War and Peace Journalism in the Coverage of the 2020 US Presidential Election

Abstract

This paper aims at empirically testing the usefulness of Galtung’s model of peace and war journalism in the analysis of the coverage of the 2020 US presidential election by Polish television news programs� The work also aims to investigate whether similar mechanisms can be used in the coverage of elections as in the coverage of wars� We explore through what perspective – peace or war journalism – the election was covered and what specific mechanisms of these models were used� We also discuss whether the war journalism or peace journalism coverage perspective of the event was influenced by polarization and the political affiliation of the Polish media and how these factors influenced the way the US presidential candidates were presented