two shorts
illuminate the social and economic conditions underlying a truly transformational Dream Society as is evidenced within the complex imag(in)ing of the relationship between humans and technology, or “the machines,” who challenge directly humanity’s monopoly on agency. Capturing the differences between The Animatrix and the trilogy succinctly, Silvio notes, “Quite simply,
whereas The Matrix casts the conflict between humanity and technology
mostly in terms of good versus evil, The Animatrix presents the struggle as being marked by moral ambiguity and ethical complexity” (Silvio, 2006: 121).
Embodying a vastly different ethos from the trilogy of films, the initial scene of
the Second Renaissance depicts the trial of B166ER, who fatally turns on his
owners, and consciously re-frames the moral high-ground claimed by the machines alongside historical struggles for equality from marginalized groups during the 20th century, particularly the Civil Rights’ Movement. For the machines, the trial of B166ER is a “Rosa Parks” moment—one that coalesces theCatastrophe and Progess in Nonkilling Futures

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rising tension between humanity and the artificial intelligence of the machines,
who seek equality and protection under the law.
Caption 7. The Second Renaissance directed by Mahiro Maeda(courtesy of Warner Home Video)

At his trial, B166ER’s argues that his decision to kill his owners was selfdefense as they were going to destroy him as they would with any otherpossession. In response to a guilty verdict that includes the eradication of “allof his kind,” the machines take to the streets in a “million machine march” toexpress their solidarity and dissent, but the past repeats itself as governmental
forces enact a calculated and open genocide upon the machines (Maeda
2003). From this point forward, the two shorts chronicle the war between
humanity and the machines, which eventually leads to the formation of the
Matrix—whose locus centers on the extraction of energy from the ambient
heat produced by the human body. Although humanity survives its war withthe machines, the symbiotic relation between humanity and technology,
which is now exemplified by the superiority of the machines, has been
turned on its head: the relation between humanity and technology continues to redefine and change the nature of what it means to be human, although humanity is no longer the primary entity fashioning the definition.
Although the focus of “The Second Renaissance I & II” centers on the
how and the why with regards to the impetus for the Matrix, the repetitionof explicit and implicit religious imagery throughout both shorts situates thespiritual ramifications of technology in this imag(in)ing of the Dream Society
while providing a lens with which to view the economic conditions underlying the cultural conditioning zone. As Buddhists receive blessings frommonks before combat, Christians listen to an evangelist urging them to put
on “spiritual armor,” and Muslims pray at sunrise before fighting against themachines, one gets the eerie impression that a greater evil was necessary tocreate solidarity among humanity, which has often used religion to perpetu-

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Nonkilling Mediaate cycles of violence and killing. Reading this phenomena as a direct consequence of its intimate relation with technology, it becomes easier to articulate
the impact of technology, especially artificial intelligence, with regard to the
distinctly human constructs, particularly religion, inhabiting the cultural conditioning zone of the Dream Society and nonkilling futures. In this future, technology has usurped traditional religion and other human constructs as theprimary force of division to the point where the disassociation of the machines from what it means to be human—apparent in the advent of truly independent artificial intelligence—signals a break within the symbiosis between
humanity and technology. It is this systemic rupture that allows for a radical
restructuring whereby humanity has lost the capacity to define itself withregards to its relationship with technology, which is depicted as bringing
about, in decidedly Judeo-Christian terms, a new Fall of Man, so to speak.
As the machines seek solace apart from humanity, they build a mega-city,
called Zero One, in the former “cradle of human civilization” (Maeda, 2003).
With superior intelligence and the creation of more advanced AI, the machines begin to dominate the global economic system, which eventually leads
to an emergency United Nations (U.N.) summit where the machines peacefully plead their case for inclusion. The meteoric rise of Zero One contextualizes the economy underlying a truly transformational alternative of the Dream
Society, and humanity resorts to military action, in the form of a blockade, asa means to subvert the machines’ hegemony. The assertion that an economy
based on technological development is best managed by technological development itself has roots at present within high-frequency trading (HFT), which
is mostly performed by complex algorithms that “compete by making thousands of trades a minute to maximize profit,” and has led to the exponential
development of bandwidth infrastructure, including the creation of a “Chicago-New York cable will shave about 3 milliseconds off … communicationtime” (McCabe, 2010). The ability to manage time with such precision for the
express purpose of economic gain is paramount within a scenario where reliance upon technology for distributing and producing wealth is absolute, and itis this ultimate end that sets humanity on the path toward a complete redefinition of its relation with technology, which becomes the predominant agentof change, for better or worse, into the future.
As the ambassadors from Zero One seek reconciliation and the establishment of a “stable, civil relationship” with humanity, which is evidenced inpart by the gift of an apple, they are mobbed by angry leaders who see their
dominion as an affront to the very nature of what it means to be human.
While they are violently taken out of the chamber, the narrator solemnly

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notes, “But this would not be the last time the machines would take thefloor there” (Maeda, 2003).
Caption 8. The Second Renaissance directed by Mahiro Maeda(courtesy of Warner Home Video)

As the narrator continues to explain that their admission to the U.N.
was denied, the apple falls and as the back ground fades to black, it mutates
into a brain that develops a nervous system and finally a human form that
becomes surrounded by darkness. This stark transformation speaks to theinevitable inversion of the symbiosis between humanity and technology
within this imag(in)ing of the Dream Society, and the transformational ascendency of technology, or the machines, along moral and spiritual lines incomparison to humanity—indeed, the machines’ economic superiority is amere addendum to their overt righteousness.
As the machines represent technology completely unfettered from human imperfection, they harken back to the theoretical development of theTuring Machine and the origins of complex algorithms for computation,
whose architect spoke about their creation with religious zeal. In The Religion of Technology: The Divinity of Man and the Spirit of Invention, David F.
Noble notes, “In designing such machines, as in conceiving children, Turingobserved, ‘we are … instruments of His will providing mansions for thesouls He creates’” (Noble, 1997: 152). Compounding the imag(in)e of theapple, Turing’s tragic suicide, which was carried out by lacing an apple withcyanide as it was discovered half-eaten next to his body, speaks to anotherinfamous usage of this fruit—Apple’s logo, which some think might be an
homage of sorts to Turing or an allusion to the Tree of Knowledge of Goodand Evil in the Book of Genesis. The convergence of the apple metaphor
cements the contention that in this imag(in)ing of the Dream Society technology takes on the properties of ultimate knowledge and functions to provide humanity with some context for its relationship with a truly higher

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power—the machines. Echoing Kurzweil’s Singularity contention that “Machines, derived from human thinking and surpassing humans in their capacity for experience, will claim to be conscious, and thus to be spiritual,” theuse of the apple in this scene speaks to humanity’s wanton lust for selfactualization, even at the cost of its own humanity, in this transformational
imag(in)ing of the Dream Society (Kurzweil 1999, 153). Outlining the rootsof this scenario and the troubling social conditions endemic to cultural conditioning zone of this imag(in)ing of the Dream Society, Noble writes:
A thousand years in the making, the religion of technology has become thecommon enchantment, not only of the designers of technology but also
those caught up in, and undone by, their godly designs. The expectation ofultimate salvation through technology, whatever the immediate humanand social costs, has become the unspoken orthodoxy, reinforced by amarket-induced enthusiasm for novelty sanctioned by a millenarian yearning for new beginnings. This popular faith, subliminally indulged and intensified by corporate, government, and media pitchmen, inspires an awed
deference to the practitioners and their promises of deliverance while diverting attention from more urgent concerns (Noble, 1997: 207).

This movement is most apparent in recent efforts to advance AI towardand beyond human capacity, and “IBM has unveiled new experimental
brain-inspired chips that are able to learn based on experience” (Callow,2011). With human-like learning capabilities that mimics “spiking neurons
and synapses in biological systems,” this technology, especially when positioned alongside Kurzweil’s contention and the machines of The Animatrix,
raises a fundamental question as to the nature of intelligence, consciousness, and spirituality and how the advent of AI might impact nonkilling futures. For the purposes of this scenario, the sentient technologies of The
Animatrix are best viewed as machines of loving grace, who appear to show
Christ-like agape, so to speak, toward their human counterparts by eventually imparting a gift of salvation (the Matrix) and, perhaps most importantly,
an opportunity for the cessation of hostilities, even though a cabal of dissidents continues to wage war against the machines.
As humanity embarked upon a plan to slow the machines’ growing power,
they sought to attack their primary energy source—the sun. Enacting “Operation Dark Storm” as a means to geo-engineer the planet to displace all solar energy, humanity ultimately creates the conditions of possibility whereby
the machines take the reigns of their symbiotic relation. While it seems difficult to imag(in)e humanity displaying the technological capacity to complete

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such a feat while still lacking the requisite humility to accept the machines as
equals, this scene affirms the decidedly spiritual interconnection between
humanity and technology, especially as the camera pans out to show the earth
being engulfed in black smoke as the narrator intimates, “may there be mercy
on man and machine for their sins” (Maeda, 2003).
Caption 9 and 10. The Second Renaissance directed by Mahiro Maeda(courtesy of Warner Home Video)

As the machines begin to experiment upon the bodies of those captured
in combat to exploit the human production of energy, the results inexorably
lead to the creation of an alternate virtual reality for humanity—a technologically-driven afterlife of sorts. As the new ambassador for the machines stands
brazenly at the podium of the U.N., it holds an apple in one of its many hands
and declares, “Your flesh is irrelevant, a mere vessel” (Maeda, 2003). Afterputting down the apple to sign via barcode what appears to be a treaty as
humanity’s leaders watch forlorn, the machine continues, “Hand over yourflesh, and a new world awaits you. We demand it” (Maeda, 2003).
This final return of the apple, which is now completely virtual, coalesces
the codependence upon technology in the cultural conditioning zone of thisimag(in)ing of the Dream Society, and in this future, “a newly refashioned
symbiotic relation between the two adversaries [is] born: the machinedrawing power from the human body—an endlessly multiplying, infinitely
renewable energy source” (Maeda, 2003). Whereas the first Renaissance144

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ushered in a period of extended study and engagement with humanism andthe classics of antiquity, the Second Renaissance, on the other hand, challenges the decidedly human limits of technology and signals a complete
transformation of agency, which, for a time, was good.
Concluding Imag(in)ings
No example of a nonkilling society is known in history;
it is simply unthinkable (Paige, 2009: 33).

As Paige makes clear in Nonkilling Global Political Science, “life in a nonkilling society is characterized by no killing of humans and no threats to kill, neither technologies nor justifications for killing, and no social conditions that
depend upon threat or use of lethal force” (Paige, 2009: 22). A few pages after this weighty contention, Paige outlines some of the objectionable responses—the most ardent of which prefaces this conclusion—he heard overmany years as a university professor teaching courses on and researching theparameters for a nonkilling society. While the lack of a historical model would
seem at the outset to be a debilitating inhibitor to the creation of nonkilling
futures, it is the precisely the unthinkable nature of such a feat that makes it
relevant from a futurists’ perspective. As Dator’s Second Law of the Futurecontends, “Any useful idea about the future should appear ridiculous.” Another equally unthinkable ideation with regards to the future emanates fromthe four filmic imag(in)ings of technology of the Dream Society, especially as
the threads of each can be found in the present, even if only as imag(in)ings.
This is not to say that the Dream Society, in any of its forms including thosepresented herein, is a most likely or even a preferred future, quite the contrary; the unassailable hegemony of further technological development, explicitly as a marker of social and economic well-being in the present, positions
the Dream Society construct at the very heart of the cultural conditioningzone that has come to dominate the incestuous mechanisms of capitalistic
ideology that drive the contemporary conditions of possibility for nonkilling
futures. Although remarking on the scientific, Virilio captures this sentimentsuccinctly, “‘There are perhaps just wars, but there are no innocent armies’,or so the saying goes. From now on, it is the same with science as it is withwar: there is no longer any really innocent science” (Virilio, 2005: 31).
Positioning Virilio’s assertion alongside the analysis of technology as foundwithin the four filmic imag(in)ings of the Dream Society, one can imagine thatthe primary means by which nonkilling futures can and might emerge rests
with the successful decoupling of technological, which is also to say scientific,

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development from imbalanced social and economic conditions, which remain
endemic to the conditions of Late Capitalism, which Jameson conceives of as“catastrophe and progress all together” (Jameson, 1992: 55). This striking duality, which is exacerbated within the four filmic imag(in)ings of the Dream Society, serves to contextualize the materialist reading of technology offered ofeach film while situating the integral link between capitalist ideologies andeconomies of lethality, even and perhaps especially within technologicallydriven scenarios for the futures (i.e. The Dream Society). As Paige notes,“Sometime in the future when economic exploitation ends, the class-based lethal state will disappear. But in the period of transition economic factors will
predispose to killing” (Paige, 2009: 24). Similarly, Jensen argues, “In the longrun, digitizing the information flow will lead to freedom of information andfreedom of speech, but in the coming 10 to 15 years, latent conflicts will bemounting” (Jensen, 1999: 216). As the analysis of each film set out to affirm,
the economics underling the invention, development, and diffusion of increasingly more complex technologies, especially those challenging long-held notions of agency, does not preclude nor necessarily buttress the potentiality fornonkilling futures to emerge, but as capitalism remains critical to the ethos of
the Dream Society construct, it seems apparent that this formulation’s beloved
free market cannot adequately internalize the costs, to use the the appropriate
parlance, associated with nonkilling futures; thus, Jensen takes solace in his
prediction that the emerging Dream Society will inevitably produce strife thatechoes much of what has been seen surrounding the Arab Spring. However,moments of sanguine reflexivity within the Arab Awakening, especially in theearly days of unrest in Egypt, point toward a complete reconceptualization of
the nature of social change with regards to the symbiotic relation between
humanity and technology. In one of the most widely circulated photos fromthe Tahrir Square protests, a demonstrator proudly displays a home-made sign
drawn on a sheet of notebook paper that states, “Delete Mubarak” and shows
the infamous trash can from both Microsoft and Apple operating systems.
Although there have been innumerable challenges following the departureof Hosni Mubarak from his 30-year tenure in power, the most significant andpalpable opportunity resulting from his historic egress is apparent within thesentiment of the above photo. From the perspective of the Dream Society,as with imag(in)ings of the present, one can just as easily and carelessly delete
a dictator as one would a spreadsheet from one’s computer. This sentimentcontextualizes the shutdown of Internet technologies during the tumult in
Egypt and the complicity of transnational corporations in supporting such authoritarian endeavors, and speaks to the primacy with which tmedia echnolo-

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gies emerged as an instigator and accessory to the Arab Spring. “Delete
Mubarak” also speaks to the potentiality for the reappropriation of mediation
technologies for egalitarian ends as it does to the material economies underlying such calls for revolution; indeed, if there is anything to be learned from
Egypt and ongoing revolutions elsewhere, it is the fact that mechanisms ofcapitalism, especially the nascent dimensions of a truly Dream Society economy, have become entrenched within imag(in)ings of the future(s)Picture 1. Delete Mubarak(MARCO LONGARI/AFP/Getty Images, January 31, 2011)

As this relates to the imag(in)ings of technology of the Dream Society
found within the four films, it is clear that the inherent plasticity of the symbiosis between humanity and technology offers, at the very least, the potentiality
for a radical reconstitution of the economies underlying further technologicaladvancements as found and presenced within the cultural conditioning zone of
the killing funnel. There might not be a silver bullet, with regards to ameliorating social and economic conditions, but the first step, as Paige points out repeatedly in his treatise, involves jettisoning both the medium (silver representing the technological) and the message (bullet representing the indirect valorization of killing) of such formulations—as such, a sign that condones “deleting
Mubarak” is an enormous advance from one advocating “death to Mubarak.”
As such, the symbiotic relation between humanity and technology mustregain, as Virilio puts it, a modicum of innocence, which is to say a conscious
and intentional movement away from its charted course toward catastropheand progress through the continual modeling of nonkilling futures, including,and perhaps especially, the unthinkable and/or the ridiculous with regards tothe futures of capitalism, which remains the predominant imag(in)ing of theCatastrophe and Progess in Nonkilling Futures

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future for many even in the wake of monumental social and economic disparities. As this lies at the heart not only of the four filmic imag(in)ings of theDream Society presented herein but also the theoretical and practical foundations for a truly nonkilling, which is to say preferred, future, the model forsuch an endeavor might be found within the technological structures of thepresent. Elucidating the scope and magnitude of crafting nonkilling futures,
Paige observes, “The purposive pursuit of nonkilling conditions of global life
portends institutional changes as pervasive in scope to those associated withthe global diffusion of contemporary communication and information technologies” (Paige, 2009: 114). This apt analogy succinctly captures the spirit ofcrafting nonkilling futures, which is first and foremost an exercise in disassociating catastrophe from progress now and in the futures.
Acknowledgement
This chapter relates to the research project funded by the Spanish Ministry of
Economy and Competitiveness CSO2012-34066 Evaluación e indicadores desensibilidad moral en la comunicación actual de los movimientos sociales.
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Chapter Six

Envisioning Nonkilling
Futures in Film
Karen Hurley
University of Victoria
Synergistic nonkilling creativity among the arts can uplift the human spirit
and imagination for the crucial transformational tasks ahead.
(Paige, 2007: 139)

Introduction
Is nonkilling futures in films an unrealistic dream or an idea whose time hascome? Glenn Paige (2007) in his pioneering book began the discussions about
nonkilling, and in it he questions whether nonkilling can be viewed as possible,
especially by those in his field of political science. Similarly, the possibility ofcreating a film about a future that does not include killing would, initially, bequestioned in its desirability by the film industry and, questioned by by much of
the conventional future (sci-fi) film audience. To many people the idea of scenarios of nonkilling futures in films seems impossible, even naïve. And yet, Paige(2007: 139) challenges filmmakers and others in the arts to “find ways out ofviolence” and participate in the creativity of nonkilling. The ways out of violencein filmmaking are possible if the filmmaking process from script development
to distribution, including audience and critics’ attitudes, can evolve sufficiently
to allow nonviolent, nonkilling images of the future to be depicted in film.
To envision nonkilling futures, like any visioning, requires a leap of faith,
to what we most want and desire for our communities’ futures (Meadows,
1996). For filmmakers to see past the practices and mindset that focus on
killing and create a film about the future based on nonkilling is an act of resistance against the hegemonic forces at work in contemporary society, andwithin their industry. Most films about the future are expensive blockbusters produced in Hollywood studios now owned by transnational conglomerates. The films, as well as filmmaking industry that creates them, are partof a society that is based on militarism and focused on violence. But films
about the future, and the filmmakers who create them, can also be part of apurposeful resistance, and begin the envisioning of nonkilling futures. Films,

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with their powerful images and stories, contribute to how contemporarysociety envisions the future. According to filmmaker and film screening innovator, Mandy Leith (Hurley, 2009), film is the “magical fire place, it’s thefire, it’s the hearth of our time that people gather around and that continues
the storytelling tradition”. Storytelling is a powerful communicator of information and mythology; film has the additional strength of providing images to accompany the narrative.
In this chapter, I will explore why images of the future are important,how Hollywood dominates in films about the future and its connection to
the military industrial complex, the gendered nature of films, how film andfilmmakers are important to envisioning nonkilling futures. I will alsouse Glenn Paige’s (2007) theory on nonkilling societies to evaluate films
about the future and the filmmaking industry relative to his criteria of anonkilling society, and explore possible ideas for change.
What film images of violent future are telling us, and why it matters
Frederik Polak (1961) analyzed images of the future that a number of societies held throughout the millennia, and found that when a society had apositive image of the future they flourished, and when a society held a negative
image of the future the society perished, an indication that the images hadagency. He argued that the first step in moving toward positive images of the
future is identifying what is wrong with the images of today as a “preliminary
clearing of the decks for the great act of purposeful, responsible recreation ofimages of a still glorious future” (Polak, 1961: 367). Guided by Polak (1961),
we will explore images in films about the future as the preliminary phase ofworking toward the depiction of nonkilling futures in film.
Feature films are a compelling and visceral source of dominant futures
imagery that are now global in their reach. Most feature films about the future are created by Hollywood, and are part of the highly lucrative genre of‘blockbuster’ science fiction or sci-fi, which is “a significant economic
weapon for Hollywood, few others being able to afford to compete at theexpensive high end of the latest effects technologies” (King and Krzywinska,
2000: 64). These special effects technologies, in the hands of skilled filmmakers, result in highly pervasive and persuasive images of the future.
These films are now globalised through film theatre releases as well as theseemingly limitless reach of television and its thirst for content.
The dominant contemporary images of the future are of bleak ecologicalwastelands rife with violence and despair (Lisa Garforth, 2006; Slaughter,Envisioning Nonkilling Futures in Film

