Wie keine andere bewaffnete Einmischung hat die Intervention der NATO im Kosovo in Deutschland die Frage aufgeworfen, mit welchen Problemen Nachkriegsgesellschaften zu kämpfen haben, welche Hindernisse einer Normalisierung des gesellschaftlichen Lebens entgegenstehen und welche Institutionen, Strategien und Ressourcen entwickelt werden müssen, um eine langfristige Zivilisierung von Politik und die Etablierung eines andauernden Friedesn zu gewährleisten.pInnerhalb dieses Prozesses stellen die Medien insofern eine wesentliche Ressource dar, als sie über ihren Anteil an der Konstruktion gesellschaftlicher Wirklichkeit als Katalysatoren der Emokratisierung wirken, die Funktion von Mediatoren zwischen den Konfliktparteien einnehmen und einer konstruktiven Konfliktbearbeitung den Weg bereiten können. pKonkrete Strategien, wie die Medien diese Rolle ausfüllen können, sind jedoch bislang nicht hinreichend ausgearbeitet. Zwar haben sich in letzter Zeit verschiedenen Forschergruppen im In- und Ausland dieses Themas angenommen und es anhand verschiedener aktueller Konfliktfelder bzw. Friedensprozesse (u.a. in Israel, Nordirland, El Salvador und Ruanda) aus verschiedenen disziplinären Perspektiven heraus zu bearbeiten begonnen (u.a. die Medienwissenschaften, Soziologie, Politologie, Psychologie und Religionswissenschaften). Die bisher vorliegenden Ergebnisse sind jedoch sehr verstreut und ermangeln der Integration unter eine übergreifende theoretische Perspektive.pZiel des Forschungsvorhabens ist es:br- das vorhandene Wissen zu bündeln und zu systematisierenbr- sowie einen Beitrag zur Entwicklung von Strategien der sukzessiven Implementation einer konstruktiven, an Demokratisierung und Konflikt-Deeskalation orientierten Medienberichterstattung zu leisten, - wobei der Forschungsschwerpunkt auf der Identifikation deeskalationsfördernder Aspekte der medienvermittelten Wirklichkeit einerseits, - sowie auf den Bedingungen andererseits liegt, welche ihre zielführende Handhabung, ihren optimalen Einsatz im Friedensprozess und eine Verbesserung der Erfolgsaussichten gewährleisten.More than any other armed intervention, the NATO intervention in Kosovo raised the question in Germany of the sorts of problems post-war societies must overcome, what obstacles can block the normalization of societal life and what institutions, strategies and resources must be developed to achieve a long-term civilizing of politics and lasting peace.In this process the media are an essential resource, insofar as through their contribution to the construction of societal reality they serve as catalysts of democratization, assume the function of mediator between conflict parties and can pave the way toward constructive conflict resolution. Concrete strategies for how media can fulfill these roles have, however, previously not been sufficiently developed, and the existing research results are scattered and have not been integrated into an overarching theoretical perspective.The aim of the research proposal is therefore to bundle and systemize existing knowledge and also contribute to the development of strategies of successive implementation of constructive media reporting oriented to democratization and conflict de-escalation. The focus of research is thereby, on the one hand, on the identification of aspects of media-communicated reality which could facilitate de-escalation, as well as, on the other hand, the conditions for achieving their goals, their optimal use in the peace process and improving success prospects.Concretely planned is thus the development of an action-guiding model of how journalists, through their work, can contribute to the de-escalation of conflicts, promote peace processes and support the process of reconciliation among (former) combatants.As a field of study for the empirical-analytic founding of a peace-journalism model, the project first aims at the study of media in ongoing ¿ and from the participants¿ viewpoint successful ¿ peace-making processes. The process of German-French conciliation after 1945 will be drawn on as an example. In order to identify and further develop a broader spectrum of creative journalistic approaches, parallel to this example of successful peace-making, reporting on a contrasting current field of conflict will be studied whose developmental perspectives are still open and on the basis of which questions concerning the implementation and effectiveness of peace-journalistic models can be empirically studied. The continuing upheavals and the stabilization of the affected region after the end of the dictatorial regime in Serbia present a conflict scenario which gives the research proposal a current political dimension beyond its mooring in basic research. Hereby not only the Serbian discourse itself will be studied, but also the European discourse on Serbia, which, however, is by no means homogeneous. In the research proposal various national discourses will be contrastively analyzed. The post-war discourse of the German media will be drawn on as an exemplary case of the EU and NATO states militarily involved in the humanitarian Kosovo intervention. This will be contrasted with Greek media discourse, which was pre-burdened in the opposite direction through certain (historically and religiously based) sympathies for the Serbian side and the political and military restraint of Greece during the intervention in regard to constructive support of the transformation processes occurring in post-Milosevic Serbia.It is understandable that the discourses analyzed, even if for opposite reasons ¿ in regard to the peace-journalism future perspective on the transformation of Yugoslavia and its European reintegration ¿ are by no means optimal. This offers a starting point for being able to study, in the form of experimental research, how the destructive aspects of this discourse can be deconstructed and successively transformed into a peace discourse. Through this change from content analysis of actual media discourse to the study of the acceptance of an alternative, potentially de-escalation-furthering discourse on the side of the recipients, central aspects of the peace journalism model to be developed can be subjected to empirical testing in regard to realization, the necessary application strategies and the optimization of its success prospects.
