Between factoids and facts: The application of ‘evidence’ in NGO strategic communication on war and armed conflict

Abstract

NGOs are significant actors in conflict-related discourses and play a key role in the shaping of mediated conflict communication. Since previous scholarly work has rarely analyzed the way NGOs characterize the ‘reality’ of violent conflicts, this contribution to the special issue focuses on the publicity of NGOs in this field. On the basis of a big-data content analysis, the authors in particular investigate the epistemological status of NGOs’ strategic communication on war. They focus on ‘evidential claims’, the actual provision of evidence and the transparency of sources of evidential claims. The results are compared across different types of NGOs for their communication on six international armed conflicts. The findings suggest that the communication of NGOs in this is caught between their role of a strategic communicator and that of an expert. Improvement is especially needed concerning the indication of sources of evidential claims: 47 percent of all texts do not provide any source specification.

“Real News Arrives From Abroad”: Transnational Eyewitnessing in Leonora Raines’ War Correspondence for the New York Evening Sun (1914–1918)

“…Raines’ own story illustrates how journalists are “key actors in the production of news” (Baden & Tenenboim-Weinblatt, 2018, pp. 51–52), and especially important during foreign conflicts (e.g., Cozma, 2021; Fröhlich, 2018). Her regular New York Evening Sun stories—circulated to mass audiences in the United States and also read in Europe—moved information about the war and its people across several frontiers: geographic, political, class, and socio-economic.…”

“…“Journalists question witnesses, onlookers, victims, perpetrators, survivors,” historian Richard Cohen (2022) writes, as “citing the words of those at the center of stories is their stock in trade” (p. 360). Romy Fröhlich (2018) further suggests that media’s interpretive frames structure what audiences understand—and know about—armed conflicts. Research also indicates that journalists feel a moral responsibility of bearing witness during war (Mellor, 2012; Tait, 2011; Wahl-Jorgensen & Pantti, 2013).…”

Navigating the complexities of media roles in conflict: The INFOCORE approach

“…We have collected and analysed a huge amount of media texts (Baden and Tenenboim-Weinblatt, 2018), including Twitter feeds and Facebook posts (Dimitrakopoulou and Boukala, 2018), but also upstream and downstream texts such as NGOs PR, press releases and reports (Fröhlich and Jungblut, 2018) as well as parliamentary debates (Herrero-Jiménez et al, 2018). Moreover, we have conducted interviews with NGO staff, political leaders and journalists to analyse how news stories are actually produced rather than the actors’ own theories about them (Hoxha and Hanitzsch, 2018), how NGOs differ in their communication strategies and influence (Meyer et al, this issue) and how political leaders perceive the impact of legacy and social media on their ability to control events and make peace (Wolfsfeld, 2018).…”

“…Even if prescriptions about how precisely to cover a conflict, how much room one should give to other conflict parties and what constitutes conflict-sensitive, inflammatory or dangerous coverage will remain contentious, it is easier to find agreement about the basic needs for audiences to be supplied with accurate and trustworthy information. Fröhlich and Jungblut (2018) argue that not only media content but also (strategic and persuasive) communication of NGOs needs to fulfil normative expectations. Their evidential claims are expected to be supported by evidence, to be transparent about the sources of evidence whenever possible to allow verification, and to express whether such claims are highly certain or need to be approached with caution for a number of reasons.…”

Der digitale Wandel der Wissensordnung. Theorierahmen für die Analyse von Wahrheit, Wissen und Rationalität in der öffentlichen Kommunikation

“…B. Fröhlich & Jungblut, 2018). "Gute Gründe" haben die Funktion, das eigene Handeln zu rechtfertigen und andere zu überzeugen (Mercier & Sperber, 2017: 8-9;Tilly, 2006;informal logic: Walton, 2008).…”