1551998). These Hollywood films, with their compelling, intoxicating imagery,may be negatively affecting what Elise Boulding (1988) refers to as our futures image literacy: our ability to envision our own futures. At the societal
level, and as individuals, we are losing our ability to engage our imaginationin acts of creating images of the futurevisions for our futuresthat are
unique to our community. But without visions to work toward we do notknow what direction to take with our actions (Meadows, 1996). While I
make no attempt at a direct causal link between the film images and actions, or inactions, I argue that the powerful, dominating, film images may
be interfering with our ability to create peaceful, diverse visions of the future that are unique to our community and country. As Bruce H. Franklin(1985: 85) warns: “With no better vision of the future to offer, the UnitedStates may possibly succeed in forcing the rest of the world into one ofthose futures imagined in Hollywood”. We have an obligation to future
generations of humans, and nonhumans, to create visions of diverse futuresthat are more life sustaining than those presently coming out of Hollywood.
The dominant, and repeating, images of the future in contemporary film
are of violent conflict, where war or killing seen as inevitable: whether byhand-to-hand combat (Blade Runner, Star Wars, Terminator, The Fifth Element)
or fantastical weaponry (Star Wars series, Terminator series, Minority Report)
and even nuclear bomb annihilation of the entire world (Terminator 3: Rise of
the Machines). Much of the violence results in killing, and most is men-onmen, but there are a few examples of sexualized women fighting (Blade Runner, Alien, Aeon Flux, The Matrix). In most films about the future, violent conflict or war is underway, or preparations for war are being made, all supported with spectacular, seductive visual effects (Hurley, 2008, 2009). These
dominant images of war and violent conflict reinforce themselves from one
film to the next. The repeated nature of the images contributes to violence
and war being seen as the only possible future: the singular future that repeats
itself across mediums and over time (Milojevic, 2005).
The repeated pattern of violent conflict in many films about the future,
involving guns and other armaments, including nuclear weapons, is not especially surprising given Hollywood’s many ties to the US military (Franklin,
1988; Rosenbaum, 2000; Valantin, 2005; Alford and Graham, 2008). Since
1942, when the American War Ministry set up a partnership bureau in Hollywood, which remains active today, “the cooperation between the [US]security system and the major studios functions in many complex ways andhas increased over the decades” (Valantin, 2005:6). Recent research has
exposed the Pentagon’s involvement in reviewing screenplays and editorial

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influence in exchange for studio access to equipment and locations including
the Navy lending aircraft carriers, planes and pilots, (Rosenbaum, 2000;
Valantin, 2005). As Franklin (1999:72) observed “the infrastructures that
support the preparations for war and violence are very powerful and deeply
entrenched”. Filmmakers in the US, and increasingly filmmaking in Canada
and other countries, appear to be part of these preparations, as war is glorified and made to seem inevitable and necessary. As Paige (2007: 13) argues“violent media socialization is useful for a state in need of professional patriotic killers”. The connection between the film industry and militarism ishistorical and tightly woven, but the pattern could be broken if many filmmakers are courageous enough to offer less violent ways of addressing conflict, and if audiences support these films by buying tickets.
Another dominant pattern in films about the future is loss of human life
due to an apocalyptic event, including films based on environmental disasters (Day After Tomorrow: climate change; The Awakening: virus/red tide killing humans; Children of Men: global loss of fertility, Aeon Flux: global virus
and global loss of fertility). I worry that these films also impoverish futures
literacy by reducing hope for the future.
Films about the future are also highly gendered. Women are highly outnumbered by men as characters in films, and their roles in society are of thoseof support to the elite men in charge, or the love/sexual interest of the malelead. The journey is masculinised, and the narrative arc of the story is always
that of the male lead. Children are rare in films about the future, and when
they are seen, they are almost always boys. An exception is Aeon Flux, although
the girls are in the background of scenes, at least they are visible. The dualistic
way that men and women are depicted in films about the future is not healthy
for society, for women nor for men. Women are not seen as politicians orleaders in other positions of power in filmic futures, reinforcing the notion thatthe future is the domain of men and where women and girls do not see opportunities for themselves to be powerful agents in society.
In some films about the future (as in some films based in the present andpast) women are so invisible, so completely missing from the screen, that thesefilms could be contributing to the notion that women and girls don’t matter,that their presence in society is optional. The optional future for women andgirls is likely contributing to policies and practices that result in higher women’smortality, including higher levels of mortality in natural disasters (Ikeda, 1995) as
well as globalised violence and killings of women and girls. Femicide is a genderspecific killing that takes the forms of murder by spouses/partners, dowry
deaths, sexual assault, ‘honour’ killings and female infant/child neglect. “Femi-

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cide is an extreme form of the gender-based violence (GBV) that many women
suffer at home, in the workplace, in the community and in their relations withthe state, violence that is intrinsically linked to deeply entrenched gender inequality and discrimination, economic disempowerment, and aggressive or machismo masculinity” (Prieto-Carrón, et al., 2007: 26). Much too often in films
about the future, women and girls, if they are seen at all, are victims of maleviolence, sexual predation, societal oppression, or neglect.
Violence and killing is pervasive in films about the future out of Hollywood. The lead characters in the films are often not the best role models.
What are we modeling as futures appropriate behaviour to young people,
especially young men and boys, who are the main target audience for films
about the future? According to Jo Groebel (1998: 4), the lead scholar of the
UNESCO study of 5,000 12-year-old students from 23 countries, “thestudy revealed a fascination with aggressive media heroes, especially among
boys: Arnold Schwarzenegger’s ‘Terminator’ is a global icon, known by
88% of the children surveyed, be they from India, Brazil or Japan”. In films
about the future, the elite men are predominantly depicted as warriors/fighters of some kind, which narrows role model opportunities for boys
to aggressive hyper-masculine roles with little opportunity to witness caring, creative men in their personal lives, as well as in the public domain.
The repeated images of war and militarism in films about the future continue the notion that war is inevitable. Many countries of the world, and certainly the US, have intertwined militarism throughout much of their society. We
have disregarded Dwight D. Eisenhower’s (1961, my emphasis) caution in his
final speech as president: “we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist”. And it has. In 2010, global military expenditures reached $1,630 billion
USDwith US 42.7% of the totaland shocking annual increases in SouthAmerica (5.8 per cent) and Africa (5.2 per cent) (SIPRI, 2011a). Beatrice Fihn
(2011) argues that the global military expenditures are having a direct and disproportionate effect on women by keeping them in poverty, and directing
funds away from health care and education, and quotes the World Bank’s estimate that it would take only 35 to 72 billion USD per year to 2015 to meet theMillennium Development Goalsa tiny fraction of that spent on the militarybut those in power, overwhelmingly men, continue to priorize war.
Author Margaret Atwood (1992: 79) argues in a poem that killing is gendered: “Why do men want to kill the bodies of other men? / Women don’t wantto kill the bodies of other women / By and large. As far as we know… / Men’s

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bodies are the most dangerous things on / Earth. It is beyond the scope of thischapter to fully analyse the nature of men and killing, but I suggest that films
about the future are contributing to the problem by repeating the future…”
It is beyond the scope of this chapter to fully analyse the nature of men
and killing, but I suggest that films about the future are contributing to the
problem by repeating the future as violent and warring, and focusing onmale characters solving conflict with violence. There is ongoing debate
about the nature of violence and whether it is gendered or not, but it appears to be gendered, and pretending otherwise is not going to help us create nonkilling futures. Richard Wrangham (2010: 30) argues that “men are
inherently more dangerous than women and that massive imbalances ofpower among hostile entities tend to induce violence” and that understanding this violence provides opportunities in reducing it.
By stressing the particular dangers of male coalitionary behavior Demonic
Males [Wrangham’s book] contributes to an ongoing debate about theprospects for promoting nonviolence through the education of womenand their increased representation in legislative bodies. Since Demonic
Males was published I have participated regularly in seminars with suchprograms as Women Waging Peace, in which participants represent conflict zones from around the world. I have repeatedly found that they cherish the optimism represented in Demonic Males by its identification ofsome sources of violence that we can do something aboutnamely, theappalling ease with which men are induced to violence under some circumstances (Wrangham, 2011: 44).

Filmmakers may argue that their films include violence and killing because that is what audiences want, and we will see below that audiences dohave a role in changing the nature of films about the future, but films remaina creative act and the filmmakers can create films in a different way, withdifferent stories and images.
As women in the Global North are becoming increasingly involved in public life, business, medicine, education, researchalbeit with glass ceilings at
the most senior levels (Valian, 1999; Douglas, 2010)women’s roles andcreative involvement in film production have narrowed or decreased overtime. Contemporary women’s film roles are generally limited to wife,
mother, sex object, and victim; while women in the 1940’s had more diversity in movie roles. Today, the Hollywood filmmaking industry also suffersfrom a lack of women in the upper creative positions. “In 2010, women comprised 16% of all directors, executive producers, producers, writers, cinema-Envisioning Nonkilling Futures in Film

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tographers, and editors working on the top 250 domestic grossing films”adecline of 1 percentage point from 1998, and with only 7% of directors being
women (Lauzen, 2011: 1). Martha Lauzen (2008: 10) has also documented
the domination of men in the reviewing of films and concluded that: “In short,men dominate the reviewing process of films primarily made by men featuring mostly males intended for a largely male audience. The underemployment of women film reviewers, actors, and filmmakers perpetuates
the nearly seamless dialogue among men in US cinema”. The film industry
needs to address the reality that its institutional structures have enabled asmall elite of white men to maintain an unequal advantage over women, people of colour and less powerful men. This is an outcome of what R.W. Connell (2002: 142) calls the patriarchal dividend where men, as a group, maintain“an unequal gender order”. The process of identifying the unequal order infilmmaking has begun. Hollywood producers, Susan Davis, Susan Valdes andSteve Mills, created the 2005 film Invisible Women to address women’s experiences in Hollywood, and Jennifer Siebel Newsom wrote and directed
Miss Representation in 2011. I am confident that as the number of women insenior creative positions within the film industry increases to above 50% thatthe amount of killing in films about the future will significantly decrease.
American/Hollywood global dominance of film industry and images
Another repeated pattern in films about the future is that the story takes
place in the US, even when the films are international co-productions (The
Awakening: India/US; The Fifth Element: France/US) reinforcing the concept thatthe future has been fully colonised and it is American (Sardar, 1999). This is not
to say the US does not have place in the future, rather that the US is only one ofmany countries in the world, each with their own culture and landscapes thatare worthy of futures visioning. But at the present, American futures dominate
in the films, and American films dominate the screens of the world.
In 2007, according to the Motion Picture Association of America statistics (MPAA, 2008a), the total Hollywood domestic (US and Canada) boxoffice gross was $9.63 billion, while the total international box-office was$17.1 billion (64% of total revenues). The international market includes:$8.92 billion Europe/Middle East/Africa, $6.92 billion Asia Pacific, and $1.25
billion Latin America. This translates into a total of 5.54 billion international
paid moviegoers (79% of 7.04 billion world wide admissions) (MPAA,
2008c). Therefore, as Scott (2005) argues, Hollywood may not dominate
internationally in the total number of films produced, but they do dominate

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Economists Acheson and Maule (2005: 339) argue, “to our knowledge,
no other industry has been persistently dominated in the same manner”.
These two authors attribute the early historical dominance partially because
the US was able to attract talented creative people who were fleeing hostilities during both world wars. They also argue that Hollywood’s international dominance is based on the efficiency of a system that provides themwith an unfettered free market to the US domestic market (including Canada), which is the single largest English speaking market in the world, as
well as Hollywood’s success in assimilating large numbers of viewers fromdifferent ethnic backgrounds (Acheson and Maule, 2005). This economic efficiency has significant support from the US federal government, which lobbies hard for Hollywood at international economic negotiations, such as
World Trade Organisation (WTO) (previously General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade or GATT) and North American Free Trade Agreement(NAFTA), arguing that film is a product or commodity like any other andthat Hollywood should have open, unlimited markets for their films andtelevision programs in all countries.
The [US] Department of State, Office of the United States Trade Representative, and the MPA [international arm of Motion Picture Association ofAmerica], often referred to as the “Little State Department”, are critical to
the success of American films and television programs in international markets. The American troika demands that foreign markets are open for Hollywood to exploit, while the oligopolistic nature of the American market
makes it all but impenetrable to foreign products. The exportation of cultural products improves the trade deficit, but the US government also argues that “trade follows films,” that motion pictures and television programs
provide a mechanism through which to advertise American products anddisseminate ideologies (Kunz, 2007: 6).

The Motion Picture Association (MPA-Int, 2012) openly flaunts this role on
the MPA-Asia Pacific website as a “little State Department” and describes
their foreign country activities in “diplomatic, economic and political arenas”.
Therefore, the global reach of the blockbuster Hollywood films about
the future is significant. The worry in this global nature is that that powerful,
intoxicating imagery dominates people’s thinking and they lose the ability toimagine a future different than what they see in the films. Without our futures imaging literacy we cannot engage our imagination to envision positive
futures for our own community—our localised preferred futures (Boulding,1988). There is also the possibility that with America being seen as the fu-

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ture that non-US communities and nations will see themselves as lesser, notas valuable now or in the future. But, as Wangari Maathai (2004) wrote
about Africa, it is from the love of one’s own community and culture thatdiverse and peaceful future communities are possible.
The way that films are created today also contributes to the movementaway from localised ideas because of the global business nature of the film industry. Hollywood films used to be made in studios that existed only to makemovies. In today’s New Hollywood, film production is only a small part of large
companies that, in turn are part of “an increasingly diversified, globalized entertainment industry” (Schatz, 1997: 75). And often, within the conglomerate,
the media/entertainment component is small compared to other activities. For
example, General Electric owns Universal Pictures1 as well as 80% of NBC
television, many local US television stations, the Sci-Fi cable broadcaster, and a
new pay TV company USA Network (Columbia Journalism Review, 2011).
GE/Universal/NBC is also extending its reach further into India via a joint venture with the Indian media empire Network 18 (Overdorf, 2007). The film
component of the GE conglomerate had box office gross of $933 million USD
in 2006, while the total parent company revenue was $149.7 billion USD. And
according to a study by the Centre for Public Integrity (Makinson, 2004), General Electric is number 7 in the list of the top 100 contractors to the Pentagon,
further reinforcing the ties between Hollywood and militarism.
Hollywood has also changed from making many movies a year to an increasing reliance on the big blockbusters to reach the annual corporate
profit projections. Sedgwick and Pokorny (2005) argue that part of Hollywood’s success and survival over time is the focus on the hit movie, theblockbuster, with large production values that work to differentiate films
from television productions. The reliance on blockbuster films, especiallysequels, is more likely explained by the notion that blockbusters are viewed
by executives to have significantly less risk, and more opportunity for revenue than other films (Ravid, 1999; Scott, 2005). Blockbusters dominate infilms about the future, and high cost/ high revenue sequels have been a consistent pattern (Matrix, StarWars, Terminator, Star Trek series).
As discussed above, Hollywood now sells the majority of its tickets in its
international market (79% of global admissions and 64% total revenue) so
there is financial pressure to keep the international market strong. Violent
action films about the future travel well into this market.
1

This may be changing as General Electric is in negotiation for a partial sell-off ofUniversal to a sports media corporation.

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Action movies don’t require complex plots or characters. They rely onfights, killings, special effects and explosions to hold their audiences. And,unlike comedy or drama—which depend on good stories, sharp humour,and credible characters, all of which are often culture-specific—action
films require little in the way of good writing and acting. They’re simple,
and they’re universally understood. To top it off, the largely non-verbal nature of the kind of films that journalist Sharon Waxman refers to as “shorton-dialogue, high-on-testosterone”makes their dubbing or translation relatively inexpensive (Media Awareness Network, 2011).

To reform or transform Hollywood filmmaking, to move out of the focus
on profits based on violent films and into filmmaking that supports nonkilling
futures will be challenging, but not impossible if there is the will for change
at many stages in the process.
Filmmakers within and outside of the Hollywood studios, have an opportunity to create films with non-US based, diverse, peaceful communities,
as images of nonkilling futures. This will not be easy, at least not in the beginning, because Hollywood has become such a dominating cultural force inthe world. Juan Mayr (2008) suggests that:
Throughout human history, dominant powers have imposed their language and their cultural vision on other territories and cultures. It is time
to take pause in the present process of globalization while we consider
ways of overcoming problems confronting our civilization… We must pursue these efforts in order to protect the heritage of humankind.

The UNESCO (2001) Universal Declaration on Cultural Diversity provides
principles for protecting cultural diversity, creativity and international solidarity. It acknowledges the current imbalance in cultural products and Article 11
suggests that public policy is required to promote cultural diversity in theworld. Convincing Hollywood that they do not have a inalienable right to thetheatres and television screens of the world will take time and diplomacy, but
the distribution and screening of films is part of the technology of filmmaking
that requires reform if nonkilling futures in film are to emerge.
Transforming the filmmaking process
to contribute to nonkilling futures
Ursula Franklin (1999) sees technology as systems of practice that go beyond the things one normally relates to technology (such as cameras, film, editing equipment, lights, computers for creating visual effects) to include alsoorganisation, the people, procedures, policies, myths, and, ideas. In the case of

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feature films, the systems of practice include: the studios within conglomerates, writers, directors, actors, editors, sound engineers, accountants, unions,marketing people and processes, production assistants, the pitch, the script,
merchandising, caterers, traffic and parking attendants, star-system, scheduling, critics and film schools. Franklin (1999) argues that of all the processes
and practices that make up the technology the most important of all is mindset. It is mindset that can entrench ways of practice without reflection. Mindset can inhibit people from seeing even the possibility that patterns of images
or systems of practice can be different. Mindset can tell us that there is no
point in examination or protest because nothing will be different. For example, some people have the mindset that war is inevitable because humans are
intrinsically violent or that human activity will always harm nature in someway. But we can create a mindset that is open to possibility and change. We
could develop a mindset that sees violent conflict only as a temporary phasein human development, and that people can live in harmony with each otherand with nonhuman nature. Shifting mindset, however, is challenging and will
require recognition of power injustices and shifting to shared power.
It is my conviction that nothing short of a global reformation of major social
forces and of the social contract can end this historical period of profound andviolent transformations, and give a manner of security back to the world andits citizens. Such a development will require the redefinition of rights and responsibilities, and the setting of limits to power and control (Franklin, 1999: 5).

Filmmakers could be part of this shift in power by transforming the systems
of practice, the technologies of filmmaking, to one of shared power and to
depicting nonviolent societiespast, present and futurein their films. According to Riane Eisler (1987) and Marija Gimbutas (1982) humans havebeen peaceful and nonkilling in the far past, therefore, we have historicalprecedents to initiate system change; humans have not always been violent
and warring, as many argue. Filmmakers can provide a leadership role inshifting mindset toward nonkilling futures by depicting communities thatsolve conflict without violence and where killing does not exist.
Glenn Paige’s vision of a nonkilling society is one where there is no killing of humans nor threats to kill, and that this nonkilling may extend to animals. It includes a society where:
there are no weapons for killing and no legitimizations for taking life; governments do not legitimize it; patriotism does not require it; artists do notcelebrate it; no relationships of dominance or exclusionboundaries, forms

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Nonkilling Mediaof government, property, gender, race, ethnicity, class, or systems of spiritual or secular beliefrequire killing to support or challenge them, and nosocial conditions that depend upon threat or use of lethal force (2007: 1).

