Beyond Peace Journalism: The Review of Alternative Communication Amid Conflict in the Deep South of Thailand

Abstract

This article seeks to review the knowledge of alternative communication, focusing on the conflict in southern border provinces of Thailand. This research follows the hypothesis, “media is the key variable which can impact to the escalation or limitation of violence circumstance.” Even though the concept of “peace journalism,” has emerged as the important alternative approach for media working in the conflicts, this concept faces two significant challenges. Firstly, peace journalism has its conceptual constraint about the “objective regime” which has been widely debated among professionals. Secondly, there is a constraint from social context in Thailand where most professional mainstream media hold “Bangkok centric mindset,” which greatly influencing decision-making policies of the editorial and news desk.These two conditions debilitate the potential of “Peace Journalism” in responding to situations where unarmed civilians are facing in conflict region. The proposition of “The news ecology” moves beyond such limitation and demonstrates the importance of alternative media, citizen media, and people media. This article aim to propose “Humanistic Journalism” concept, as a new paradigm to prioritise the collaboration between media and people movements. Despite its various outstanding roles, this concept can be the violence. Thus, this paper suggests that alternative media should be scholarly researched and enhanced so that it could help local people to constructively engage to the conflict transformation in the Deep south.