Children, Youth, and Media in International and Global Conflict Zones

• In Event: Children, Adolescents, & the Media Division - Research Escalator Sessions (Panel 2)

Abstract

Responding to research about children and media that has emphasized an analysis of the effects or reception by children living in peace zones of fictive violence, literature about children, media and conflict, has instead emphasized an analysis of effects or reception by children living in peace zones of non-fiction violence, or news. Both sets of literature focus on how to help children cope with the problem of violence. In this paper I discuss alternative conceptions for analyzing children, media and conflict. I critically examine youth and social movements literature and children and conflict literature. The latter posits children as passive victims and/or active perpetrators of conflict, and/or emphasizes children’s “normal” everyday practices amid physical and structural violence, to focus on how children might instead fix the problem, namely, end conflict. By merging these varied approaches and adding comparative international and global studies literature to them, I introduce an alternative formulation, “children, youth, and media in international and global conflict zones”. I do so to consider how children and youth living amid armed conflict, (might) respond to, interpret, use, and produce media to build and make peace.

Author

• Yael Warshel, The Pennsylvania State U