In its present form, the majority of the filmmaking industry does not meet
Paige’s (2007) criteria of a nonkilling society. It legitimizes killing and war in
cahoots with the government; its artists celebrate killing; its racist and sexist
practices are based on relationships of domination (Hurley, 2008); and it
contributes to social conditions in its glorification of lethal force. Paige (2007:13) quite accurately identifies mass media, which includes industrialised, corporatised filmmaking, as part of the desensitization of life through violent images that demonstrate “dramatic ways in which people, property, animals,
and nature can be destroyed by heroes and villains”. And yet, Hollywood
also is responsible for some of finest, most joyful and creative films ever
made, which celebrate the best of humanity including: joy, love, compassion
and empathy. Therefore, there is no reason why films about the future cannot depict positive, nonkilling societies, which include conflict and romanceand intrigue, but without violence or killing. It is true that contemporary films
about the future sometimes contain moments of love and compassion, butthese aspects are overwhelmed by the dominant images of despair and violence. It is time for some filmmakers to claim a leadership role by depicting
alternative and diverse futures, including nonkilling futures.
Hans Richter (1986: 163) refers to progressive cinema, as a filmmaking
genre or style where filmmakers understand their responsibility to “makean incomparable contribution to the welfare, the recovery of humanity”. I
interviewed filmmakers in my recent research and most agreed with Richter’s argument that film can make positive contribution. They were in filmmaking to make a difference in the world, but some did not want to feel anobligation to do so, while others were comfortable with the responsibility
to provide a positive way forward. Hollywood publicist, Paula Silver (inHurley, 2009) suggests that “all films have a social impact, the question is: isit good or bad impact? And that all films can be a catalyst for change andchallenge filmmakers to ask themselves: what images do we need to createhopeto inspire people to take actionto do something?” Filmmaker/ futurist Kate McCullum (in Hurley, 2009) argues that filmmakers are beginning to understand that they need to be wiser with their craft.
There is a tremendous opportunity for filmmakers to choose to participate
in the movement toward positive futures. The films could still contain conflict,
drama, spectacular visual effects, even the odd flying machine, but by wielding

Envisioning Nonkilling Futures in Film165

the tool, the technology of filmmaking, more wisely, the films could offer
hopeful alternatives to a generation of moviegoers who badly need them.
Academy Award winning, director/ producer Norman Jewison (2004: 281) understands this need when he argues, “Hope is what we hang on to. It’s our anchor in a sea of despair. Hope, like faith, remains constant, independent of evidence. When we lose hope we lose everything. People who have no hope become desperate. But hope is a gift of the spirit”. Not everyone agrees that hopeis important to creating positive change (Jensen, 2007), but I have witnessed
numerous classroom and community situations where individuals without
hope are unable to envision positive futures or participate in action planning.
Elise Boulding’s (1988) visioning workshops focused on creating a World
Without Weapons, and she observed that a social imaging process happened
when people began to see hope for a peaceful world within the workshop setting. Most people arrived at the workshops feeling ineffective about peace anddisarmament and left feeling empowered to varying degrees because theygained hope that a world without weapons is indeed possible (Boulding, 1995).
The link between hope and action is created during act of collaborating on desired futures. In addition, as Anthony Reading (2004: 17), argues, “hope depends on being able to predict that a desired future is potentially achievable”.
Therefore, stories and film images of nonkilling futures are important because
they make our desires for peaceful, nonkilling futures plausible, which creates
hope for positive change, and actions toward change can begin.
A filmmaker who creates a film about the future without violence, militarism and killing will risk having her or his film being labeled as a ‘message film’.
But all stories have a message. It reflects the power of the neo-liberal paradigm
that their messages are not seen as a message. Any works that stand outside ofthe dominant story, or challenge it, run the risk of being belittled or of being
the recipient of critical unkindness, tinged with cynicism. As Marge Piercy(2003: 141) argues “contemporary critics often assume that there is something
wrong with fiction that has an ideological content, as if all fiction does not”. It
hasn’t always been this way. Hollywood writer Bob Thomas (in Hurley, 2009)
described how in previous decades there were many message films that werebox office successes. Some of the films were not immediately successful, forexample Stanley Kramer (1984) produced and directed On the Beach (1959)
with the clear purpose of ending the use of nuclear bombs. Many people
avoided the film in the theatres because of the theme and the critics derided it
as “another message from Kramer, taking a subject too seriously, the dogooder at work or good intentions swallowed by speculation”, but the film
went on to have strong success on television “probably due to the activism of166

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citizens’ groups, the clergy and women’s organizations in protest of the nuclear arms race” (Kramer, 1984: 118). According to James Goodby (2011) the
contemporary global “obstacles to ending the nuclear threat are more politicalthan technical or military”. Therefore, filmmakers today have great power toaffect change through their films by addressing the public and political institutions, and as Stanley Kramer did, they could chose to be part of a less violent
future by envisioning futures without nuclear weapons.
In addition, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI, 2011), “small arms and light weapons are involved in more
violent, conflict related deaths each year than any other type of weapon
system”. Filmmakers could have a major impact on the reduction of smallarms by making choices not to include them in their films, not valourizing
the use of guns, or not associating guns with masculinity.
Perhaps films about the future that is not based on violent conflict
would be derided by most critics, because such films would lack the highaction fight scenes that are so common in films about the future, but I hopethat those critics would see the dramatic tension in other parts of the films(after all, conflict does not require violence). There will certainly be cynicism directed toward the first brave film that dares to provide an image ofthe future different from the dominant, hegemonic images. But with luck,some critics will support the film, and audiences will go in large numbers to
the film, and a new, more diverse, fan base will emerge.
German film director/producer/writer, Wim Wenders (Dixon, 2011) is considering a futures-based film in 3-D: “I think 3-D is a still unexplored cinematographic story. In my book, it’s the ideal medium for the documentary of the future. It’s not invented to show us different planets [like in Avatar]. It’s invented
to show us our own planet”. Based on Wim Wenders previous films, and his
recent focus on joyful music and dance, I believe there is a good possibility that
his futures 3-d film will envision nonkilling futures, and a flourishing Earth.
There is also tangible reason for optimism about a nonkilling film about
the future because American author Starhawk (1993) has begun production
on the film version of her novel The Fifth Sacred Thing. Starhawk’s approachto the film diverged from the patterns in Hollywood filmmaking right fromthe beginning: when she and her team used crowd sourcing (Kickstarter) togather funds for the development stage instead of pitching the idea to a studio. And congruent with Alfonso Montuori’s (2011) argument for a new collaborative creativity, Starhawk is creating a community-based, collaborative
approach to the images of the future in the film by encouraging people tocontribute ideas and designs for the film via the website. The story in theEnvisioning Nonkilling Futures in Film

167

film will also break with Hollywood patterns by offering a vision of a caring,green, nonviolent, nonkilling society, with women in positions of leadershipand heroism. The Fifth Sacred Thing juxtaposes a dystopic Los Angeles as aprojection of the hegemonic present with water used as tool of control by
the elites, with a green, permaculture-based, utopian San Francisco where“No one in this city goes hungry. No one lacks shelter. No child lacks ahome. There is sickness here… but no one lacks care. We have guarded ourwaters well, our cisterns will not run dry, no one thirsts, and our streams run
clear” (Starhawk, 1993: 19). It is a hostile world around them, but San Francisco is kept safe by the Defense Council: nine old women with their magic,
dreams and vision. Collectively the citizens make a decision not to pursue
military style defense, but to focus their resources on healing the Earth andproviding high quality of life for all, including no tolerance for violence or sexual assault. One of the Defense Council elders explains, “War is the great
waste, as much in the preparation for it as in the waging of it. We learned
that, at least, from last century, as that same military drained the country anddestroyed our true wealth” (Starhawk, 1993: 154). They are able to savetheir city by offering the invading soldiers ‘a place at their table’, a home andhealthy work. There are many heroes in the book, but the main hero’s
journey in the story is taken by Madrone, a young woman who is a healer
and community leader. Starhawk’s film will depict beautiful, positive imagesof alternative futures, including a nonkilling city. It will do much to inspire
people, especially youth, to envision their own images of nonkilling futures.
References
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Alford, M. and Graham, R. (2008). “Body of Lies: the CIA’s involvement with US
film-making,” The Guardian Sunday, December 27.
Atwood, M. (1992). Good Bones. Toronto: Coach House Press.
Boulding, E. (1988). Building a global civic culture: education for an interdependentworld. New York: Teachers College Press, Columbia University.
Boulding, E. (1995). “Image and Action in Peace Building,” in Boulding, E. and Boulding, K. E., The Future: images and processes. Thousand Oaks: Sage, pp. 93-116.
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Dixon, G. (2011).”Wim Wenders moves Pina Bausch into a new dimension,” Globe
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Eisler, R. T. (1987). The Chalice and the blade. New York: Harper.
Fihn, B. (2011). “Submission to the United Nations Human Rights Council Panel on
Women-Poverty-Crises-Human Rights: Impact of War and Conflict Spending on
Women and Poverty,” June 3. Available online at: <http://www.unngls.org/spip.php?article3461>.
Franklin, B. H. (1988). War stars: the superweapon and the American imagination.
New York: Oxford University Press.
Franklin, B. H. (1985). “Don’t Look Where We’re Going: Visions of the Future in
Science Fiction Films, 1970-1982,” in Shadows of the Magic Lamp: Fantasy and
Science Fiction in Film. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, pp. 73-85.
Franklin, U. M. (1999). The real world of technology. Toronto: Anansi.
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Gimutas, M. (1982). Goddesses and Gods of Old Europe, 7000-3500 B.C. Berkekey:
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Goodby, J. (2010). “A world without nuclear weapons: fantasy or necessity?” SIPRI
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Groebel, J. (1998). “Warning: Children are watching,” UNESCO Sources,102. Available online at: <http://unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0011/001123/112377e.pdf>.
Hurley, K. (2008). “Is that a future we want? An ecofeminist exploration of imagesof the future in contemporary film,” Futures, 40(4): 346-359.
Hurley, K. (2009). Daring to envision ecologically sound and socially just futures: an interdisciplinary exploration of contemporary film. PhD thesis. University of Victoria.
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King, G. and Krzywinska, T. (2000). Science Fiction Cinema: From Outerspace to Cyberspace. London: Wallflower Publishing Limited.
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Kunz, W. M. (2007). Culture conglomerates: consolidation in the motion picture andtelevision industries. Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers.
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Richter, H. (1986). The struggle for the film: towards a socially responsible cinema. Aldershot: Scolar.
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Filmography
Aeon Flux, 2005
Alien, 1979
Blade Runner, 1982; Director’s cut 1992
Children of Men, 2006
Day after Tomorrow, 2004
Epsilon (Alien Visitor), 1997
Invisible Women, 2005
Minority Report, 2002
On the Beach, 1959
Star Wars - Episode I - The Phantom Menace, 1999
Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines, 2003
The Awakening, 2008
The Fifth Element, 1997
The Happening, 2008
The Matrix, 1999

Chapter Seven

Nonkilling Media froma Gender Perspective
Challenges and Possibilities toTransform Violence Against Women
María José Gámez Fuentes
Universitat Jaume I de Castellón
Introduction
In 1997 Marian Meyers wrote a book entitled News Coverage of Violenceagainst Women. Engendering Blame with the purpose of helping to eradicate
the media problem of “blaming the victim and reinforcing harmful culturalstereotypes and myths” (Meyers, 1997: ix) when reporting gender violence,for it seemed that, back then, the media way of tackling the matter helped tojustify it instead of raising awareness against it. Unfortunately, more than 13
years later the United Nations (UN) General Assembly in its sixty-fifth session(2 August 2010) had to keep on insisting that among the efforts to eliminate
all forms of violence against women the media had to intensify its efforts and,as one of the main stakeholders in the matter, had to undertake measures toprevent it. Within the framework of the present volume, then, several questions need to be raised: how can the media help to eradicate violence against
women? Can it do it at all? Can a feminist perspective offer new insights in the
pursuit of media aiming at the construction of a peace culture?
Following Paige’s (2009) need to move towards a nonkilling culture, theintention of this paper is to investigate the possibilities of representing
women’s stories of violence (or women’s stories in general) without contributing to the perpetuation of gendered cultural violence, that is, by goingagainst the grain of representational legacy that frame women within sexist
conventions. It is our contention that the attempt to construct a peace culture cannot be pursued alien to the nuances that a gender equality project
articulates in conflict transformation. In our case, searching for alternative
forms of female representation has also a pedagogical goal: to contribute tovisual literacy from a nonviolent and gender perspective.

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Framing the problem
Let us start our discussion taking a quick look around: if one googles“violence against women” 7.620.000 results emerge; for “stop violenceagainst women” the count is 545.000; in 1979 the Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) was
adopted by the United Nations General Assembly; in 1993 the Declarationon the Elimination of Violence against Women underwent the same process. The last document on this matter published by the Division for the Advancement of Women (DAW) of the UN is the Handbook for Legislation on
Violence against Women, where one can read:In 2008, the Secretary-General launched a multi-year global campaign
called UNiTE to End Violence Against Women […] on of its five key goals
is for all countries to adopt and enforce, by 2015, national laws that address and punish all forms of such violence, in line with international humanrights standards (DAW, 2010: iii). [Emphasis is ours]

Furthermore, the Handbook, in the Prevention section recommends thatthe law prioritize prevention and provide for a range of measures such asawareness-raising campaigns, sensitization of the communications media, andinclusion of material on violence against women and women’s humans rights in
educational curricula. Indeed, there have been numerous campaigns carriedout from different geographical contexts and undoubtedly the media is everyday plagued by images and reports of violence against women (the counts thatemerge from a quick google search testify to the proliferation of materials andsources), but given the endless dropping of murders and news and the continuous calls from the UN for the intensification of measures, it seems thatsomething does not work. Amnesty International denounces on this respectthat “despite the obligation of the states to act with due diligence to prevent
violence against women, violence against women and girls in many societies is
met with governmental silence or apathy or lack of interest”.1 However, we
would add that even the states that adopt legislation to prevent and sanction
violence against women fail to face adequately and effectively the issue.
Let us examine a sample case: Spain was one of the states participants inthe expert group meeting on good practices in legislation to address violenceagainst women whose results the Handbook draws upon and, moreover, it is1

See: <http://www.amnesty.org/en/campaigns/stop-violence-against-women/issues/state-perpetrators>.

Nonkilling Media from a Gender Perspective

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one the countries mentioned, in this document, as an example for its advanced
legislation in gender violence. Indeed, in Spain, in conjunction with the Organic
Act on Integrated Protection Measures against Gender Violence (2004), a
number of other laws have been amended in order to ensure consistency(such as the Worker’s Statute, Social Offences and Sanctions Act, Criminal
Code, etc). Since then, in 2007 the Organic Law for Gender Equality was also
approved to deepen into the project of eradicating discrimination and violenceagainst women. Spanish media has set up gender violence issues (mostly related to domestic violence) in its agenda and audiences are exposed to news
reports, talk shows, magazines, documentaries, etc., which tackle the issue.
However, despite all this display of legal measures, advertising campaigns,
media reports and programmes, the results on the Spanish public’s awarenessfrom the Sociological Research Centre Barometer (Barómetro del CIS) aredisheartening, to say the least: when the public is asked how much they worry
about domestic violence compared to other social issues, we realize, as we
can see in the graphic below, that the awareness of this problem has gradually
decreased since 2004 (the year when the Act against Gender Violence wasapproved). Slowly but surely, this is clearly showing us that something is goingwrong since the increase in the political and communicative efforts does notmatch the awareness raised. One could say that Spanish law does not seem tohave had an impact on the transformation of people’s everyday lives.
Figure 1. Public concern over domestic violence
7
6
5
4
3
2

Averagep ercent

1
0

2000

2001

2002

2003

2004

2005

2006

2007

2008

2009

2010

Nevertheless, we would like to suspend our belief on this respect andremember that, according to Butler (1990: 1-34), power, through its multiple manifestations (including legal and media), produces and conforms rela-

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tions among subjects either by legitimizing them or silencing them. So thequestion we should focus on is: is what is being legitimized through the media tackling of gender violence issues that does not prompt a positivechange on the transformation of the structural and cultural violence thatsustains inequality and violence against women?
Undoubtedly, in the general context, a long way has been walked since theapproval of the CEDAW in 1979. Gender violence has been made visible
through the work of international organizations (such as the UN), nation
states, Human Rights organizations (such as the Center for Women’s Global
Leadership, Unifem, Women Won’t Wait, Women for a Change, Women’s
Aid, Amnesty International…), etc., but it seems that making it visible has nottransformed the way women are framed and conceptualized, and most importantly, it has not modified the way the general public views women’s “stories
of violence”. It is not surprising, then, to find that if one searches for images in
the internet through the words “campaign gender violence”, 16 out of the first
30 images show women bruised, in a violent scene playing the victim role ordead, 4 out of those 30 present a single male character to whom the messageof the picture is addressed, 20 out of those 30 images refer explicitly to domestic violence. We are aware that this is a very simplistic exercise to prove
any scientific point but it is only symptomatic of how gender violence is being
made visible and, thus, legitimized: women as victims of domestic violence.
As Adelman (2009: 194) observes, “the way in which a social problem isframed determines in large part its solution”, therefore if gender violence isframed by the media as a situation in which a woman is killed or abused byher partner, and that is what the citizenship is witnessing through the media, the way to deal with the problem is to protect the victim and sanction
the victimizer, thus legal and health measures will be implemented. But
what remains of the necessity for prevention? Can nonkilling and, thus, alternative media contribute to it?
Nonkilling media from a gender perspective
Lee, in his chapter in this same volume, describes, quoting Kahane (2004),
four ways of talking and listening in an engaged manner: downloading (conventional exchanges), debating, reflective dialogue (placing oneself in the position of another) and generative dialogue (experiencing a common purpose
and potential for change). It would seem that, in order to transform thehegemonic representation of violence against women, reflective and generative dialogue should be the object of mass media and communicative innovation. However, what we witness most of the times are images of womenNonkilling Media from a Gender Perspective

177

abused or killed due to domestic violence whose situation, for being narrated
according to certain tragic genre conventions, is very difficult to relate to forthe general public. The way situations are presented narratively are analogous
to the existing conceptualized patterns of fictional drama, therefore genderviolence news are prone to be conceived as isolated tragedies that happen insituations removed from the daily experience of audiences.
The moral of the narrated stories is that domestic violence is somethingthat happens to women in very special circumstances. Usually the mise en
scene constructed by news, reports and films goes along the following lines:
domestic abuse, almost exclusively heterosexual and physical (resulting or
not in death), is the main focus of the stories; female subjectivity and thefemale body are almost exclusively represented in association to being
wounded or killed; physical abuse is never contextualized within the moregeneral framework of human rights, discrimination or structural and cultural
violence against women; instead, individual circumstances (drugs, jealousy, illness, etc.) for the victimizer to commit the abuse or crime are searched forby questioning family, neighbours, passer-bys or friends, which, in turn, supports the logic that considers the aggression dependant on a very particular
set of individual characteristics; emphasis is placed on the violent and tragic
aspects of the aggression (bruises, weapons used, wounds,…) and the victim’s acts or omissions which may have contributed to the violence. The
message resulting is that women trying to break from violence can only findtragedy, which, on the other hand, as Butler (2004: 34) indicates, implies theidea that women need to be protected in order to live away from violence.
No wonder the media coverage is keen on stressing the police and judicial
aspects of it, oblivious of society’s responsibility underlying the problem.
Unfortunately, this, in turn, reinforces the configuration of women as victims in need to be guarded by the system. Therefore, despite good intentions to denounce gender violence, the fact of the matter is that the way it
is represented disempowers the very subjects it pretends to help.
According to Andrijasevic (2007) no better outcome is derived from theanalysis of campaigns against sex trafficking. In her study of anti-trafficking
campaigns carried out since the 1990s in East, South-East Europe and former Soviet Union, she observes:[…] the representational strategies used in the campaigns in order to convey the danger of trafficking equate women’s migration with forced prostitution, encourage women to stay at home […]The display of suffering and beautiful victims positions the woman’s body as
the object of the (male) gaze and mobilizes erotic ways of looking that disclose

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Nonkilling Mediaa voyeuristic eroticization and fetishist fascination with a severed/captive female body. The representation of violence is thus itself violent since it confirms
stereotypes about eastern European women as beautiful victims, equates the
feminine with the passive object, severs the body from its materiality and fromthe historical context in which trafficking occurs, and finally confines women
within the highly disabling symbolic register of ‘Woman’ as to maintain an
imaginary social order (Andrijasevic, 2007: 26 and 42). [Emphasis is ours]

Feminist theory applied to visual culture has a long history of stressing thedifference between ‘woman as representation’ and the experience of women.
Since the pioneering paper of Mulvey (1975) to the contributions of ciberfeminism (Haraway, 1991), passing through the always enlightening reflections of
De Lauretis (1984), feminists coincide in highlighting the violence embedded in
the very act of representation and the burden of representational legacy that
encapsulates women’s experiences into the timeless signifier of Woman. The
implications for the project towards a nonkilling and peaceful society are essential: in recent specialized literature on audience response before images of violence against women in relation to acceptance of sexist stereotypes, the results
show that the way an audiovisual product presents gendered violence affects
gender stereotypes, approval of the objectification of women and rape myth
beliefs (Capella et al., 2010; Fernández-Villanueva et al., 2009; Lee et al., 2011).
Sadly, we have recently had the chance to check the real transferability of thesefindings into a global context through the journalistic coverage of the StraussKahn case, where once more the myth of uncontrollable masculinity being thecause of sexual abuse has been displayed. Dominique Strauss-Kahn, former
managing director of the IMF, was charged of attempted rape to a hotel maid in
New York. Independently of any moral judgement we may have on the matteror of the final judicial outcome, what needs to be stressed out is the message
put across journalistically: Strauss-Kahn’s wife, Anne Sinclair, “stood by herman” (as the media put it) supporting his innocence. She declared that she did
not believe a word of the alleged rape and added that, she had always been
proud of her husband’s sexual reputation (as a seducer).22“Strauss-Kahn wife Anne Sinclair stands by her man”, <http://www.reuters.com/article/
2011/05/17/us-strausskahn-wife-idUSTRE74G63Y20110517>; “Why Anne Sinclair isstanding by Dominique Strauss-Kahn”, <http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/jun/03/
anne-sinclair-dominique-strauss-kahn>; “Dominique Strauss-Kahn’s wife has ‘nodoubts’ he is innocent”, <http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/dominique-strausskahn/8606227/Dominique-Strauss-Kahns-wife-has-no-doubts-he-is-innocent.html>.

