Media Making as Peacemaking - by Yuval Katz (Paperback)

About the Book

Media Making as Peacemaking makes an evocative claim that instead of clinging to promises made by politicians, we should seek peace in the mundane activities of media practitioners and popular texts that explore the complex problems fueling this violent, intractable conflict creatively and more bravely than any politician can.

Book Synopsis

The horrific events of October 7 and the devastating war in Gaza have brought Israel/Palestine to the headlines once again. We have seen this all play out before: another ambitious peace plan, which secured a ceasefire, is imagined as the dawn of a new era of peace in the Middle East. But is it? Critiquing traditional state-centered approaches to peace, which usually highlight the work of diplomats and politicians, and which historically failed miserably in Israel/Palestine, Media Making as Peacemaking shifts our attention to the experiences of ordinary people. Investigating the idea of media encounters, this book shows how the collaboration of Palestinian and Jewish media practitioners and the popular texts they create together in television dramas, digital activism and mainstream journalism offer a new and exciting way to think about peace--a peace which does not maintain a repressive status quo, but seeks to deliver equality and justice to all people, Palestinians and Jews, living between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea.

Review Quotes

"This book argues that peace concepts are unevenly integrated into communication and media studies due to limited institutional support. Extending efforts to bridge the two, it suggests that unstructured intergroup communication among media practitioners may foster productive conversations, organically working to bring about everyday peace."

"A timely reminder that if we are serious about wanting to use our work to enact social change, we should examine discourses that encourage us to imagine a better future. Media encounters in Israel/Palestine serve as models for such inspiring research, enabling us to envision the possibility of peace."

About the Author

YUVAL KATZ is a lecturer in the Department of Communication and Media at Loughborough University in the United Kingdom.