LAUSR

Social movement actors striving to transform repressive sociopolitical structures and asymmetric relationships endemic to protracted conflict have long relied on media to diffuse their message and to mobilize support for their vision for peace with justice. While a significant constituency can be reached through the global, democratized “people’s media space,” mass media continues to occupy the crucial interface between a movement and the broader spectrum of public support. The problem is that dominant media conventions and framing—structured to reinforce the status quo—often obstruct the goals of such movements, which in contrast are imbued with the radical normative purpose of transforming repressive sociopolitical conditions. Employing Peace Professor Johan Galtung and Communications Professor Jake Lynch’s War Journalism/Peace Journalism (WJ/PJ) theoretical lens, the influence of dominant mass media conventions and framing of the Palestinian movement for peace with justice and its global solidarity Boycott, Sanctions, and Divestment (BDS) campaign will be explored. It will be argued that dominant WJ mass media conventions obscure the value and integrity of the BDS campaign, and undermine its goal of building a broad spectrum of support. In contrast, it will be detailed that the PJ framing model is well suited to representing BDS because it is normatively aligned, can illuminate the value and integrity of the BDS campaign, and has been empirically shown to engage—supporting movement mobilization goals.