PROJECT TITLE: THE ROLE OF THE MEDIA IN BRIDGING THE RELIGIOUS CONFLICT BETWEEN ISLAMIC AND CHRISTIAN COMMUNITIES IN THE WORLD.

ABSTRACT.

The rise in populism and nationalism as part of a reaction against global policies of the last 30years in western liberal democracies and beyond. While the global era depicts a cosmopolitan vision, economic insecurity, growing inequality in wealth distribution, as well as cultural change and shifts in traditional values and norms have resulted in the broader concern that globalization is associated with the rising conflicts between Christian and Islamic religious communities. In the Middle East, Nigeria, Kenya, and many other parts of the world the enmity has snowballed into open confrontations between the two religions due to the daily encounters and interactions in the media. Complications between truth and free expression in the age of social media, meaning that there’s a need to put into account the role of such platforms in the rise of the conflicts between the two religions. A theory by Learfield and his colleagues states that the opinion expressed by the media is first synthesized by the leaders and the leaders then influence the rest of the people In as much as the media being the reason behind many of the conflicts it has been instrumental in the resolution of the conflicts by sharing messages of peace amongst other initiatives that pull the groups together. This paper aims to shed light on how media has caused the conflict between Christian and Islamic communities and how it has been a key player in the resolution of the inter-faith conflicts.

OVERVIEW.

Inter-religious conflicts between Islam and Christians have been on the rise worldwide. This can be affiliated with sufficient networking which makes it easier to pass information and also by the fact that this is the main religion today. In the media one doesn’t fail to encounter a sentiment that depicts hatred by a person to another religion, these negative religious comments are the reason behind the conflict because even if true the religion involved in the negative act tend to have an important cultural reason behind it and so they’ll keep doing it since it’s their way of life and the other religion won’t stop criticizing it and they term it human rights violation or so. The global uptake of the internet and digital media and communication along with its profoundly disruptive impact upon all aspects of media and communication which have accelerated since the 1990s, internet users wold wide are estimated to 4.1 billion with the fastest rates of growth in developing world implying that any religious conflicts referring to the two religions is a catalyst for conflict. The rising awareness of people and events in other parts of the world, and a capacity to form alliances, allegiances, and communities of shared interest across geographical and territorial boundaries, attributed to social media, has promoted the rise of Islamic gangs who claim responsibility after bombings and other destructive killing and maiming several civilians who majorly happen to be Christians if not other religions. There have been malicious Intel circulating all over social networks with evidence of brutality towards victims of these conflicts. The slightest misuse of media by leaders can spark very bad conflicts and violence between the two groups. With platforms like Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn and even WhatsApp offering free messaging services information reaches people so fast, there are also the local radio stations, local television networks and the international networks there are also prints like daily magazines. Thousands of media outlets in the world serve to make more people informed but they also add to the rift between conflicting groups.

OBJECTIVES.

To show how media has worsened conflicts between religions globally
To show the measures that can help reverse the damage done by media misinformation.

SCOPE OF THE STUDY.

This study is meant to outline the impacts of the media on the inter-faith conflicts majoring in the Islamic and Christian conflict. It also shows the measures that can be put in place to settle the conflict between the different faith and also highlights the faults in the media hindering the attainment of consensus

BODY BACKGROUND.

The online platforms or social spaces of Web 2.0 differ substantially from the traditional media such as that of public service broadcasting in several ways: first, they attract many more people than traditional media (see statistics above). Second, social networks allow more interactivity and many-to-many communication on a global scale, rather than one-to-many as it is the case with broadcast media. Third, the rapid uptake of the global distribution platforms dramatically lowers the costs of reaching international audiences, and makes all content potentially accessible worldwide, for instance through re-posting and retweeting by online user communities which can be used to promote religion and also misguide information and hate messages. The religious conflict witnessed today has been by much as a result of information presented by media outlets to the world. Many of the wars that have taken place have occurred across religious divides and so religion and conflict appear to be correlated. According to a study done by Pew (2018), more than a quarter of the world’s countries recorded violence triggered by religious hatred from harassment of women to mob violence because of violating religious codes. A 2018 rights group also showed a rise in hostilities such as mass killings across the globe. On the other hand, this religion similarly poses as a reminder to humanity about being humane. Italy’s Sant-Egidio has supported interfaith dialogue and campaigns to promote reconciliation across Albania and Mozambique together with other groups that have joined the course of reconciliation like Islamic relief. Also, a study done by Al-kandari (2007) the situation in the Arab world was much different before the 1990s where government media dictated the tone of the content of religious broadcasting which consisted of recitations of Quranic scripts and interviews performed on a one-to-one basis with Muslim clerics. This shows the media freedom created by the availability of many networking platforms due to the advancing technology.