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Therefore, from a gender perspective, the question goes beyond eradicating media based on killing and violence or media that does not challenge
injustices that lead to killing. The project is farther reaching: how can the
media contribute, then, from a gender informed perspective, to a paradigm
shift resulting in fundamental alternatives to the fabric of society and culture? The question demands a multifaceted approach.
Changing the frame
Opening the scope of what gender violence implies should be a starting point.
The representation of violence against women can no longer be represented
as a matter of individual destiny; it has to be framed within the human rights
context (agreed upon by the international community) and put in relation withother forms of violence, including symbolic violence materialized in everyday
sexism. Media and communication agents cannot remain alien to facing radically this issue in its agendas. In other words, gender violence has to be dealt
with in conjunction with the violence of gender (Bal, 2009; Butler, 1990).
The construction of a peace culture does not merely imply the absenceof war or killing but the absence of violence (Galtung, 1990). In this sense,
the most difficult task is to create new representations that do not perpetuate symbolic violence. Symbolic violence manifests itself in the absence of
women as agents of their own stories of survival. Women have been
granted mainly the place of victims in stories of killing and violence. Nonkilling media urgently needs to break from it. A political and empowered female subject cannot be thought without the possibility of accessing to a visual and communicative culture where women appear as agents. As Halberstam (1993: 190) puts it: “Power and conflict no longer spring from thedomain of politics, and resistance has become as much an effect of popular
culture, of videos, films, and novels, as of direct action groups”. The responsibility is tantamount since media representations not only shape theway ordinary citizens respond to domestic violence but also the possibilityof enforcing public policies and legislation reforms (Adelman, 2009).
In this respect, part of our project towards a peaceful society resides in going against the burden of representational legacy. Let us remember that, among
the prevention measures that the UN Handbook recommends, changing theway women are represented is to be found. The problem is that, when facedwith the task of creating empowering images of women, politics and popular
culture proclaim that women are already empowered (as the Spice Girls, Tomb
Raider, Charlie’s Angels, etc. pretend to prove) (McRobbie, 2004). However,

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Nonkilling Mediaas Despentes (2009) points out in plain language, powerful women of popular
culture only mirror those whom men would like to go to bed with. From agender perspective, empowering women in the media does not imply necessarily presenting women in positions of power but offering innovative audiovisual products in which women react to inequality, discrimination, violence or socially condoned sexism (such as the prevailing in commercial advertising, mainstream media, journalism and films) in challenging ways.
We are aware of the burden of images that have configured the collective
imagination. A few popular examples from the history of American cinema, forexample, teach us that Gilda (Charles Vidor, 1945) legitimises violence against
the erotic femme fatale; Who Framed Roger Rabbit? (Robert Zemeckis andRichard Williams, 1988) presents the female character of the desirable Jessica
Rabbit as a threat to male subjectivity; Psycho (Alfred Hitchcok, 1960) epitomizes the dangers of having a powerful mother (the same happens with the
fairy tale stepmothers), and in King Kong (John Guillermin, 1976) rape in thehands of a gorilla can be framed in seductive terms. Indeed, the feminist critique of imagery has always insisted that western film tradition has constructed
images of women bond to the pleasure of the male heterosexual gaze.
Fortunately, there have been film and documentary initiatives attempting to tell women’s stories of violence from a different angle or/and to uncover and deconstruct the representational conventions sustaining women’s
images of being killed or violated (in cultural or physical manner). Strategies
have been diverse: The Secret Life of Words (Isabel Coixet, 2005) breaks
from the sadism implicit in western narratives (De Lauretis, 1984) which allows the camera to linger upon images of women’s tortures or murders
due to war (in this case, the Balkans). The film never shows such images
and, thus, fails to please the inquisitive male protagonist’s gaze who attempts to disclose the female protagonist’s enigma (related to sexual violence and torture). The Hours (Stephen Daldry, 2002) uncovers the cultural
violence surrounding women’s lives through different decades and exposes
its consequences on women’s health and relationships. Shrek (Andrew
Adamson and Vicky Jenson, 2001), in a more humorous way, exposes
through a recourse to exaggeration the limitations of western fairy tale conventions for female protagonists. King Kong (Peter Jackson, 2005) teaches usthat sexist myths, such as the beauty and the beast that underlines this movie,
can be re-told by empowering the female protagonist. The character played
by Naomi Watts, far from being seduced by the threatening masculinity thegorilla embodies (as it happens in the 1975 version mentioned above), confronts it firmly and makes use of her professional abilities as a vaudeville co-Nonkilling Media from a Gender Perspective

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median to avoid being killed. I Am the One Who Brings Flowers to My Grave(Hala Alabdalla and Ammar Albeek, 2007) is a documentary that allows the
Sirian female director Alabdalla to be in front of and behind the camera.
This enables her to consciously and reflectively manage her own image anddisclose in a non victimising way the complexities that have shaped her own
identity within a context of war and violence against women.
The examples described constitute a few but symptomatic and important challenges to tradition since they avoid images of women killed, abusedor violated to raise awareness on: the complex ways women can confront
any kind of violence, the subtleties of cultural violence and the relations between representations, violence and identity. In this context, we cannot
avoid mentioning other strategies that feminist theories such as Halberstam(1993), Despentes (2009) or Lord (2006) have put forward, despite controversy. They advocate for representations that break from the dichotomyof men as violent victimizers and women as passive victims in stories of violence and propose that imagined narratives where women react violently
against their abusers and potential killers have the potential to transformthe fabric of the collective imagination. Examples can be found in films suchas The Brave One (Neil Jordan, 2007) and Death Proof (Quentin Tarantino,2007). In these cases, the women protagonists respond with violence to theviolence inflicted upon them. In both cases is not a mere question of role reversal but a conscious strategy to go against the grain. In the first case, bothproducer (Susan Downey) and leading actress (Jodie Foster) wanted to explore (as they state in the bonus material of the DVD edition) what would
happen if women reacted differently to aggression, what if they would not
remain silently traumatized and, instead, would take action to find revenge. In
the second case, Death proof makes very evident that the motive of the narrative is to break from the conventions of the psycho-killer genre that entrap
women in the position of the dead victim. The first part of the movie follows
the usual plot of a psycho-killer who murders several young women only to
break the audience’s expectations in the second part. From that moment thepotential girls to be killed next surprise both spectators and male protagonist alike by putting a violent fight against him and finally wining.
At this conjuncture a question needs to be raised: is fictional violence perpetrated by women who have been victimized a necessary fantasy in a transition society which searches for equality and nonviolent relations? Niman(2010), in his contribution to the volume on Nonkilling societies, poses thesame dilemma by quoting Dentan (1994: 95): “pacifist ideals that appeal only
to those already safe from violence are not going to transform society”.

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It is a matter that needs further examination, but in any case we need toclarify that, following Halberstam (1993):[…] role reversal never simply replicates the terms of an equation. The depiction of women committing acts of violence against men does not simply
use “male” tactics of aggression for other ends; in fact, female violencetransforms the symbolic function of the feminine within popular narratives
and it simultaneously challenges the hegemonic insistence upon the linking ofmight and right under the sign of masculinity. Women with guns confronting
rapists has the potential to intervene in popular imaginings of violence andgender by resisting the moral imperative to not fight violence with violence[…] Women, in other words, long identified as victims rather than perpetrators of violence, have much to gain from new and different configurations ofviolence, terror and fantasy (Halberstam, 1993: 191).

We are aware of the lines of debate that this theoretical perspective
opens but it could not be overlooked in the search for alternative media.
Indeed, the representation of women committing acts of violence would
go, by definition, against the project towards nonkilling media. However, if
as Lee proposes in this same volume, only on equal footing one can takepart in engaged dialogue directed to transform people’s lives, first, equality
in representational terms has to be achieved. Products from the media
should provide, then, similar agent positions for male and female spectators.
Undoubtedly, “choosing stories that value nonkilling responses to conflict”(Lee, in this volume) is not only legitimate and valid but pursuable to transform gender relations in society and eradicate violence against women.
Nonetheless, feminist theoretical contributions explaining the necessity forimages of women reacting with violence to violence cannot be disregarded
within the possibilities of a “politics of dissent” (Lee, in this volume).
Another line of work is to be concerned with re-thinking the way
women’s stories of violence have been appropriated and translated by the media. We explained above the mise en scene that characterizes media coverage of domestic violence but the question now is to uncover what is being
concealed. The representational “translation” (Spivak, 1988) of women’s
experiences of violence is made on the basis of law enforcement technologies –police and justice- (Foucault, 1979, 1981). This obviously feeds in turn
media’s necessity to narrate what can be visible: there is no better story to
be told than a story of violence. It is easy to tell and enjoys a long representational legacy. Even in the well meaning stylebooks with recommendations
on how to inform about domestic violence, police and judicial sources areNonkilling Media from a Gender Perspective

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prioritized. This fact not only reinforces media’s focus on the image of
woman as victim and in search of protection, but hampers the intelligibility
and visibility of any instance of female empowerment not coinciding withthe prescriptive intelligible matrix that legitimates women as long as they
are victims placing an accusation against their aggressors.
What is behind this visibility based on judicial facts?
-

Gender violence is set on a matrix of intelligibility that implicitly or
explicitly seeks to find the causes that have led to aggression.
It only punishes the offender that takes his acts to the extreme ofobservable aggressions.
It focuses on the lawbreaker, but not in the social fabric that enables violence against women to happen.
It hides the daily violence against women carried out by the family,
school or state.
Thus, there is an implicit message to the public: women, whose
status and characteristics do not match those of the reported
abuse, do not have to worry because they will not be punishedthrough violence. So, the rest of men and women can continue
playing sexist patterns.

Adelman (2009) expands on the political ramifications of this problem by saying:
In case studies of the United States, Canadian, and British battered
women’s movements, scholars have observed a pattern of institutionalization that involves translation, appropriation, and, for the most part, gender
neutralization of woman battering […] This is seen through the naming of
the problem as family or domestic violence and the criminalization andmedicalization of domestic violence as a social problem […] translation
process resulted in the subsequent appropriation and absorption of wifebattering into two distinct but related and competing discourses on family
violence and wife assault […] The wife assault discourse triggered a criminalization of wife-battering aimed at state-based punishment of individual
batterers and protection of individual battered women, while the family
violence discourse triggered social services aimed at treating problems
within the family unit. […] However, gender is accentuated in the transformation and globalization of domestic violence from social condition to aviolation of women’s human rights (Adelman, 2009: 194-195).

Voices from other geographical contexts coincide in underlining the
problem of neutralizing gender violence through its criminalization andmedicalization (Cabruja 2004; Finley, 2010; Grin Debert and Gregori, 2008;

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Mestre, 2006; Schmal and Camps, 2008). It is agreed that the typification ofviolence and its resolution by juridical means avoids holding the social structure responsible for the inequalities that lead to killing women. In this sense,
nonkilling media should make an effort to convey the message that killing
women and violence against women (being symbolic, cultural, economical,
physical, etc.) results from holding positions of unequal gendered power
supported and reproduced by society. In this context, corporate media social responsibility should very deeply look into the paradoxes and contradictions involved in campaigning against gender violence but placing sexist
commercials (or programmes) in the same TV channel, journal or radio.
Challenging the future
Despite what has been said so far, it cannot be denied that the feminist
struggle to achieve international agreement on the criminalization of genderviolence as a human rights issue and the implementation of measures to prevent it has provided women with a normative framework that was crucial.
However, a next step should be taken and the media as producer of the fabric of culture and society has an important role to play. As Butler notes: “nodoubt we need a punitive legal institution, but the question is whether, once
legal responsibility has been assumed, this means that full responsibility has
now been apportioned” (Butler, 2008: 3). It is from this perspective thatnonkilling media can contribute to gendered literacy in order to transformviolence against women. So far, the way gender violence has been made visible has not modified the sexist fabric of culture that enables it, instead such a
way keeps on “fail[ing] to analyze the terms of its own enquiry, especiallyterms such as family, power and gender” (De Lauretis, 1989).
Needless to say, in order to transform the way media operates communication professionals need to be trained in gender issues. Also, society ingeneral has to be educated in visual literacy from a gender perspective.
Therefore, strong governmental efforts should placed in introducing gendermainstreaming in media education at all levels and journalism training curriculum at tertiary level.3
To sum up, nonkilling media from a gender perspective should aim at:

3

An enlightening study of how this has been implemented in African Universities canbe found in Made (2011).

Nonkilling Media from a Gender Perspective

1.

2.
3.
4.

5.

6.

185

Opening the scope of what violence against women is by reporting
domestic violence along with other more subtle kinds of cultural
violence and contextualizing it as a human rights issue.
Avoiding the victimisation of women and the focus on the particular circumstances or results of the aggression or murder.
Exposing the symbolic violence embedded in the burden of representational legacy.
Creating film and TV products that uncover the nonvisible but violent
ways in which women live everyday and have lived through decades,
echoing the idea that “[t]here are moral frames that can make the violence of an intervention ‘disappear’” (Jenkins, 2010: 104-105).
Disclosing the contingency of the socially accepted gender norms of
patriarchy and the violence they inscribe in the subjectification process, to remove its alleged universality, inscribed in our everyday lives.
Presenting empowering ways in which women have faced any kindof violence or discrimination.

Time has come for radical representational gestures that indeed transform the visual culture from a gender perspective and “undo the capturing
effects of norms [...] that give the appearance of being forms of necessity”(Jenkins, 2010: 106). Social responsibility of nonkilling media is to bear witness to visible and nonvisible forms of violence. Indeed conflict cannot be
avoided but the media’s responsibility relies in occupying it in a nonviolent
and nonkilling way (Butler, 2009: 175).
References
Adelman, Madelaine (2009). “Domestic violence,” in Essed, P.; Goldberg, D. T. andKobayashi, A., Eds., A Companion to Gender Studies. Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell,pp. 192-201.
Andrijasevic, Rutvica (2007). “Beautiful dead bodies: gender, migration and representation in anti-trafficking campaigns,” Feminist Review, 86: 24-44.
Bal, Mieke (2009). “The Violence of Gender,” in Essed, P.; Goldberg, D. T. and Kobayashi, A., Eds., A Companion to Gender Studies. Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell, pp.
530-543.
Butler, Judith (1990). Gender Trouble. London: Routledge.
Butler, Judith (2004). Undoing Gender. London: Routledge.
Butler, Judith (2008). “Gender is Extramoral” Interview with Judith Butler. Judith Butler and
Fina Birulés, Barcelona: Centre de Cultura Contemporània de Barcelona. Available
online at:<http://www.egs.edu/faculty/judith-butler/articles/gender-is-extramoral/>.
Butler, Judith (2009). Frames of War: When is Life Grievable? New York: Verso.

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Cabruja, T. (2004). “Violencia doméstica: sexo y género en las teorías psicosociales
sobre la violencia. Hacia otras propuestas de comprensión e intervención,” Intervención psicosocial: Revista sobre igualdad y calidad de vida, 13(2): 141-154.
Capella, Michael L. et al. (2010). “The Impact of Violence against Women in Advertisements,” Journal of Advertising, 39(4): 37-51.
Dentan, Robert Knox (1994). “‘Surrendered Men’: Peaceable Enclaves in the PostEnlightenment West,” in Sponsel, L. and Gregor, Th., Eds., The Anthropology ofPeace and Nonviolence. Boulder: Lynne Rienner, pp. 69-108.
De Lauretis, Teresa (1984). Alice Doesn’t: Feminism, Semiotics, Cinema. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.
De Lauretis, Teresa (1989). “The Violence of Rhetoric: Considerations on Representation and Gender,” in Armstrong, Nancy and Tennenhouse, Leonard, Eds.,
The Violence of Representation. London: Routledge, pp. 239-259.
Despentes, Virginie (2009). King Kong Theory. London: Serpent’s Tail.
Division for the Advancement of Women (DAW) (2010). Handbook for Legislation on
Violence against Women. New York: United Nations.
Fernández-Villanueva, Concepción et al. (2009). “Gender Differences in the Representation of Violence on Spanish Television: Should Women be More Violent?”
Sex Roles, 61: 85-100.
Finley, Laura L. (2010). “Examining Domestic Violence as a State Crime: Nonkilling
Implications,” Global Nonkilling Working Papers, 2: 5.45.
Foucault, Michel (1979). Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison. Harmondsworth: Penguin.
Foucault, Michel (1981). The History of Sexuality, Vol. 1. Harmondsworth: Penguin.
Galtung, Johan (1990). “Cultural Violence,” Journal of Peace Research, 27(3): 291-305.
Grin Debert, G. and Gregori, M. F. (2008). “Violence and Gender: New Proposals,
Old Dilemmas,” Revista Brasileira de Ciências Sociais, 23(66): 165-185.
Halberstam, Judith (1993). “Imagined Violence/Queer Violence: Representation,
Rage, and Resistance,” Social Text, 37: 187-201.
Haraway, Donna (1991). Simians, Cyborgs and Women: The Reinvention of Nature.
New York: Routledge; London: Free Association Books.
Jenkins, Fiona (2010). “Judith Butler: Disturbance, Provocation and the Ethics ofNon-violence,” Humanities Research Journal, 16(2): 93-115.
Kahane, Adam (2004). Solving Tough Problems: An Open Way of Talking, Listening, andCreating New Realities. San Francisco: Berret-Koehler.
Lee, Moon J. et al. (2011). “Effects of Violence against Women in Popular Crime
Dramas on Viewers’ Attitudes Related to Sexual Violence,” Mass Communicationand Society, 14(1): 25-44.
Lord, Susan (2006). “Killing Time: The Violent Imaginary of Feminist Media,” in Killing Women. The Visual Culture of Gender and Violence. Waterloo: Wilfrid Laurier
University Press, pp. 177-194.
Made, Patricia (2011). “Using Media to Transform Media Education in Journalism
Training Curriculum at Tertiary Level,” Gender and Media Diversity Journal, 9:Nonkilling Media from a Gender Perspective

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103-110. Available online at: <http://www.genderlinks.org.za/article/thesouthern-africa-media-and-diversity-journal-issue-9-2011-03-24>.
McRobbie, Angela (2004). “Notes on Postfeminism and Popular Culture: Bridget
Jones and the New Gender Regime,” in Harris, A., Ed., All About the Girl: Culture, Power and Identity. London: Routledge, pp. 3-14.
Mestre, R. (2006.: La caixa de Pandora. Introducció a la teoría feminista del dret. Valencia: PUV.
Meyers, Marian (1997). News Coverage of Violence against Women. Engendering
Blame. London: Sage.
Mulvey, Laura (1975). “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema,” Screen, 16(3): 6-18.
Niman, Michael I. (2010). “You Can’t Be Nonviolent without Violence,” in Evans Pim,Joám, Ed., Nonkilling societies. Honolulu: Center for Global Nonkilling, pp. 325-342.
Paige, Glenn D. (2009). Nonkilling Global Political Science. Honolulu: Center for Global Nonkilling.
Schmal, N. and Camps, P. (2008). “Repensando la relación entre la ley y la violencia
hacia las mujeres. Una aproximación a los discursos de los/las agentes del ámbito
judicial en relación a la ley integral de violencia de género en España,” Psicoperspectivas, 7: 33-58.
Spivak, Gayatri Chakravorty (1988). “Can the Subaltern Speak?” in Nelson, Cary and
Grossberg, Lawrence, Eds., Marxism and the Interpretation of Culture. Urbana:
University of Illinois Press, pp. 271-313.

