99987 - Journalism and Conflicts

Learning outcomes

By the end of the course, students will have a deeper understanding of the role played by journalism, not only in understanding the causes of national and international armed conflicts, but also in triggering state and non-state responses to the outbreak of violence. Specifically, students will acquire the necessary tools to understand how exposure to journalism and its relationship with governments, international organizations, civil society actors, and the public today represents a crucial element of international politics in conflict situations, as well as in the legitimization or criticism of the international conduct of state and interstate actors.

Course contents

1. In the beginning, there was Herodotus: travelogues and frontline reporting
2. Journalism vs. propaganda: living close to power
3. Nature, role, goals of journalism in democratic societies
4. The weak link and the investigative journalism: the Watergate 
5. Can investigative journalism stop wars? The Pentagon Papers
6. War reporters: where history meets the reality. David van Reybrouck.
7. War reporters: the role of witness in the Lebanese war. Robert Fisk.
8. Testimony and voyeurism: a moral issue. Ryszard Kapuściński.
9. Testimony and voyeurism in the era of live-broadcast war: the Gulf Wars and the war in Ukraine
10. The role of media in the collective psychology of conflict, from print to social media: the spoken and the unspoken.

Readings/Bibliography

Bob Woodward-Carl Bernstein – Tutti gli uomini del Presidente – Res Gestae (2012)

Katherine Graham – Le carte segrete del Post. Dai Pentagon papers al Watergate – Aliberti (2018)

David van Reybrouck – Congo – Feltrinelli (2016)

Robert Fisk – Cronache mediorientali – Il Saggiatore (2023)

Robert Fisk – Il martirio di una nazione. Il Libano in guerra – Il Saggiatore (2010)

Ryszard Kapuscinski – Il cinico non è adatto a questo mestiere – ed E/O (2010)

Ryszard Kapuscinski – Opere – Mondadori Meridiani (2009)

Amedeo Ricucci – La guerra in diretta – Pendragon (2004)

Noam Chomsky – Media e potere – Bepress (2014)

Daniel Bar-Tal – La trappola dei conflitti intrattabili – Franco Angeli (2024)

Laura Silvia Battaglia – Lettere da Guantanamo – Castelvecchi (2021)

Laura Silvia Battaglia - I partigiani di Allah - Mondadori (2026)

Teaching methods

Open-Source Investigation
Fact-checking techniques applied to case studies
Comparison of video and audio content
AI-based content recognition techniques

Assessment methods

Periodic exercises
Polls using Mentimeter

Teaching tools

Lecture Slides
Handouts
Papers

Office hours

See the website of Laura Silvia Carmen Irene Battaglia