Framing the Colombian Peace Process: Between Peace and War Journalism

Abstract

This bilingual, cross-national study analyzes stories about the Colombian peace process that were engaged with on social media to understand the use of peace and war framing in news reporting. Using content analysis as a method, this paper operationalized Galtung’s classification of peace journalism and follows framing methodological adjustments and improvements suggested by previous peace journalism scholars. Results show that, even during peace talks, media use war narratives more often than peace frames, and social media users amplify more war than peace-oriented content. Proximity to conflict also was shown to be an important factor, as Colombian media used more war frames than foreign media. These findings are relevant for their implications about how national media consistently emphasized a war frame that social media users amplified, which we argue has implications for how citizens viewed the Colombian peace process, ultimately potentially influencing the decision to vote down the referendum.