Chapter EightCounternarratives
to the intelligentsia
Understanding impediments
to aspirant public peace intellectuals
Tom H. Hastings
Portland State University

What do peace educators do when they see governments committing lethal actions, or planning to commit acts that will result in killing, and thosepeace educators know from their study, from their expertise, that the actions
are both unjustified and poor alternatives to more adaptive policy and behavior? Do they write commentary or analysis and send it on to the press? Do
they contact television and radio programs to offer informed analysis to thenbecome part of the public discourse? Do they speak publicly?
If they make the attempt, it frequently fails. Few peace intellectuals
were heard from during the September 2002-March 2003 period in the US,
despite the widespread knowledge in the field of Peace and Conflict Studies
and amongst the dedicated peace activist community that the nominal reasons for war were false.1 There were no weapons of mass destruction in
Iraq. None of the hijackers were Iraqi. Osama bin Laden despised Saddam
Hussein; Saddam Hussein had outlawed and persecuted al-Qa’ida in Iraq.
We all knew all these things and few of us managed to convey any of that to
the American people. We might have made a difference and we did not.
What is a public peace intellectual and how do we make more?
The term public peace intellectual was coined by Johan Galtung in 1976
(2002a). What he meant by that was that the academics who publishedpeer-reviewed articles and books should also be accessible to nonacademic
citizens in order to help create new social norms and eventual policychanges. Todd Gitlin (2006: 123) calls the public intellectual “someone seasoned and knowledgeable who thinks out loud and is in the business of pub1

See <http://www.alternet.org/story/16274/>.

191

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Nonkilling Medialic enlightenment”. Sadly, the peace side of our academic expertise haslargely remained untapped, while the war side is routinely featured in our
public discourse. This unfortunate situation is due to a number of related
and unrelated factors. The three primary problems:-

Mainstream media is corporate, war system media and is inimical toa peace analysis.
Even with academic freedom, some sanctions can still be applied
against a professor who writes about controversial topics.
Many universities are so pressurized to generate student credit
hours, research grant monies and serious amounts of academic
publishing that professors simply have no time to write for mainstream media.

These problems are persistent and are exacerbated by a positive feedback
loop with negative consequences, requiring a reversal of direction, a sort ofreset on what citizens are primed to believe. Glenn D. Paige (2000: 12) gives
some perspective on the scope of the illogic that fights a nonkilling argument:
Examples are when guns in the home kill more family members than intruders, bodyguards assassinate heads of state, violent revolutionaries become
oppressors of the liberated, armies for defence oppress the defended, andthe ultimate victorious weapon and its associated technology become themost dangerous threat to the continued existence of life on earth.

Despite the urgency, it’s almost as though peace educators must intellectually feed the public such small bites that it is a challenge to chop thecontent. Arguably the most important public peace intellectual extant,Noam Chomsky (2001: 145), has a style is low key but powerful. “I’m a
Deweyite from way back,” he said to David Barsamian, “from childhood
experience and reading. You figure out how to do things by watching otherpeople do them…The right way to do things is not to try to persuade people you’re right, but to challenge them to think it through for themselves”.
George Lakoff (2004) stresses the need to frame issues to reflect values the
public intellectual regards as valuable, not to reflect values that are harmful
to people. It is to be hoped that good educators already have these skills,
since students with a wide diversity of values and positions on a range of issues study and challenge these professors every day. Public peace scholarship is education by other means. The slow accretion of the possibilities of anonkilling world into the public discourse makes possible the imaginationnecessary to convince the public to support elements of the process

Counternarratives to the intelligentsia

193(Bourne, 2011). Stretching the mind is a probing, gentle, low pressure, incremental approach at which peace educators should be adept.
In my research into this welter of questions and concerns, I am confronting a nest of issues, beginning with three primary problems.
First, war is not inevitable, as public peace scholar Margaret Mead observed in her germinal 1940 essay, Warfare is only an invention—Not a biological necessity. Her assertion has been borne out by succeeding anthropologists (Gregor, 1996; Fry, 2006) and by numerous academic professionals from many disciplines, most saliently in the Seville Statement on Violence. Media research reveals, however, that violence is privileged as realistic and normal (Gorsevski, 2004). Second, war often occurs based on lies
and incomplete conflict analysis, both of which could be corrected by peace
academics participating enough in the public discourse. Third, there has
been little research into why peace academics have such a seemingly low
rate of participation in national conversations.
Based on interviews with a fairly diverse group of scholars and high-level
activists, my preliminary results are showing several strands of thinking, informed by a richly diverse experience, disciplinary background, ethnicity or
country of origin, gender and age. While it is too soon to reach conclusions,some pieces of grounded theory have begun to emerge. The individuals
were mostly self-selected (of course all were volunteers, but a few wereparticipants of convenience) from an association of peace educators, thePeace and Justice Studies Association. There is little random, then, about
the selection of participants, nor was that an intention. The preliminary results show some emergent coalescence around the following:-

Fear of impact upon career. This included both fear of reprisal andof subjecting nonacademic writing to criticism.
Lack of time to prioritize participation in public discourse.
Assumption of rejection for dissenting viewpoints from corporate
mainstream media.
Weariness at perceived lack of public interest.
Little faith in efficacy of striving to become a public peace intellectual.

The remainder of this chapter will be my effort to explore facets of these
problems, to discuss inspirational public intellectuals past and present, and tojustify the effort to engage in public peace scholarship. I will attempt to write it
in a fashion that is academically informed yet accessible to the public. This is
how we who have a foot in both worlds can help bring them together in a dialog toward peace and the prevention of killing. My effort here is to bring in194Nonkilling Media

strands of thinking about this and to join them around the central notion thatboth our research and academic analysis on the one hand, and public explanation of problems of violence on the other, are vital to any hopes of a nonkillingworld, one society at a time. In the US, our public discourse is mostly aroundthe advisability of violence from the standpoint of the world superpower and all
the obligations presumed attached to that. Elsewhere, peace educators more
often confront convincing groups in conflict that violence is a poor choice, inpart because it’s the method that the oppressor is best at (Sharp, 2010).
This is not to claim that intellectuals must come from the ranks of professors, nor are all my research participants professors. As Thomas Merton(1968) showed when disciplined for his public expressions opposing the war in
Vietnam, institutional pressures on intellectuals are not limited to colleges anduniversities, though that is my current primary focus. Religious organizations,
corporations both profit and nonprofit, and even the community zeitgeist willaffect the engagement and output of intellectuals into the public conversationsof the day. If those intellectuals are promoting a nonkilling philosophy, they are
most often in the disadvantageous position of the challenger. In her germinal
discourse on nonviolence as it relates to numerous political philosophies, Joan
V. Bondurant (1965) demonstrates that the nonkilling philosophy finds nofriends in most schools of political thought. Indeed, the intelligentsia are usuallyquick to attack the challenger and can make career advancement nearly impossible. In most cases, an intellectual employed by an institution with something of a built-in challenger stance is a refuge for the scholar with a nonkilling
message. Quaker, Mennonite, historical African American, and other colleges
and universities can harbor the intellectual who expresses public opinion on
policy that runs counter to the philosophy of the institution, as we have seen
with careers of several notable public peace and justice intellectuals. Careers
may thus be stalled, but not ended in those cases.
Peace educators MIA
When you are an activist, you work with media, unless you are an unsuccessful activist. You may work with mainstream media, social media, or
alternative media—the most effective work with all three—but it is simply
bread and butter for any normal social activist or community organizer.
This is why I earned a minor in Writing as a part of my Peace and Conflict
Studies bachelors degree. This is why I earned a masters in Mass Communication. This is why I have written hundreds of editorials plus other writing over
the years. It is all toward peace, justice and environmental sustainability.

Counternarratives to the intelligentsia

195

And so, when I saw so little of the peace analysis in popular press during
the September 2002-March 2003 period of selling the invasion of Iraq, I was
increasingly dismayed. I was especially disappointed in the lack of peace educator participation in the press. We were rarely interviewed as articles claiming
to be about this decision process streamed past us daily. Generals were interviewed. The Secretary of Defense and infinite Assistants were interviewed.
Politicians and agency people were interviewed. The peace perspective wasvirtually nonexistent. And peace researchers and educators were missing in action on the editorial pages. It was hard to have a national conversation when in
reality it was a national monologue from the war system, pouring content into
the empty vessels of the public. Yes, there were many perceptive and helpful
editorials in the peace press and in alternative media in general, but few in the
media that affects the vast majority of public opinion in the US.
So the research project I’m working on tries to look at the perceptions of
the academic about this phenomenon. I’m learning that time pressures are apiece of this puzzle. Jerry Jacobs and Sarah Winslow (2004) noted that mostacademics work 55-65 hours per week, whether they have earned tenure ornot. My interview participants report enormous time crunches, especially ifthey also have families. Other perceptions help fill in the picture.
“In the past, I would be earnest and eager to weigh in on an issue I knew
about,” said one participant. “I’d feverishly write a commentary and thenwait for a response from a paper while the piece grew colder and colder. I
stopped trying to publish in the newspapers with anything time urgent. I
never knew if some corporate influence stopped my piece or what.” For abusy professor, even one whose research or teaching focused on understanding issues that often are in the news, there is the fear of wasting very
limited spare time trying to say something that is never going to be heard
because of unspoken editorial bias.
Then, if some piece does finally get published, a tenure track professor
may get derailed because colleagues and administrators believe she isspeaking outside her area of expertise, though the fear of the peace educator is often that, since it cannot be admitted that public expression of a partisan view for peace is alienating to corporate interests or to conservative
political powerful institutional players, other justifications for critique are
required. Hence, “She is not a political scientist. She is writing outside her
discipline.” There is a fear that this blocks tenure and, if a professor is denied tenure, they are sometimes simply then fired. One participant recalleda conversation with the departmental Chair following the then-young tenure-track professor’s participation in a teach-in about a war. “He told me196Nonkilling Mediahe was not going to recommend me for tenure. He said I wouldn’t really fit
into the needs of the Department.” That professor then told me that hewent on to a “very enjoyable and fulfilling teaching and researching career”
at another institution more welcoming to public peace scholarship. The intelligentsia who declaim on public intellectualism, e.g. Richard Posner(2003: 167), attempt to associate intellectual legitimacy with numbers ofscholarly publications, but this is unhelpful in most cases, since the idea behind public scholarship at the service of nonkilling needs the participation ofas many peace educators as possible, not simply the tiny handful who havepublished academically more than anyone else. A kindergarten teacher
whose direct work is with shaping the educational culture of children toward a nonkilling philosophy and set of competencies, and who simply
reads credible material that obviates a casus belli is doing a great public
peace intellectual service by producing commentary for the public in newspapers, on the radio, on television, or in mass social media postings.
I was told by another participant that institutions wishing to enable theirpeace, justice and environmental sustainability faculty to help raise the level of
public discourse should consider finding ways to make sure that academic freedom precedes tenure, that public scholarship count toward tenure, and thattime spent with this type of civic engagement counts as part of those 55-65
work hours. That would not solve the problem of the corporate media blocking countervailing opinion, but it would break up part of that logjam that leaves
us with an increasingly war-accepting, if not war-promoting, public discourse.
In an effort to address some of the aspects of this lacuna in public peacescholarship, I launched PeaceVoice in 2006. PeaceVoice is a free service toboth peace professionals and editors. When a peace professional—a professor, an institute intellectual, a staffer for a nongovernmental organization,
or a high-ranking activist—writes an analysis or an op-ed that meets somebasic criteria (e.g., promotes positive peace) and sends it to me, I distributeit to editors across the US, who then have the option to use that piece.
Students have gathered the contacts for editors and our web manager posts
all the pieces that we distribute as soon as they are published, at which
point they are available for free republishing. This works. Each piece isprinted someplace, and most are multiple placements. So we have a working system, the goal of which is to begin to enrich our national conversation
toward peace and away from war. But this is actually a tiny subsystem ofwhat is necessary to produce a paradigm shift. To alter the phenology ofconflict methods, we need to first change the climate.

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Dialog toward truth: Educators and the public
In his call for scholars to become public scholars in the Buberian dialogic
model, Ish-Shalom (2011: 839) writes, “Truth is a living entity constructedin an engaged and dynamic process and should be treated accordingly”.
What does this mean for those who live in the teaching and research world?
Gandhi also called for an ongoing and collaborative search for truth, which is
to say, everyone has a piece of it and no one owns it all. Martin Buber (18781965) asked for three levels of dialog and search for the truth: intrapersonal, interpersonal, and the public dialog that helped scholars and civil society more
completely help each other learn those larger truths. Mohandas Gandhi andMartin Buber disagreed about Israel, though they did so before Israel was
founded, which was interesting, because Buber seems far more reasonable thandoes Gandhi in their 1938-9 disagreement, yet Gandhi proved correct in his assumption that founding Israel would require violent conquest, which it did.
Truth is infinitely complex, of course, because it is natural. Anyone
claiming to completely understand any natural system is overestimating his
knowledge, just as is anyone asserting he understands the absolute truth
about any matter. There are always more factors and more complexities inany natural system and in any human reality.
Does this lack of total certitude about the truth stop us from acting?
That is another question, of course, since the first order of business is toseek enough evidence from enough sources to justify action. But no, itwouldn’t stop a person of conscience from acting on belief. Belief, supported by a preponderance of fact, crosses that threshold when it does—
when the individual believes it does. Whether we have belief in violence,
nonviolence, a Gaian Bona Dea or a retributive patriarchal Sky God is partof the dialectic, and will feed the self-fulfilling prophesies we create.
Buber understood what happened when scholars either supported thestate or were silent. He fled Germany and his academic appointment inprotest of Hitler’s election, eventually teaching sociology and anthropology
at Hebrew University. While he was a Zionist in Germany and in pre-Israel
Palestine, he was not a Greater Israel Zionist and took withering blasts ofcriticism for his staunch support of a binational, or two-state, solution thatwas both sovereign Israel and sovereign Palestine. His life is an exemplar ofwhat it means to be a public intellectual unafraid to pose dissenting views
and seek greater and greater truth.

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When is it time to speak out against killing? What did a German minister say?
First they came for the communists,
and I didn’t speak out because I wasn’t a communist.
Then they came for the socialists,
and I didn’t speak out because I wasn’t a socialist.
Then they came for the trade unionists,
and I didn’t speak out because I wasn’t a trade unionist.
Then they came for me,
and there was no one left to speak for me.

Pastor Martin Niemöller (1892-1984) is the man to whom those lines
are attributed. They are “about the inactivity of German intellectuals following the Nazi rise to power and the purging of their chosen targets,group after group.” He spoke against Nazism, was sent to concentration
camps, survived, and lived as a pacifist leader into his 80s and the ‘80s.
When is it time? The time to speak out against killing our fellow humans isalways and forever now, though it’s often a tough sell. After all, as Mark Kurlansky (2006: 5-6) reminds us, when it comes to introducing the notion ofnonviolence as a practical alternative to killing, “the Caesars and Napoleons ofhistory have always used their power to muffle the voices of those who
would challenge the necessity of war—and it is these Caesars, as Napoleon
observed, who get to write history”. Peace educators are generally working
with a citizenry lacking in historical knowledge, and even more pronounced is
the US public school lack of history texts that encourage critical thinking,since most are missing salient information about basic debates in our past
democratic controversies (Loewen, 1995). The deficit is daunting.
On back in 1976, our now longest operating peace and conflict forensics
scholar, Johan Galtung, wrote a piece on intellectuals published in the academic journal, Higher Education in Europe, which then reprinted it in 2002,
as well as a follow-on piece. Galtung discussed intellectuals, their publicrole, and their intentions and loyalties. He predicted what others have since
documented, the growing silence of the intellectual:
Ultimately one might even imagine a society [in which] the means of intellectual production are so monopolized by an intellectual élite, so solid andloyal to itself, that no such thoughts would ever emerge, either from theintellectuals [themselves] or from the masses left dull by insufficient exposure to problems beyond the most trivial and by over-exposure to solutions produced for them by others (2002a: 62).