The integration between Islam and Christians spans back to decades ago and is mainly characterized by conflict. In many of the countries, for instance, Kenya Islamic religion has been in existence longer than Christianity which was introduced by the missionaries in the 19^th century.in these conflicts between the two religions, Islam has had the upper hand in the number of victories, and back then in 638, Islam managed to erect a mosque in Jerusalem, the mosque of Omar.

Various international organizations in recent times have taken the initiative of promoting peace dialogue between the two religions such as the World Council of Churches (WCC). Online activity facilitates the uproar of communities by dropping the costs of cooperation and the creation of new publics (Howard and Hussain, 2013). This has been particularly true during religious protests and uprisings. The social uses of networks, and indeed their value in organized religious protest and rebellion, has ensured this. Also, the enhanced connectivity experienced between social media users has helped activate and deepen ties during uprisings, for instance during the ‘Arab Spring’.

Apart from mass media, various groups employ different means to pass their information to the believers, the problem is how the information will be perceived by the believers and the impact it will have on the already tense relationship between the two groups. Many groups hand out prints to their congregations weekly or during their regular services. Taking the case of a newsletter from a Kenyan based mosque, Jamia mosque in the capital of Nairobi which accordi9ing to their report on 10^th of august 2012 stated that“ islamaphobists” had dumped wastes in a mosque and destroyed the mosque in Kajiado and also destroying copies of their holy book of Koran. Such information and how it is passed out to the public infuriate those who read it and contribute to increasing the tension between the two religious’ communities.

According to James Deane in his report on fragile states and media, he emphasizes the importance of the politics of identity in conflict and conflict prevention. “Problems emerge in fragile states if the principal role of the media is to reinforce the separation of identities without also having the capacity, means or will to enable the kind of dialogue that can create shared identities”.

The hatred towards Muslims is not only from Christians but also from those in political power. The president of the united states of America, Donald Trump made a devastating statement that tainted everyone who supported him consequently when on the 7^th of December 2015 he banned all the Muslims from entering the country, he has used social media platforms such as Twitter to lay out his anti-Islam comments where he has millions of followers and this has led to the increasing tension between the two faiths globally. Across the united states, alone mosques are vandalized as local governments denounce the Islamic faith and the creation of anti-Islamic laws by legislators consequently such occurrences have been on the rise in the country. With such incidences and occurrences, it’s so hard to reach a consensus between the two groups since in reiteration the Islamic jihadists have been attacking the non-believers. According to the southern poverty law center, between 2015 and 2016 the number of anti-Muslimism hate groups grew by 197 percent and the crimes increased by 67 percent including attacks on mosques.

There have been cases of Christian persecutions across the globe from India to Egypt and several other countries that are mainly dominated by the Islamic faith. This heinous act includes torching down of churches and forceful conversion of the faithful to other religions, sexual assaults, the murder of Christian priests and destruction of churches. The persecution of Christians increased sharply in India in 2016 and it was ranked 15^th in terms of danger to Christians. These acts of violence have been on the rise across the globe in reiteration to the hostilities towards other religions in other nations that are mainly dominated by the Christian religion.

Despite the attempts at dialogues by a different organization to bring harmony and understanding between the different faiths the political actions build up the hostility and mistrust between the faiths threatening the already fragile relationship. False images have been portrayed in communities that have led to misunderstandings and fear. However, a dialogue isn’t an easy initiative to undertake as some Muslims express reservations about dialogue seeing it as a means of converting them into Christianity, and similarly, some Christians don’t want to embrace dialogue seeing it as a threat of Islamic fanaticism.

Media as a setback in inter-faith relations.

The number of social media users increased to over one billion users as of the year 2012. This coupled with other factors has been detrimental in the reach for peace between the two religions. the factors include:

Misinformation – the information available for consumption in the media isn’t entirely true, in the case of the inter-faith conflict anyone can post a piece of information in the social network about another religion, this will make the viewers have a bad picture in mind about the victimized faith. in Kenya, there have been cases of mosques been associated with Janis in the coastal province which is a myth but this taints the picture of Muslims and their faith and increases the hostility they face from other faiths in the region.

Hate speeches – the social network has been used as a platform to share grievous sentiments about religions with accusations of terrorism. There have been cases where terrorists or even religious leaders have lashed out and publicly denounced the other faiths tagging them as non-believers.

Misinterpretation of the information-the information available by the media many at times is meant to serve the greater good which is to bridge the inter-faith gap however, this is information has been subject to misinterpretation by the public. Once such information is misinterpreted given the sensitivity of the matter it leads to tension within the communities and this worsens the already dire situation leading to conflict and hence violence.

Terrorism platforms- many terror groups are affiliated with certain religions like the jihadist and the al Qaida which are Muslim groups. These gangs use media platforms to

inflict terror on other groups that are non-believers of their faith. The world trade center bombing in 1993 in New York USA was an act of terrorism orchestrated by a group of Muslims. On the third of June Islamic State claimed responsibility for an attack on London bridge by posting through their news agencies or through their various official channels like the Nasir Media Services which is for the Islamic state.

