DYNAMICS OF NEWS FRAMING OF CONFLICT MANAGEMENT BY THE MEDIA

Abstract

Southern Sudanese have been embroiled in over a decade of conflict brought about by ethnic religions problems within their own borders, territorial disputes and resources disputes. There have been movements to establish independent regimes and states which consequently has culminated in protracted civil war. How crisis situation unfolds and how they are represented in print broadcast and web¬^based media outlets has been a source of heated debates. It has been generally argued that in fast-developing conflict conditions, media tend to take rather sensational and dramatic approaches to issues, often generating inflated and unrealistic representations of conflicts. An alarming aspect of this trend is media’s tendency to perpetuate exaggerated and dramatized images of conflict events that are likely to bear on public opinion in negative ways. This study, sought to determine how the media (print) in Kenya engaged in fighting or fueling conflicts in Southern Sudan, a conflict that is far away from home, distant in geography but perhaps much closer in heart and mind. In an attempt to fill the gap by comparing the coverage of conflict in Southern Sudan and media reportage in relation to the peace building initiatives in a bid to gain a better understanding of the dynamics of news framing of conflicts by the media .To determine the salient indicators of war journalism vis a vis peace journalism manifest in coverage of conflicts in Southern Sudan by local dailies (Daily Nation and the Standard),the significant differences, if any, between the coverage of war vis a vis peace conflict in Southern Sudan, the relationship between war/peace journalism and the salient indicators of war journalism vis a vis peace journalism manifest in coverage of conflicts in Southern Sudan by local dailies (Daily Nation and the Standard). It has further been argued that in their “obsession” with hyperbolic and sensational coverage of conflicts developments, media tend to downplay issues of substance and ignore proper back-grounding of events, thus inhibiting audiences understanding of their moral, political and cultural contexts (Adams, 1986). This study found out that Kenyan newspaper (Daily Nation and the standard framed of conflicting reporting in southern Sudan is mostly about peace journalism. Among other indicators of the framing were established as the story type, length and source. Local source was more likely to frame the story as peace journalism unlike foreign sources. The longer the story the more likely it was a peace journalism framing than shorter stories. Peace journalism has emerged more than war journalism in the two local dailies, thus concluding that the media in Kenya is practicing peace journalism in the coverage of conflict in Southern Sudan.