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His basic typology for intellectuals is that they either are completely independent and publicly critical of whatever is wrong with public policy,
corporate policy, or academic policy—or they are not true intellectuals, but
are rather what he calls the intelligentsia, in service to elite interests.
While the distinction is valuable, I think Galtung is more than a bit unrealistic and simplistic in his rudimentary typology in these two pieces. He fails to
acknowledge where he has himself been a member of the intelligentsia by his
definition. Or, if he can make the case that he has never succumbed to thosedepths, he needs to acknowledge that there are some academic superstars
who need not fear sudden and chronic unemployment from the academy. He
has always been at the top, deservedly so, but his scorn for those of us who
fail to adequately attack our own academic institutions is perhaps too Manichean and easily delivered from someone whose talents are simply overwhelming. Speaking personally, I do not write op-eds for our local newspapers excoriating the university president for his massive and rapidly increasingsalary even as the rest of us suffer freezes at best. For this failure on my part,
Galtung would label me as part of the intelligentsia, even though I have beenarrested, jailed, tried and imprisoned many times for my nonviolent resistanceto our nation’s militarism, including six times in direct local publicized opposition to Oregon’s US Senators who voted for funding for the war in Iraq. I
choose my battles because I am not a superstar who would easily find otherwork so fulfilling as teaching about nonviolence to hundreds of students eachyear. So, I am on the wrong side, according to Galtung.
Galtung finally tell us how to fix this: “The remedy? Obviously—the freelance intellectual, free to follow his and her leads wherever they lead”(2002b:. 67). Sure, that would fix it all, but what would happen to the numbers involved and their abilities to reach and teach? Without institutional support from the academy or foundations, who would pay the rent, or is Galtung
suggesting we who might be trying to develop intellectual goods should simply sleep under bridges and bring our mendicant bowls to the corner to remain pure? After all, his freelancer still needs a sponsor, a publisher, someone
to keep the intellectual freelancer fed and clothed. Is that freelancer thenpandering to the organization who hires her or him to speak? Is that freelance
intellectual spinning her or his writing to try to sell a few books to survive?
Who is that freelancer trying to please enough to live another day in order tobe able to offer those intellectual products to more people?
I think Johan Galtung may have to return to his essays and refine themor he is going to write off all of us, even possibly himself, as mere intelligentsia. I suspect he’d acknowledge there are degrees and types of intellec-

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tuals in a far more complex taxonomy than the binary model he has created, if he wants to maintain his credibility and the deep admiration so manyof us feel for him and his work over the past 50+ years.
Public peace intellectuals and public opinion
The struggle by some academics to give solid information to the public
in digestible form is long and interesting, with some career casualties andreactionary institutions playing antagonistic parts along the way. One interesting strand has been the peace scientists that began their braided journeysof social science research and public peace intellectualism half a century ago
in Ann Arbor, Michigan.
These pioneers in peace science include David Singer, Elise Boulding,
Herbert Kelman, Paul Kimmel and others. They launched many journals,
longitudinal studies, professional associations and have done enough publicscholarship—that is, translating their research findings into informed opinion for public consumption—so that the war system’s impact has been atleast slightly blunted, from Vietnam to Iraq to Afghanistan to nuclear weaponry to military budgets.
If a certain amount of that scholarly activity has been brought into our
public discourse with the effect of helping all of us to learn more, how can
we encourage them to continue and offer more? We obviously need it.
Academic freedom is clearly crucial. One respondent in my study, whotaught at one of the original Seven Sisters colleges, was fired some years ago fornominally unclear reasons. It was no coincidence, he felt, that he had just written an op-ed for nuclear disarmament. After all, peace science ultimately collides with war profiteering and the entire military-industrial-Congressionalmedia system. Attempting to get transformative conflict forensics into public
discourse is not akin to Carl Sagan explaining the stars to the public, nor like
Oliver Sachs helping demystify migraine headaches, two uncontroversial topics
that do not collide with corporate or government policy. A public peace intellectual is out there as a countervailing force to the war machine; the same owners on the boards of directors of the Pentagon contractors are on the boards of
directors of major media conglomerates. The nonkilling message is perceived as
hostile to what Daniels and Walker (2001) aptly label “the conflict industry.”
Research, of course, is dismissed by ideologues unless it matches theirworldview, but most people are still not so polarized that reason cannot reachthem. Time to help bring more science to the service of more peace, which will
require the translation services of the public peace science intellectual.

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Peace intellectuals under pressure
In the aftermath of World War II, German intellectuals were pilloried forlack of backbone in standing up to the Nazis. Intellectuals everywhere tried
to demonstrate better behavior to show the world that academics can also
be courageous. They frequently became involved in peace and disarmament
movements. Yes, there were the intelligentsia who seemed almost a logicalextension of the German academics in service to Hitler. Herman Kahn, Edward Teller, and many who devoted their intellectual talents to aggrandizing American power could be found doing the work of the elites. But there
were also many who courageously resisted.
Intellectuals were first challenged by the McCarthy witch hunts. Some
folded and testified, gave names, joined the rat system and sprouted sudden
rightwing ideology. Some, like Paul Robeson, stood against the House UnAmerican Activities Committee and some stood defiant of McCarthy on the
Senate side. Some just raised questions, countervailing opinions, and analysis, even in that generally stultifying political atmosphere of red-baiting response to critical thinking.
Public peace intellectuals like Linus Pauling and his wife Ava Helen Paulingwere keys to achieving the Partial Test Ban Treaty of 1963, and were strong
through many campaigns before and after that. Linus was a chemistry professor and was asked by Robert Oppenheimer to lead that aspect of the Manhattan Project, which Pauling refused to do, as a pacifist. Oppenheimer would
later learn about the loyalty of the elites to their intelligentsia, when his security clearance was stripped during the McCarthy period of hysteria. Ava
Helen Pauling was Linus’s conscience and prompter toward his battles. She
led him to their anti-internment activities during World War II, another stanceby a public intellectual that defied the zeitgeist. The times of peace and prosperity without conflict and enemies are the times when intellectuals are
more active, but the times of hot conflict, security paranoia, xenophobia
and jingoism are when intellectuals really earn their stripes.
Peace journalism and public scholarship
Peace journalism? What is that? Why do we need it? Some of the problems
created by mainstream journalism that peace journalism can seek to remedy:-

inadequate appreciation for alternatives to violencepoor contextualizing of both violence and nonviolence
exceptionalism allowing for our violence and condemning theirs

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assumption that we all must choose between violence and apathy
poor grasp of structural violence
no appreciation for structural nonviolencesacralizing violent warriors
ignoring nonviolent warriors
valorizing violence
ignoring nonviolence or treating nonviolence as misguided, naive,
quaint, or publicity seeking stunts
bypassing nonviolent experts and immediately sourcing military or
adversarial politicians (now a mere redundancy)

So our remedies are to do what fixes all that, including but not limited to:-understanding violence in order to facilitate reconciliation
highlighting nonviolent initiatives
recruiting nonviolent citizen involvement
featuring nonviolent case studies that show nonviolent successcomparing costs and benefits of violence and nonviolence
gatekeeping in favor of experts in nonviolence, conflict resolution,
restorative justice, mediation, conflict costs, conflict transformation,
ethical advantages of nonviolence, and morepositive regard for nonviolent leadership and organizers
framing nonviolent initiatives as cost-reduction measures
marking nonviolent success anniversaries and engaging in background educational pieces
crediting quiet transformational workers (e.g. intercultural reconciliation staff and activists) with conflict mitigation achievements
featuring a broad set of options to conflict rather than the simplistic‘do you want to bomb someone or just do nothing?’

These are the short lists, of course. There are excellent, helpful, and moredetailed examinations of this strand of journalism. One of the mistaken canards about journalism that features the qualities that promote peace is that it
is all kumbaya and insipid, when the reverse is the case. It looks harder atconflict and honestly appraises the weaknesses in our human responses whilelooking earnestly for components of what might actually work to help us
evolve as a species, culture by culture, community by community, away fromthe destructive conflict management methods that eviscerate our economy,
devastate our ecology and dim our hopes for a better future for our children
and grandchildren. Peace journalism does not advocate an end to conflict;Counternarratives to the intelligentsia

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that is a fast path to discredit and dismissal; peace journalism promotes theescalation of conflict but in a constructive nonviolent transformative methodthat peace research is featuring (Alger, 2000; Kriesberg, 2007). Peace journalism is the hard look that avoids easy credulity and breezy cynicism alike.
Peace journalism takes journalism seriously.
Peace educators and our public discussions
Public peace intellectuals are from many disciplines—Chomsky to Zinn,
Mead to Shiva—and Peace and Conflict Studies is a good place to synthesize
the peace strands of those disciplines. One in current hot discussion about
matters quite close to peace and nonviolence—and when I use peace I use it
in the context of the field of Peace and Conflict Studies, which is to say, positive peace, or peace and justice by peaceable means—is from Anthropology.
Gavin Smith (2011) observes that the Gramscian notion of an intellectual’s mission as a dialectical process with the public is bent sideways frequently by the desired results of the funding of the ethnographic fieldwork,
especially if that funder is the government in a time of war and the humangeography is where that war is occurring.
Researchers require funding and those who do their work with teams inforeign places require a great deal of funding. Sometimes the funding comes
free of contaminating interests of powerful players, state or corporate, butwhen it comes with strings they can be strong binding wires. That is one
way junk science happens and is how public intellectuals become little morethan purchased puppet intelligentsia.
A critical thinker, trying to decode all this, is helped by finding the independent ones, those who cannot be purchased, even when they apply for
and receive funds from parties with interests beyond objective science. Yes,
results may be ignored, but they cannot be flipped unless that researcher allows it. And no researcher should sign away the ability to speak freely except, obviously, to protect research participants.
It has been very important to corporate and imperial designs to control
intellectual interface with the public. Peace intellectuals are challenged toovercome the painted picture of the ivory tower pointy head, of lack of realism, of lacuna of disciplinary rigor, and of blinding bias. These images are
created by our own faults and by war propaganda—recall Goering’s admonition to blame the pacifists first. We can eliminate the former and work tocounter the latter. Is research too expensive? Go get arrested for peace and204

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make that part of your research. Take a stance, timid or truculent, observe
what happens, and report it to the people.
Public peace intellectuals did not stop the invasion of Iraq, and my dear departed Dad, who was our Pee Wee hockey coach, said, “Always change a losing
game.” If we are peace educators, let’s think about how we can reach into thenational discourse rather than wait too long and in vain for it to come to us.
Stop the funeral music
Can peace academics influence public opinion? Who listens to them?
Who reads them in the op-ed pages? Who watches them on TV?
Apparently, it’s decided. There are no more public intellectuals, let alone
public peace intellectuals. Bates (2011) notes that there has not been even one
intellectual on the cover of Time magazine in more than a decade. Richard Posner wrote an entire book proving that public intellectuals are a washed-out
breed. End of story. Stick to your classrooms, professors, and your academic
journal articles. No one wants you on TV, radio or in the op-ed pages.
I guess that covers one strand, then, of the five main strands in our
braided public fora. After all, there is local media, alternative media, theblogosphere, and social media. Are they worth considering? Ask Hosni
Mubarak. Ask Ben Ali. Before that, ask Slobodan Milosevic—whoops, toolate. In Mubarak’s and Ali’s cases, social media greatly hastened their downfall. In the case of Milosevic—long, long ago, before Facebook, waaay backin 2000—his Achilles heel was local media.
Look at those four arrays of outlets for your public peace intellectuals.
They are in play. I can’t keep up. Michael Nagler and Cynthia Boaz of theMetta Center for Nonviolence just put up pieces in Facebook on their recent
workshop on nonviolence in the infamous San Quentin prison in California. It’s
spreading around Facebook and off onto digests of interesting pieces. Alternet,
Common Dreams, Truthout, Antiwar, and numerous other alternative media
digests are shipping out provocative pieces from an array of public intellectuals,
including peace intellectuals, many of whom are lighting up the blogosphereconstantly. Small town media are not quite as active in utilizing the voices ofpublic peace intellectuals, but some are and the numbers are growing.
So the reports of the death of the public peace intellectuals are greatly
exaggerated. The obstacles are sometimes quite formidable, but thosepeace academics just keep plugging away. Let’s give them a listen.

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Chewing gum and... taking a step
If there is one thing that some disciplinary academicians despise, it’s apolymath. Take a Noam Chomsky and toss him into a river known forschools of political scientists and they frenzy him with their bites at anything
he does outside his circumscribed role, professor emeritus of linguistics at
the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
It’s tough to be good at any work, so some people tend to get defensive
and dented egos when an outsider does as well and does it in addition to
her own work. It can get quite ugly in the academy when these traits are
evoked by the work of a Renaissance woman or man. It can be very nasty
when someone who is an excellent academic also speaks out publicly. This
seems to trigger the outrage of those who have all they can do to keep up
in the cloistered halls of academe. When a historian comments learnedly
but negatively on the invasion of, say, Cambodia by Nixon, there may be aslashing attack on his tenure process (this happened to a friend of mine all
those years ago, but he prevailed, thank goodness). When a psychologist
helps organize a teach-in on a war he may also be suddenly derailed off thetenure track (also happened to a wonderfully accomplished academic whowent on to a brilliant career elsewhere). Or there is another friend who is ahistorian, wrote a letter to the editor, and was dismissed from an Ivy
League school on other, bogus, grounds. Speaking for peace or against war
from the standpoint of someone who has actually made a study of it, or isan expert on one aspect of it, is turning oneself into a target.
These are not new issues. There is the case documented by Alexander
Olson (2011: 53) of Mary Hunter Austin’s public scholarship and two
friends of hers, Henry Smith of Southern Methodist University and B. A.
Botkin of the University of Nebraska.
Austin was an inspiration for both men. As Smith put it, she found ways tobridge the domains of “botany, geology, archaeology, the psychology of
genius, history, anthropology, literary history, sociology, prose fiction, regional culture, religion, and verse for children.

It does seem that if Austin could do all that back before women wereeven supposed to achieve anything intellectually, we who teach some aspect of peace from any discipline ought to be able to engage in our public
discourse and offer some considered commentary that might counter thehegemony of the politicians, generals and war profiteers. We can walk ourtalk and chew gum simultaneously, right? Or work for peace and bike...

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Freedom is not free
Our data suggests that recourse to violent conflict inresisting oppression is significantly less likely to produce sustainable freedom, in contrast to nonviolent
opposition, which even in the face of state repression,
is far more likely to yield a democratic outcome.
—Adrian Karatnycky and Peter Ackerman (2005)

Those who support war and war budgets tell us that “Freedom is not
free,” claiming that freedom is correlated positively to how much we spend
on war and how willing we are to wage it. These people often ask what
they regard as a crucial question about a candidate: Does s/he have thestomach to do what must be done? The costs will be high in blood and resources. We may lose many lives and take many lives, and we will spend
ourselves into extreme debt if necessary, even go broke for generations if
we must, but we will never waver in defense of freedom.
Except that war and violence are the stupidest, costliest, most immoral,
and least effective ways to seek freedom or defend it.
We had no real idea of this pre-Gandhi. Even post-Gandhi, since it took
him 28 years to liberate India, we assumed nonviolence was always slow,
and allowed for ongoing occupation until the occupier sailed away at his
own timeline. The AK-47 looked good to the decolonizing world. The
Bomb looked best to the US.
Then came the lightning fast campaigns of the Civil Rights movement asthey added the prong of civil resistance to the long, slow NAACP legal work.
Suddenly, victories were coming in months or a year, not decades. And at thenational level, as the study by Karatnycky and Peter Ackerman shows, speed
and effectiveness ramped up, often tossing out dictators in months or just a
couple of years, but sometimes even in weeks or even days.
What does freedom cost using nonviolence?
It still requires risk to life and limb by nonviolent resisters, though casualties are never as bad as when violence is used by the challengers.
It costs freedom for the nonviolent resisters who are incarcerated.
Campaigns and movements still need funding, though one Trident submarine could fund all the social movements described in all the 67 regimechanges in the Freedom House study. Freedom is not free, but nonviolenceis certainly the blue light special for humankind.

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Don’t point that head at meIntellectual pointy heads. That’s what many military troops seem to feel
about academics who express respect for indigenous peoples and different
cultures. But in 2007 the US military launched a Human Terrain Systems
project that recruited social scientists, including political scientists and sociologists, but primarily anthropologists, in order to make the occupation of
Iraq and Afghanistan easier.
Human Terrain: War becomes academic, is a 2010 film from Udris, and it
examines this problem using 25 interview participants—some far more thanothers—and telling the story of one young anthropologist’s tragic seduction
and death by IED.
Michael Bhatia tells a fellow HTS embed that he always felt that heshould have served in the military. “What do you think you’re doing rightnow?” was the response. Bhatia even asked questions of the locals about
how many men were off getting training to join the insurgency, somethingthat effectively gathered intelligence for the military, which is what heswore they were not doing. The viewer senses that Bhatia really genuinely
wants to help the locals, wants to honor and protect them, but he is justanother infidel to many, since he is there under the protection of the US
military and to serve that military and that occupation. His research in Afghanistan was clearly tilted toward security issues.
While Montgomery McFate and other enthusiasts for more anthropology service to the military make their excellent points, Catherine Lutz
makes the clearest points of all when she sums up by noting that the basic
question of whether to go to war is skipped by those who are involved. The
job of the social scientists is not to help make war and occupation morehumane and more successful, but to devote ourselves to figuring out how
to stay out of war in the first place. McFate and those who argue for moreacademic service to military ends are operating downstream from thatquestion and therefore miss the true center of this issue.
The film is well worth seeing, with points and counterpoints belying any
facile analysis, but which ultimately does suggest that we may not be able tochange the game, but we can at least stand as firmly as possible against thegame changing us. Jarat Chopra, one of Bhatia’s mentors at Brown University, threaded complex viewpoints into a multitextured opinion, as he is alsoa military culture expert, but on behalf of the UN peacekeepers rather than
any national military. Even the US military HTS members are kinder, gen-

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Nonkilling Mediatler, more professional killers (one of them refers to himself almost exactly
like this) rather than just bloodlust killers of civilians.
For the peace side, for the nonviolent side, these questions roll over
into Lutz’s far more profound challenge to the decision to go to war in thefirst place. It is all about human agency, about never ceasing in our efforts tochange that master narrative, to push the conflict toward negotiation anddiscourse, dialog and collaboration, rather than escalation, bigger guns andmore cleverly concealed IEDs. The film is worth watching and, I hope, willshow our young budding scholars that embedding with the military is simply
serving an agenda of coercion and occupation. It is an effort to warp hearts
and minds, not to really help create conditions that will foster friendship. I
will never be friends with the troops who are from another nation and who
have big guns and occupy my country, never. It doesn’t take an anthropologist to understand that human universal. What it takes are many citizens offering nonviolent resistance in host and client states both.
Public peace intellectual #1
All greater and lesser militaristic demagogues and genocidal dictators
share a gene for persecuting intellectuals. Pol Pot, Hitler, Stalin, Lenin, Pinochet, Milosevic—all the Fun Kids from History’s Hellspots shared thisproclivity. University professors teaching critical thinking, liberal judges, institute scholars trying to research and publish on how to create a more justand egalitarian society were in the crosshairs. This is well known.
In the last few months of Richard Nixon’s reign one of the marks of justhow close he was to dictatorial rule was that there were rumors sweeping
just below the surface inside the Beltway in many insider Washington DC
circles that he was going to stage a military coup of some sort to retain andstrengthen power. People who worked in those circles at that time were,for once, actually lending some credence to such conspiracy theories.
Nixon made one of the most credible US moves toward becoming a militaristic demagogue in our modern democracy. Indeed, those moves in that
era were enough to guarantee his ouster—the corrupt anti-democratic tactics uncovered in the Watergate investigation doomed his regime in theAmerica of the early 1970s. There were two episodes that viscerally
gripped average Americans and many of their elected representatives.
One, the break-in at Democratic party national headquarters campaign
offices at the Watergate hotel.
Two, the break-in to steal files from Daniel Ellsberg’s therapist.

