The Ethics of Engagement: Listening for Peace

Abstract

This chapter sets out the central and most important argument of the book as it proposes a normative framework for African media in contexts of democratization conflict that is based on the ethical principal of “listening.” The chapter asks the question: how should the media act ethically during times of conflict? In setting out to answer this question, the chapter departs from the basic assumption that the media have responsibilities to democratic societies that extend beyond their mere functioning as commercial industries, digital platforms, or public institutions. The assumption in this chapter is that ethical frameworks are best developed through a dynamic dialectic between normative concepts and reflective practice: an ongoing process that combines ethical concepts and theories with an analysis of their appropriation, adaptation, and application in actual, specific contexts. Listening as an ethical position requires a fundamental revision of the relationship between journalists and their publics, one in which power relations are radically revised or overturned.