The Role of Social Psychological Barriers of Journalists for Enhancing Sustainable Peace in Cyprus

Previous studies have shown factors including media ownership, socio-political censorship, ethnic division and, the lack of professional training as obstacles to practising Peace Journalism principles. This research explored how the manner and role of social psychological processes influence Turkish Cypriot and Greek Cypriot journalists’ professional lives and tendencies towards Peace Journalism and War Journalism principles in a divided and conflicted society, Cyprus. Three different studies were conducted in the current research. The preliminary study aimed to develop a shared societal beliefs scale to measure both community journalists’ shared societal beliefs to be used as one of the social-psychological processes in the second study. The second study was hence conducted to investigate Turkish Cypriot and Greek Cypriot journalists’ social psychological processes such as intergroup contact, outgroup attitudes, forgiveness, intergroup anxiety, and shared societal beliefs, and how these processes influence one another. The third study aimed to examine how social psychological processes such as quality and quantity of intergroup contact, outgroup attitudes, and common ingroup identity influence Peace Journalism and War Journalism attitudes. This is a comparative cross-sectional research design based on quantitative surveys. The sample of the preliminary study was 384 Turkish Cypriot and 219 Greek Cypriot communities, the sample of the second study was 111 Turkish Cypriots and 100 Greek Cypriots journalists and the sample of the third study was 102 Turkish Cypriot and 103 Greek Cypriot journalists. Peace-war journalism attitudes, intergroup contact, outgroup attitudes, forgiveness, shared societal beliefs, peace-war attitudes, common ingroup identity, and intergroup anxiety scales were used. In general, findings highlighted that both community journalists don’t contact frequently with outgroup members and their social-psychological processes are not adequately positive. The quantity and quality of contact are positively correlated with positive feelings, common ingroup identity and Peace Journalism attitudes and negatively correlated with intergroup anxiety and War Journalism attitudes, which can be stated that social-psychological processes can be assumed as obstacles to the implementation of Peace Journalism principles. Results shed light on the benefits of positive and frequent contact among journalists and with the general community to enhance positive social psychological processes as well as Peace Journalism attitudes. By recognising the importance of intergroup contact, Peace Journalism attitudes can be improved by decreasing social-psychological tensions and contributing to reconciliation, peace-building processes, and sustainable peace in conflicted societies. For further research, a bi-communal in-depth interview should be conducted to better understand the social-psychological obstacles mentioned in the current study and other obstacles to the implementation of PJ principles such as lack of empathy or trauma.