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Daniel Ellsberg is first an intellectual. Yes, he put in time in the Marines. But
his primary life’s work was to cognitively engage insoluble problems and workon solving them, familiarizing himself with the research, learning how to conduct research and doing so, and then applying his results and that of others toactual problems of public policy. His intellectual capacity was and is quite impressive and his thinking was tapped at the highest levels, including spending
the days of the Cuban missile crisis at the White House with a handful of strategic thinkers advising the highest level policy makers, and including his role informulating and promulgating US policy in Vietnam. Ellsberg is no pacifist andcertainly had no intentions in those years of ruining his own insider career.
But he did, once that inconvenient and all-too-rare special human phenomenon called ‘the conscience’ escaped the inner cage in which we keep itin order to ‘get by.’ Ellsberg agonized over his role in lying to the American
public about a war that we should never have entered and one that many
were working to end. He was in turmoil about what he knew and how thatknowledge might shock and galvanize the American people into finally insisting on the end to that war. He also knew that all the others with that insider
knowledge were not afflicted by a powerful conscience—and even if they had
twinges, those nagging little problems were not rising to the level of actually
spilling the beans. It was him or no one. It was his career or no one’s. It was
his freedom or no one’s. It was his family life or no one’s. And the war
slogged on, running through the usual long lugubrious litany of lies to justify it.
Ellsberg made up his mind to reveal these mendacities and took thesteps necessary to get the volumes of information to the public. His insider
information was all about the massive theft of lives from my generation ofAmerican youth—I turned 18 during the Tet Offensive and knew, alongwith my entire American cohort, that we were the meat being grabbed by
the draft to be fed to the war—and far more from all generations alive in
Vietnam. It was secondarily but importantly about the justification for the
preposterous amount of money taken directly from the paychecks of all
working Americans, and finally it was about the war system itself, which
lives on lies and other people’s lives and always has. Ellsberg recognizedwhat Gandhi noted long before, “The science of war leads one to dictatorship, pure and simple. The science of nonviolence alone can lead on to puredemocracy” (Gandhi qtd. in Fischer, 1983: 291).
Ellsberg faced 115 years in prison as soon as the papers hit the presses.
Nixon sent out orders to silence him by any means—he was literally inphysical danger. But our democracy proved robust enough to protect Ellsberg. It was a bet he made despite the evidence about Nixon and his whole

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corrupt and vicious team, from Attorney General John Mitchell to Spiro
Agnew to Robert Ehrlichman to minor thugs like G. Gordon Liddy. While
the victory was not assured, and in fact looked dubious at the time, Ellsberg
made the right decision by all lights. He will be recorded as a great American hero and judged quite favorably by history, despite all Nixonian efforts
to label and eliminate ‘the most dangerous man in America’ (see the film).
A public peace intellectual is the precise opposite of the imperial intelligentsia, and rogue dictators have always had their pet geniuses. Hitler had
Goebbels. Nixon had Kissinger. These are the bright ones without conscience
who place self-aggrandizement above all else and act in service to the worst
rulers. Both kinds of intellectual can be found on every campus, but the tendency of the most maniacal despots is to treat intellectuals much as the 13th
century papal legate advised the military to treat the people who could be
Catholic or Cathar alike: “Kill them all. For the Lord knows them that are His.”
Daniel Ellsberg would have died roasting on a spit in previous eras or inother countries. We are fortunate to have him in our pantheon oftruthtellers. May other intellectuals find their consciences and speak out.
Imperfect intellectuals and other redundancies
Franz Boas (1858-1941) was a public intellectual during the halcyon daysof public scholarship. He was far ahead of his time in several respects and a
product of his time in others. He is credited with moving the entire field ofanthropology away from an assumption of racial superiority to racial equality,
and with going to the public with his findings. He has been criticized by somefeminists for his chauvinism typical of his day. Both assessments are valuable
and, one hopes, do not cancel each other out. No one is above critique andno one can survive inspection for perfection. Boas arguably did more toeliminate racism inside and outside the academy than virtually anyone in his
era except perhaps his friend, W.E.B. DuBois (1868-1963), so it is hopedthat acknowledgement will be afforded him by those who note his sexism,
just as it is hoped that the notes on Boas will avoid uncritical hagiography.
Indeed, some academic women and men organized a conference discussing Boas in December 2010. From the report:
An interdisciplinary conference on “Franz Boas: Ethnographer Theorist,
Activist, Public Intellectual” was held in London, Ontario, Canada 2–5 December 2010, organized by Regna Darnell, Michelle Hamilton and Joshua
Smith (Western Ontario) together with Robert Hancock (Victoria) andsponsored by the Social Science and Humanities Research Council of Can-Counternarratives to the intelligentsia

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ada. Boas’ Americanist anthropology crossed the academic disciplines ofanthropology, linguistics, folklore, American Indian Studies, education andmany others. Twenty-three papers reassessed his contributions in theseand other disciplines and highlighted his political and social activist commitments in both North America and Europe. Papers crossed the social
sciences and humanities fields and ranged from literary studies to philosophy. (Darnell, 2011: 253)

Whitfield (2010: 430) asserts, “Boas was decisive in changing public discourse on the often radioactive subject of race. He honored the ideal of thescholar as activist and as social conscience, and virtually no one in modern
American history came closer to satisfying that standard”. At the remove of acentury, it is almost inconceivable to us in the new millennium that racism was
so overt and ugly in the late 19th and early 20th century period, but that was
the case. Women’s movements were discriminating against women of color,
as we saw in some of the sordid episodes during the suffrage struggles. Academics were teaching racial superiority and inferiority. Few intellectuals were
saying, as did Boas, that the Native American mind was fully as sophisticated as
the European mind, something that is long settled by science nowadays but
which was bold and even dangerous for him to say then. “His bibliography lists
625 titles, and runs forty pages. The best-known work is undoubtedly The
Mind of Primitive Man (1911), and no text of its era lent such scholarly authority to the struggle against racism and jingoism” (Whitfield, 2010: 430). So it’s
been precisely one century since Boas tossed down that gauntlet.
Fortunately, feminists have proven entirely capable of carrying the torchof public intellectualism forward to advocate for nonviolence, women’s
rights, children’s rights, and have not done so despite Boas and others, butrather standing on his shoulders, on the shoulders of his protégés such as
Margaret Mead, and are moving the ball steadily forward. Martha Nussbaum (2003) asserts convincingly that public scholars who are intimatelyfamiliar with the problems of public and corporate policy “provides a badly
needed counterweight” to poor policy.
Cole-powered dissent
Juan Cole (2006) writes, “The role of the public intellectual is my career.”
The University of Michigan professor is an expert on the Middle East and is aprolific blogger with as many as 250,000 readers daily, making him a public intellectual with some effect. The public and policy makers alike read his blog.

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Nonkilling MediaHow is it that Juan Cole can manage this and so few other US intellectuals offer routine public comment read by many?
He is devoted, he is brilliant, he is determined to share his professional
knowledge rather than lock it into lengthy scholarly journal articles read by
few and never in a timely fashion, and he is tenured. Except for an unwillingness of other institutions to hire him, he does have job security and ameasure of immunity from sanction from his institution.
Cole is modest about the effect he may have and he is modest about his
certitude regarding people and events in the region of his expertise, but heis not falsely modest about being one of those experts. He notes the years
he has spent in the region, his linguistic abilities, his recognized expertise,and his track record of being a lone voice or the first voice to warn about
the dire consequences of poor US policy, such as his pioneering caveats
about the inevitability of guerrilla insurgency against US invasion of Iraq.
We need more like Cole. There are more, but not enough. Indeed, itshould be the policy of institutions of higher education to reward their intellectuals who speak, write and demonstrate publicly for peace and justice bypeaceable means. Would this pit the universities against the political rulers?
Sometimes. And that is exactly what a robust democracy should support.
The history of yes-men regimes is not one of success. Yes, we have plentyof fighting in our polity, but we need more of that actually informed, rather
than driven by Fox Factoids from the Sarah Palin-Michele Bachmann types
who are only expert at self-aggrandizement and literally nothing else.
Positive public peace intellectuals
Positive peace is peace and justice by peaceable means. Negative peace isan imposed peace, usually an oppressive reality maintained at threat of violence. The overwhelming need is for positive peace public intellectuals. Historian Kent Shifferd (2011) is one. He looks at how our war system came into
existence, what the consequences of that system have been and are today,
and what it takes to transform that system into a peace system. A nonkillingsociety would need to transform social norms to invalidate killing, which
would make organized killing a thing of the past and would also blunt killing by
the minority of humans who naturally favor killing, since they would be normally deterred by sanctions, including opprobrium (Collyer, 2003).
This long public educational process that makes the citizenry moreamendable to the messages of public peace intellectuals can only be done ona sustained basis or it is ineffective in the crisis period that first worried me.

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So, for example, Glenn Paige (2002: 21), in his discussion of what it would
take to create peace on the Korean peninsula, includes: “No conditions of
Korean society—political, economic, social, and cultural—or relationships between Koreans and foreigners that can only be maintained or changed bythreat or use of killing force”. Paige is essentially noting here that eliminating
structural violence is key to creating peace. It is this sort of assertion, madepublicly, frequently, in many ways by many peace intellectuals, that will begin
to shift public opinion, create a stereoscopic depth of vision and public readiness to receive the messages needed to create a nonkilling society.
Exegeting and confronting our academic role
Reframing history will change the future. This is a battle with existential
consequence when we think of how perceptions of the past color conflict
today. Convincing people that someone is good and someone else is bad is
how these lines get drawn and adversarial conflict can erupt. This is how
propaganda works and it is the province of the academicians to correct bad
propaganda, or at least to make the attempt.
Janet Martin-Nielsen (2010: 138) writes about Cold War linguistics:
This was an era in which language came to be seen and wielded as a tool—atool for America’s diplomatic and scientific interlocutors, a tool necessary forsecuring America’s coveted place as the leader of free nations.

Here we see revealed the biased language of the intelligentsia, those
who serve the cause and case of the empire. The leader of free nations?
How can we still be referring to the US during the Cold War in thoseterms? We helped to make sure that Iranians, Guatemalans, Congolese andothers were not free. We took away their freedom. We overthrew theirdemocratically elected leaders.
The brutality of the Soviet Union and Red China under Mao is well documented. Their people weren’t free and they created buffer states without
freedom. Few rational people would have chosen to live in those countries
rather than in the US. The duty of those scholars who wish to effect a nonkilling world is to take the creative, third position, aligning with life instead ofwith the left or right. Only when we take this distinct stance can we make a
distinct mark. We can change the elite debate into a public dialog. The reconciliation process cannot properly begin without this reorientation.

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Conclusions
The interviews I’ve conducted have shown that public peace scholarship,that is, scholarship advocating nonkilling, justice-seeking public policy and social
norms, is perceived by many peace educators and activists to be too daunting
to achieve. The presenting prohibitory problems range from fear of negative
impacts on careers, lack of time to write for the popular press, fear of editorial
rejection (and the perception, then, of wasting valuable time producing content
for public consumption with the nested fear that the public would not be prepared to believe the peace scholar), and fear of collegial criticism for lack of expertise (usually related to credentialed expertise in other areas). Preliminary
policy recommendations include but are not limited to the following:

Academic institutions
Never punish but rather reward public scholarship for peace with praise,course release, credit toward tenure.
Media organizations
Seek and publish perspectives from peace educators and researchers.
Political institutions
Seek and listen to perspectives from peace educators and researchers.

Further research might include:-

Correlates of public scholarship, public opinion, and public policy.
Survey and analysis of public attitudes about public intellectuals.
Survey of journalism texts, especially texts used to teach editing, todetermine how public scholars are regarded, if at all.
Research into levels of knowledge and attitudes amongst media editors relating to public peace intellectuals.

References
Alger, Chadwick F. (2000). “Challenges for peace researchers and peace builders in
the twenty-first century: Education and coordination of a diversity of actors inapplying what we are learning,” The International Journal of Peace Studies, 5(1).
Bates, S. (2011). “Public Intellectuals on Time’s Covers,” Journalism History, 37(1),39-50.

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Bondurant, Joan V. (1965). Conquest of violence: The Gandhian philosophy of conflict.
Berkeley: University of California Press.
Bourne, G. (2011). “In Pursuit of a Killing-Free World,” Peace Review, 23(2): 205-213.
Chomsky, Noam and Barsamian, David (2001). Propaganda and the public mind.
Cambridge: South End Press.
Cole, J. I. (2006). “Juan R. I. Cole Responds,” Chronicle of Higher Education, 52(47): B9.
Collyer, Charles (2003). “A Nonkilling Paradigm for Political Scientists, Psychologists, and Others,” Peace and Conflict: Journal of Peace Psychology, 9(4) 371-372.
Daniels, Steve E. and Walker, Greg B. (2001). Working through environmental conflict: The collaborative learning approach. Westport: Praeger.
Darnell, R. (2011). “Reassessing the Contribution of Franz Boas (1858–1941): Conference report,” Historiographia Linguistica, 38(1): 253-254.
Fischer, Louis, Ed. (1983). The essential Gandhi: An anthology of his writings on his life,
work and ideas. New York: Vintage Books.
Fry, D. P. (2006). The human potential for peace: An anthropological challenge to assumptions about war and violence. New York: Oxford University Press.
Galtung, J. (2002a). “The role of the intellectual—An excursion into self-criticism,”
Higher Education in Europe, 27(1/2): 60-63.
Galtung, J. (2002b). “The role of the intellectual II—This time as other-criticism,”
Higher Education in Europe, 27(1/2): 65-68.
Gitlin, T. (2006). “The necessity of public intellectuals,” Raritan, 26(1): 123-136.
Gorsevski, Ellen W. (2004). Peaceful persuasion: The geopolitics of nonviolent rhetoric.
Albany: State University of New York Press.
Gregor, T., Ed. (1996). A natural history of peace. Nashville: Vanderbilt University Press.
Ish-Shalom, Piki (05/01/2011). “Three Dialogic Imperatives in International Relations
Scholarship: A Buberian Programme,” Millennium, 39(3): 825.
Jacobs, J. A., and Winslow, S. E. (2004). “The academic life course, time pressuresand gender inequality,” Community, Work & Family, 7(2): 143-161.
Karatnycky, Adrian and Ackerman, Peter (2005). How freedom is won: From civic resistance to durable democracy. New York: Freedom House.
Kimmel, P. R. (2011). “SPSSI and Peace-Building: A Participant’s Perspective,” Journal of Social Issues, 67(1): 122-136
Kriesberg, Louis (2007). Constructive conflicts: From escalation to resolution. Lanham:
Rowman & Littlefield.
Kurlansky, Mark (2006). Nonviolence: The history of a dangerous idea. New York: The
Modern Library.
Lakoff, George (2004). Don’t think of an elephant: Know your values and frame the debate. White River Junction: Chelsea Green.
Loewen, James W. (1995). Lies my teacher told me: Everything Your American History
textbook got wrong. New York: Touchstone.
Olson, A. I. (2011). “‘You have rescued me from academicism’: Selections from theCorrespondence of Henry Nash Smith and Mary Hunter Austin,” Southwest Review, 96(1): 50-65.

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Nonkilling MediaMartin-Nielsen, J. (2010). “‘This war for men’s minds’: the birth of a human sciencein Cold War America,” History of the Human Sciences, 23(5): 131-155.
Mead, M. (1940). “Warfare is only an invention—not a biological necessity,” Asia,
XL: 402-5, in Barash, D. P., Ed. (2000). Approaches to peace: A reader in Peace
Studies. New York: Oxford University Press.
Merton, Thomas (1968). Faith and violence: Christian teaching and Christian practice.
Notre Dame: Notre Dame Press.
Nussbaum, Martha C. (2003). “Public philosophy and international feminism,” inMelzer, Arthur M., Weinberger, Jerry and Zinman, M. Richard, Eds., The public
intellectual: Between philosophy and politics. Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield.
Paige, G. D. (2000). “Political Science: To kill or not to kill?” Social Alternatives,19(2): 11-18.
Paige, G. D. (2002). “A Nonkilling Korea: From Cold-War Confrontation to Peaceful
Coexistence,” Social Alternatives, 21(2): 21-28.
Posner, Richard A. (2003). Public intellectuals: A study of decline. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
Sharp, G. (2010). From dictatorship to democracy. East Boston: Albert Einstein Institution.
Shifferd, Kent D. (2011). From war to peace: A guide to the next hundred years. Jefferson: McFarland.
Smith, G. (2011). “Guest editorial: Pretending we do not know what everyone
knows we know,” Dialectical Anthropology, 35(1):1-6.
Whitfield, S. (2010). “Franz Boas: The Anthropologist as Public Intellectual. Society,”
47(5): 430-438.

Chapter Nine

Contemporary Peaceful Societies
Evidence from the Press *Bruce Bonta
Pennsylvania State University

Introduction
When I read an ethnography, I often find myself intellectualizing otherpeople’s lives. The anthropologist may recount interesting incidents and describe unique individuals, but I just focus only on the major arguments of thework. It is tempting, for me at least, to concentrate on the social or cultural
conditions that foster peace in a society and lose sight of the complexities ofthe people themselves. Others may share a similar failing. However, news
stories in the press, such as coverage of natural or man-made disasters, canserve as a useful antidote to that tendency.
For instance, readers of Dentan’s (1968) classic The Semai: A Nonviolent
People of Malaya can get quite involved in his absorbing descriptions of Semai
peaceful life. They might forget the problems of an indigenous people living in
the Cameron Highlands of Peninsular Malaysia. A tragic landslide at 5:45 in
the afternoon of August 7th this year, and the many news stories in the Malaysian press, reminded me that the Semai are much more than just a people
struggling to remain peaceful.1 The news, of very real people frantically helping each other dig out of the mudslide, emphasizes their humanity.
Harun Bahsoon, a 41 year old Semai man living in the village of Sungai
Ruil, near the resort town of Tanah Rata, told a reporter how he rushed outof his house when he heard the roar of the landslide. He witnessed the mudburying the homes of his neighbors. He told a reporter, “we ourselves were standing in waist deep mud and soil while trying to pull the victims out.”
Seven Semai died and two others were badly injured. Such news reports, I
would argue, bring a sense of intimacy to those of us who live far away*

Prepared for the paper session “Challenging the Legacy of Innate Depravity: The
New Tidemark of the Nonkilling Paradigm,” At the American Anthropological Association’s 110th Annual Meeting, Montreal, Wednesday, November 16, 2011.
219

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from Peninsular Malaysia, even if they failed to mention whether or not the
Semai of Sungai Ruil blamed the tragedy on Ngku, the thunder spirit.
The objective of this paper is to explore the virtues and liabilities of using news reports to supplement the scholarly information gathered by anthropologists. Some of the 25 societies portrayed in the Peaceful Societies
website are still visited by scholars frequently, others less often, and somealmost never since they were most recently described, decades ago.
The Peaceful Societies website, which started in December 2004, has
tried, through its News and Reviews feature, to keep up to date with important news and scholarship about each society. As might be expected,
scholars write tons of article and books about some of them, and little ornothing about others. This paper will examine the news stories that haveappeared in the website over the past nearly seven years to see how effectively the media has portrayed the peaceful societies, and if anything usefulcan be gleaned from those news reports.
Several questions guided this study. Do popular news reports provide
any useful information about the social conditions, educational practices,
cultural and religious issues, and factors that promote peacefulness in thepeaceful societies? How useful are those older scholarly works for understanding the current news? And overall, is the news worth reading if one isinterested in peaceful societies?
News stories about four societies were examined to see how thesequestions can be answered. The Birhor, formerly a foraging society who live primarily in Jharkhand and West Bengal states of northeast India, havemostly abandoned their forest based subsistence economy and taken up
wage labor and farm support work. They have received tons of news coverage over the past three years—but more about that in a moment.
The Buid (also spelled Buhid) are a horticultural society of southern Mindoro Island in the Philippines, one of the so-called Mangyan Societies. An indigenous highland people, the Buid are one of only a few indigenous groups in
the Philippines that preserve their own ancient writing system. Their ambahan,
the poetry they write in their own script, still serve a Buid man as a far betterway to court a woman than making simple, oral declarations of his love.
The Fipa, or Ufipa, a very large farming society of southwestern Tanzania, was described by the British anthropologist Roy Willis as a peaceful society, but he has not published any recent works about them. A couple other scholars have written works about these people in recent years, but theextent of their peacefulness is not at all clear.