Remedies of inter-faith conflicts caused by caused.

Since media has also played a role in causing the inter-faith conflicts through misinformation and also through presenting malicious information and by being abused by the users to spread hate, there is a need to put measures in place to stop the trend and to try and reverse the damage done already. This is no easy task as attempts to do this before have backfired and worsened the situation and so the need to be more clinical and elaborate to ensure the measures put in place work as intended. Below are some elaborate measures that can aid resolve the problem:

verification of the information – the media houses should have any information posted in their networks verified before being released, the information should undergo a chain of checks to ensure their legitimacy to curb misinformation of the public. This will go a long way to help stop the inter-faith violence which is so elaborate in modern society since there wouldn’t be room to feed the public with false information which will be incitement.

Proper legislative measures- legislative measures should be set internationally governing the type of information fed to the public. Since the network grid of information is international so should the laws be and the implementation? This will reduce the levels of hate speech in the media and will reinstate sanity in terms of the information being shared. Since the inter-faith conflict is fueled by hate speech this will serve to reduce the rift between the different religions.

The media platforms should majorly focus on the positive side of the matter and giving more air time to programs that can aid resolve the issue. Constantly showing the negative picture of the conflict can be traumatizing and is draining to those involved in peacebuilding. Media houses should make it their initiative to show the public the progress and measures that can aid salvage the situation by even broadcasting the inter-faith dialogues and such content.

The media should build links with other institutions; this will make it more efficient in conflict solving as compared to it working by itself as an institution that will make it prone to conflicting interests with other institutions.

The media should ensure the safety of their workers; this will make it easier for the workers to work safely without being threatened and being harassed or killed as they perform their duties. This will make the public have more access to information even from hostile environments.

Media as a tool in bridging the inter-faith rift.

Even though the media faces criticism for fueling inter-faith conflicts it has been in the forefront trying to bridge the gap between the various conflicting religions.

Media gives a platform for both religions to express their views and issues and reach a consensus; different religions have different codes and with the help of the media people can understand the codes of conduct of the different religions. This brings understanding between the communities and by far helps reduce the conflicts and violence since by understanding each other there is a creation of tolerance for each other’s way of life.
Media acts as a reminder of the need to co-exist humanely; media acts as a platform where the public is constantly reminded of the importance of peaceful coexistence by shunning the grievous behaviors that seek to tear down the peace between communities. And this has aided a lot in reducing the inter-faith conflicts as the communities will try and live in harmony together and do better tasks that will ensure their growth and development.
Media gives a platform for those advocating for peace to reach more people; different organizations and individuals have taken the initiative to fight against the inter-faith conflicts these parties do this by having awareness campaigns and dialogues with the communities and in major cases, they use the media as a tool to pass their information
The media has helped increase awareness by availing all kinds of information and this has helped reduce the conflicts. The people tend to be more aware of political injustices corruption and marginalization and this enables them to fight for their rights.

5.provides early warning; by looking at the trends in the media one can foretell a forthcoming disaster or violence and try as much as possible to avoid the situation and avert the conflict. By this, there will be a consensus between the groups.

In Sri Lanka, the foundation for co-existence implemented a system that monitors the media and appropriate response mechanisms for each early warning signal.

6.outlet to express emotions; the media allows people to let out their emotions and express their fears and dissatisfaction on how matters are being handled and are the pathway for communication with the power holders. #bringbackourgirls was an emotional response after the kidnapping of almost 300 girls by an Islamic militia in Nigeria, this enabled the civilians to express their dismay at the action.

The motivator for peace; the media can motivate people to take part in community events and this will help shape people’s attitudes and behaviors to each other across their denominational differences and as a result pose as a recipe for peace and coexistence between the communities.

8.improves governance; with the media being transparent and stating facts it makes leaders more accountable and ensures they are not partial in-service delivery to the civilians despite their religious differences and this is essential in stopping conflicts. By this, the media makes the civilians more aware of their rights.

CONCLUSION.

The media has had its share of accountability in positive and negative ways but with the advancing technology it shouldn’t be very hard to resolve the negativity that comes with it, despite the importance’s overshadowing the disadvantages created the media should be a flawless tool in advocating for peaceful co-existence between the different communities practicing different religions. The media should reinforce the politics of inclusiveness in marginalized communities rather than divisions and hatred between the Christian and Islamic faithful.

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Gayle M.B, press, W.R, Burell, N. and Allen, M.(2007) mass media effects research. Routledge, London

Loudon, DL, and Bitta AJ.della (2002) Consumer Behaviour.Tata McGraw-Hill, New Delhi

White, A., (2016), Media Ethics in a Context of War or Conflict: A discussion paper for International Media Support.