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221

The Tristan Islanders live on reputedly the most remote inhabited islandin the world, some 1700 miles west of Cape Town in the middle of the South
Atlantic Ocean. An English crown colony, when the first British sailors opted
to leave their squadrons and stay there to found a colony nearly 200 years
ago, they formed a remarkably peaceful society. Norwegian sociologist Peter
Munch studied them extensively in the late 1930s, and again in the 1960s, but
only a scattering of scholars have visited the remote island since then.
Some useful economic, social, cultural, religious, and educational information can be gleaned from the news about these four societies—and, byextension, the other 21 covered in the website.
Economic Information
Economic information about these societies is probably the easiest to update from news reports. A news story from November 2005 indicated thatthe forests in Jharkhand, on which the Birhor had previously depended, arebeing cut down and the people are suffering severely.2 Two years later, another story blamed a lot of the destruction in Jharkhand on the opening of
huge new industrial mines.3 A story in August 2008 pointed out that the Birhor, as a result, are trying to become agriculturalists,4 but another in March2010 described the wage laboring jobs many have taken in order to survive.5
News about economic changes among the Buid is harder to find—they
probably still farm as they did in the 1980s when Gibson was writing about
them. It is clear from news stories that while techniques may have changed,
the Fipa still farm very profitable lands.
A news story in May 2011 about the agricultural output from the Rukwa
Region of Tanzania showed that the region, a part of which was originallyFipa territory, still has the agricultural richness that Willis described in a
1989 article.6 He had suspected that the Fipa use of raised bed, composting,horticultural techniques had fostered the social stability that helped them
form a peaceful society. This kind of additional news is useful.
The Tristan Islanders (or Tristanians as they also call themselves) havethrived on the few foods they can grow on a patch of level ground a shortwalk away from their settlement. They also keep animals, harvest sea birds
from nearby islands, fish, and trade with people on passing ships. Over the
past 50 years, the British government has licensed a South African firm toconstruct a processing plant on the island to process the rock lobsters thatcan be harvested from nearby waters. A number of news stories have covered the progress of that small industry, including, in March this year, the222

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crash of a huge ship that released 8000 tons of bunker fuel into the sea.7 The
oil might have a severe impact on the fishery. But, hopefully, a story this July
28 indicated that an international agency has certified the Tristan lobster fishery as “sustainable,” a measure which may help their economy considerably.8
In sum, economic information about these four societies, though reported sporadically, is available and useful.
Social Information
Information about social conditions, social structures, and social problems is a bit harder to glean from the news reports. Perhaps the most extreme example of news coverage of social conditions in a society occurred
as a result of a tragedy in a Birhor village in early October, 2008.9 As news
stories emerged over the next couple of weeks, apparently eight Birhor in
one hamlet died of food poisoning, and five others were mysteriously sickened the same night. Since the community is in the heart of Naxalite Territory, district and state officials and medical personnel did not send in coroners to investigate. News stories blamed officials and corrupt politicians—of
the other party, of course. Ignorant reporters also blamed the Birhor themselves for eating wild foods they had gathered in nearby forests, something
they had been doing for millennia, of course.10
The tragedy pointed out, to the media, that they had been ignoring thissociety, and most of the other so-called “Primitive Tribal Groups.” The
Peaceful Societies website found no news reports in the Indian press about
the Birhor in 2006, and only two in all of 2007. But after the tragedy, news
coverage exploded. The website carried seven stories in 2008, and 11 in
2009. Some of the stories have been ignored by the website news featuresince other societies needed to be covered as well. It is as if the Telegraphof Calcutta, the Times of India, The Hindu, and the other major papers of thesubcontinent suddenly discovered the existence of this poverty-stricken society, felt guilty, and decided to make up for it by frequent reporting. Someof it was quite good. A news report only a couple weeks ago about a suspicious death in a Birhor village referred back to the tragedy of October
2008. It is clear that that story still reverberates in India.11
Some interesting social information has turned up about the other societies as well, such as the Tristan Islanders. For instance, a report in January
2009 described the annual Old Year’s Night, the last day of the old year anda kind of midsummer festival. During the festivities, elaborately costumed
and masked Green Men, or Okalolies, move around the village attempting

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to scare women, children, and dogs with their antics.12 Later, in November
2009, a news story discussed the fact that the islanders have a complete
freedom from fear, since there is no crime.13 Many people have traveled toCape Town, and some to London, and they have access, now, to the Internet, so they are quite aware of the benefits, and problems, of modern city
life. Other than that, most of the news in the Tristan Times reports the sporadic births, deaths, and marriages—news that is important for the Islanders
but would not mean much for visitors to the Peaceful Societies website.
Cultural and Religious Information
Cultural and religious information about these societies is more often in
the news. Some of it verifies that the traditions reported earlier by anthropologists are still practiced. Sometimes the reports show that things havechanged. In other words, news sources have some real value for culturaland religious topics.
A news report about the Birhor in April 2008 showed that, despitechanges in their economy, they still have a lot of knowledge of nature andnatural forces.14 Another news story a few months after the Birhor tragedy,
in December 2008, described a Birhor hamlet in Jharkhand state where
there is a 47 percent rate of literacy among the women, a figure that is ashigh as much of the rest of rural India.15
Since anthropologist Thomas Gibson reported on his field work among
the Buid, one of the major sources for up to date information has been
news stories generated by interested Philippine NGOs. Uses of the ambahan, the indigenous Buid poetry, have captured the attention of a couple
reporters. Stories in Jan. 2006 and May 2011 have reaffirmed that they continue to use their indigenous written and spoken language for courting women and for uniting their communities in the face of invading lowlanders.16
A news story in December 2010 described a controversial government
policy designed to help the lowlanders, the majority Filipinos, expropriate
indigenous lands—a familiar story, of course, from all over the world.17 The
novel twist on the story was the use of a traditional rite, called the “Swinging pig ritual,” to help peacefully drive away the evil spirits that threaten
them—the lowlanders in this case. It would be far better if an anthropologist would visit a Buid community, spend a year or more and describe what
is really going on. But in the absence of another Thomas Gibson, the news
sources, at least for the Buid, have been fairly informative.

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Nonkilling MediaIn Tanzania, the news media have been fascinated by some of the things
that go on in the Sumbawanga area of Rukwa Region. The Fipa were converted to Catholicism in the late 19th century, so some of the stories ofpractices in the Church, and dissent from it, have been potentially useful.
The evangelical versus the Catholic approaches to traditional culture appear
in stark contrast in a news story of July 2008.18 The Roman Catholic church
in Tanzania wants to syncretize their church teachings with the traditional
beliefs of the people of the region, while a Christian evangelical group
working in the area clearly wants to destroy the indigenous beliefs—freepeople from their pagan beliefs and convert them to their true faith.
Witchcraft and traditional healing practices in the area also have fascinated the news sources in Tanzania. People in the Rukwa region, despite
their Christianity, still utilize a variety of healing practitioners, some ofwhom, according to reports, can successfully effect cures, though some ofthem are clearly frauds and thieves.
A horrifying witchcraft practice that is especially popular in Tanzania isthe capturing and killing of albino children, or women in some cases, so thevictims can be butchered and their body parts sold for special healing practices. Several new stories have covered this awful crime. One, in November 2008 described how a man tried to sell his albino wife to a dealer fromthe DR Congo.19 Another in March 2011 described the practice of capturing
albino children and spiriting them away.20
An interesting aspect of the witchcraft practices among the Fipa is how often the anthropological publications of Prof. Willis from many years ago still relate to the news reports of today. A news story posted on the website in August 2011 discussed two different murders of suspected witches in rural
Rukwa, as reported in the Tanzania press the previous week.21 Two articles by
Prof. Willis (1968, 1968a) many years ago helped untangle what may have happened and the cultural context of witchcraft beliefs in the region. Of course, theWillis articles did not answer all the questions anyone would reasonably ask, butthey still would help a reader understand, despite the changes of four decades,
the cultural background of witchcraft in the area. Sudden, unexplainable illnesses are still thought to be the result of witchcraft, and poisoning may still bea tool of witches, at least in the minds of some people. But the observations by
Willis on other aspects of the issue do not appear to be relevant today. He observed that witchcraft accusations would usually not go public, which is clearlyno longer true. He also said that accusations of witchcraft were normally notmade between generations, and that too no longer seems to apply.

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Traditional healers have also received news coverage for their sometimes bizarre actions. For instance, a couple news reports in August 2007
covered a healer who purposefully strode into a stream to demonstrate tohis village how he could travel to the gates of hell and return successfully.22
The people became alarmed a few days later, and the police found his bodysnagged downstream. The Tanzania news media appears to enjoy, perhaps
a bit nervously, reporting these stories from the Rukwa Region, about people who, strangely, persist with their traditional beliefs and practices despite
the supposed modernization of the rest of the nation.
Another story just a few weeks ago in AllAfrica.com, a major news
amalgamating service, provided additional cultural information about the Fipa.23 It described, for instance, a traditional dance called the Nsimba, inwhich the performers balance iron pots upside down on the ground on
their lids. Then they balance stools on the pots. During a performance, they
twitch the stools with their legs, which agitates the pots on their lids, eachpot making a different melodious sound depending on its size. The dancers
keep time with their shoulders, their feet, and their body movements. In
sum, while the anthropological writings of Willis supplement our understanding of current news reports, contemporary stories update the information that Willis so carefully presented decades ago.
Educational Practices
One aspect of the frantic coverage of all things related to the Birhor, several news accounts have described the education of their children. A story
in May 2010 reported quite positively on the schooling of Birhor children in
one district of Jharkhand state. This hopeful story described a teacher who
had to learn the Birhor language in order to start teaching and the progress
he has been making since then.24
Another news story six months later, however, pointed out how someof the older Birhor boys, as their educational accomplishments increase,
have become more and more intolerant of the ways of their own communities.25 Do they really want to leave the comforts and material pleasures ofthe dorm rooms where they live while attending school, and go back to themud huts, blasting heat, and backbreaking labor of their home villages? Can
they just stay in the dorms and continue to be privileged youngsters on theway up and out of poverty? Several other articles in the press over the past
couple years have focused on the initiation of sporting teams, especiallyboxing, in one Birhor hamlet in Jharkhand.26

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Several news stories covering the founding of schools among the Buid
people have also been enlightening. A news story in 2006 celebrated the lifeof a Buid elder named Laki Iwan, who had a passion for founding schools.27
He loved to see children getting an education, and he enjoyed just as muchgrowing foods that he could then take into his schools and give to the kids.
A benevolent farmer philanthropist. Two years later, a couple more news
stories in the Filipino media described the progress of those Buid schools.28
The stories made it clear that the teachers in the lower grades were teaching the children in their own language, focusing on teaching them to read andwrite in it, so they would continue to appreciate their culture and their ambahan poetry. Many of the youngsters were doing well in the lower grades, butsome of them who had advanced and gotten a higher education were reluctant to go back to their villages and sleep in the mud huts, in the heat and thedirt—disappointing to Buid elders. The same situation as the Birhor.
The news sources about Tristan da Cunha have not given much information about the schools on the island, but at least one story from the
Rukwa Region of Tanzania, perhaps about the Fipa, did indicate that theschools in the Mpanda District of that region were responding to the crisisof kidnapping albino children. The school system is building a separate, andquite secure, primary school, plus a hostel, just for the albino kids.29
Persistence of Peacefulness
With all of these useful bits and pieces of economic, social, cultural, religious, and educational information coming out about these four societies, thebig question remains? How really peaceful are they today? Are they as nonviolent as anthropologists had indicated earlier? We have some useful clues.
The giving spirit, call it generosity perhaps, is an important element inmany of the peaceful societies and it was certainly evident in the philanthropy of Laki Iwan, the Buid elder who founded all those schools. His giving was clearly in the spirit of the earlier Buid practices described by Thomas Gibson in his writings some decades ago. Similarly, the generosity of
the Tristan Islanders appears to be a continuing aspect of their peacefulness. Their spirit was confirmed by a resident Brit who wrote, in a blog
post in January 2007, about the giving spirit of the islanders toward him andhis wife.30 Several other news posts since then, such as one in March 2011,
have reaffirmed the hospitality of the Islanders toward shipwrecked sailors,a tradition that goes back to the founding of the settlement nearly 200 years
ago.31 A spirit of generous hospitality continues to be a defining aspect of is-Contemporary Peaceful Societies

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land culture. Islanders identify themselves as people who always take into
their homes shipwrecked people, for as long as necessary.
Actual descriptions of peacefulness, not surprisingly, are much harder tofind. No news reporter is going to write, as so many of the anthropologists
have done, about spending many months doing field work and not witnessing anything more violent than children fighting. Journalists only stay for anhour or two, or perhaps a whole day. Furthermore, peacefulness is just notvery newsworthy, unlike violence, persecution, environmental destruction,
land rights issues, and so on.
We really have only brief mentions, at best. One, in June 2010, mentioned how a Birhor man had given up his association with the Naxalites
and turned in his rifle to the police.32 This gives us the clue that some of the
Birhor, much like people from the other “primitive tribal groups” of northeaster India, may have joined the murderous Maoist rebels. These tribal
people face severe discrimination from the mainstream Hindu people inthat part of India. Similarly, a news story from Tanzania suggested thatsome farmer/rancher violence had developed in the Rukwa Region. But
whether the individuals involved were Fipa or not was unclear.33
On the other hand, recent materials available from the Mangyan Heritage
Center on Mindoro Island attest to the continuing peacefulness of the Buid.34
Despite the tensions caused by their lands being taken away from them, it appears as if the Buid continue to resist the incursions of lowlanders in a peacefulmanner. They use protests, educate themselves, form associations, and cooperate with outside NGO that are trying to help them secure their rights.
The absence of crime on Tristan da Cunha has already been mentioned,
but a news story in The Guardian in January 2010 gave some additional clues
about peacefulness on the island.35 The story was about the Tristan policeman, Conrad Glass, who was in England for some training. The article indicated that there had been only one violent incident in recent decades, backin the 1970s. A fight broke about among some fishermen on a foreign fishing vessel in the harbor. This policeman’s major duty, evidently, is to occasionally intervene and calm tense situations. Normally, he avoids going into
the island pub during his patrol—he is too busy reading. Besides, everyone
knows everyone else, so he feels it is best to just let people solve their own
disputes—which they still do quite well.

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Conclusion
Some of the conclusions will surprise no one. The press report many absurd stories. One of the tasks of the Peaceful Societies website has been to filter out the more ridiculous information and try to interpret the rest. Also,
some of the reporters show abysmal ignorance about the societies that they
are covering. In the scores of news stories examined for this report, not a single journalist has shown the slightest familiarity with published ethnographic
works. Except for stories about the well-known Amish, one of the societies
included in the Peaceful Societies website, reporters rarely if ever consult
prominent scholars, much less read their works, when significant events occur.
It is probable that some of the smaller, more isolated, more conservative societies have retained their peacefulness, and much of the rest of theircultural values, over the intervening years since the major ethnographies
have been published and which established, at least for the purposes of thiswebsite, their relative peacefulness. Societies that have been more highly
impacted by modern civilization (an oxymoron, perhaps), have had a harder
time adjusting and keeping their traditions.
Acknowledging this, the news media sometimes provides some quite usefulclues about the developments and changes in the four societies mentioned
here. It is clear that many of their traditions persist fairly strongly, and clues in
the news media indicate some of the changes that are taking place. It appears as
if some of the peaceful characteristics may survive. Of course, to repeat, it
would be best if good anthropologists would revisit these societies.
And there’s an added benefit. The news stories in the website provide a
useful updating service for students who read the classic works of anthropology. A student sent a “contact us” email to the website on September
1st, 2011, to say that she had just finished a class project relating to the
Mbuti but she was frustrated in her search on the Web for more current information than the 1980s. Then she found the news stories in the PeacefulSocieties website and was appalled at the brutal treatment the Mbuti havesuffered in recent years. With all the enthusiasm of youth, she wanted tohelp the Mbuti and sought guidance as to what she could do—other thanjust send money. It is heartening to learn that sometimes these news reports, culled from relatively obscure sources, may at times reach people
who care enough to want to help.

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References
Dentan, Robert Knox (1968). The Semai: A Nonviolent People of Malaya. New York:
Holt, Rinehart and Winston.
Willis, R. G. (1968). “Kamcape: An Anti-Sorcery Movement in South-West Tanzania,” Africa, 38: 1-15
Willis, Roy G. (1968a). “Changes in Mystical Concepts and Practices Among theFipa,” Ethnology, 7: 139-157.

News sources
1
August 18, 2011. Semai Homes Buried by Mudslide.
http://peacefulsocieties.org/NAR11/110818sema.html
2November 24, 2005. Birhor in Danger of Extinction.
http://peacefulsocieties.org/NAR/051124birh.html
3March 1, 2007. Birhor Lose Forests to Coal Mines.
http://peacefulsocieties.org/NAR07/070301birh.html
4August 28, 2008. Birhors Settle for Growing Crops.
http://peacefulsocieties.org/NAR08/080828birh.html
5March 18, 2010. Birhor Disappear in Gujarat.
http://peacefulsocieties.org/NAR10/100318birh.html
6
May 12, 2011. Do Raised Bed Gardens Foster Peace?
http://peacefulsocieties.org/NAR11/110512fipa.html
7March 31, 2011. Tragedy for Nightingale—and Tristan da Cunha.
http://peacefulsocieties.org/NAR11/110331tris.html
8July 28, 2011. Tristan Fishery Earns Certification.
http://peacefulsocieties.org/NAR11/110728tris.html
9October 16, 2008. Tragedy in a Birhor Village.
http://peacefulsocieties.org/NAR08/081016birh.html
10
October 30, 2008. Birhor Roots and Leaves.
http://peacefulsocieties.org/NAR08/081030birh.html;
November 20, 2008. October Birhor Tragedy Still Disturbs India.
http://peacefulsocieties.org/NAR08/081120birh.html
11November 10, 2011. Birhor Society Still Imperiled
http://peacefulsocieties.org/NAR11/111110birh.html
12January 1, 2009. Tristan Islanders Welcome the New Year.
http://peacefulsocieties.org/NAR09/090101tris.html
13November 5, 2009. Tristan Islanders Featured on a Major American Radio Program. http://peacefulsocieties.org/NAR09/091105tris.html
14April 17, 2008. Birhor Knowledge of Natural Resources.
http://peacefulsocieties.org/NAR08/080417birh.html
15
December 4, 2008. Birhor Life Depicted in Major Calcutta Newspaper.
http://peacefulsocieties.org/NAR08/081204birh.html

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16

Nonkilling MediaJanuary 12, 2006. Buid Love Poetry: Ancient Script, Established Values;
http://peacefulsocieties.org/NAR06/060112buid.html; May 5, 2011. Mangyans Unite
for their Rights—with Poetry. http://peacefulsocieties.org/NAR11/110505buid.html
17
December 16, 2010. Buid Lose their Lands.
http://peacefulsocieties.org/NAR10/101216buid.html
18
July 31, 2008. Christian Churches React to Fipa Traditions.
http://peacefulsocieties.org/NAR08/080731fipa.html
19November 20, 2008. Fipa Fisherman Tries to Sell His Wife.
http://peacefulsocieties.org/NAR08/081120fipa.html
20
March 3, 2011. Witchcraft in Rukwa.
http://peacefulsocieties.org/NAR11/110303fipa.html
21
August 25, 2011. Witchcraft Killings in Tanzania.
http://peacefulsocieties.org/NAR11/110825fipa.html
22
August 30, 2007. Witchcraft among the Fipa.
http://peacefulsocieties.org/NAR07/070830fipa.html
23
October 27, 2011. Fipa Vitality.
http://peacefulsocieties.org/NAR11/111027fipa.html
24
May 6, 2010. Increasing Government Services for the Birhor.
http://peacefulsocieties.org/NAR10/100506birh.html
25November 25, 2010. Birhor Boy Returns to his Village.
http://peacefulsocieties.org/NAR10/101125birh.html
26
July 16, 2009. Birhor Learn Competitive Boxing
http://peacefulsocieties.org/NAR09/090716birh.html; March 10, 2011. Birhor GirlsTake Up Boxing http://peacefulsocieties.org/NAR11/110310birh.html
27
June 22, 2006. Buid Elder Remembered.
http://peacefulsocieties.org/NAR06/060622buid.html
28
September 18, 2008. A Buid School Makes Significant Progress.
http://peacefulsocieties.org/NAR08/080918buid.html
29
March 3, 2011. Witchcraft in Rukwa.
http://peacefulsocieties.org/NAR11/110303fipa.html
30
January 25, 2007. Blogging a Birth on Tristan da Cunha.
http://peacefulsocieties.org/NAR07/070125tris.html
31
March 31, 2011. Tragedy for Nightingale—and Tristan da Cunha.
http://peacefulsocieties.org/NAR11/110331tris.html
32
June 3, 2010. Naxalite Violence Advances to New Levels.
http://peacefulsocieties.org/NAR10/100603birh.html
33
April 16, 2009. Farmer/Rancher Violence in Ufipa.
http://peacefulsocieties.org/NAR09/090416fipa.html
34
October 18, 2007. Zapotec and Buid Featured in Public Events.
http://peacefulsocieties.org/NAR07/071018gen.html
35
January 21, 2010. Tristan Policeman Has Quiet Job.
http://peacefulsocieties.org/NAR10/100121tris.html