Innovative Media for Change in Transitional Justice Workshop

Oxford Transitional Justice Research (OTJR), with support from the Centre for Criminology and Faculty of Law, is hosting an international workshop, ‘Innovative Media for Change: A Debate between Journalists, Academics and Practitioners on Transitional Justice, Media and Conflict,’ on 22 and 23 June 2015 at the University of Oxford.

Speakers at the workshop include Christophe Billen (People’s Intelligence; International Criminal Court), Nerma Jelacic (Commission for International Justice and Accountability), Alison Smith (No Peace without Justice), Lino Ogora (Justice and Reconciliation Project in Gulu/Uganda), Marija Ristic (Balkan Investigative Reporting Network), Linda Melvern (Investigative Journalist), Leigh Payne (University of Oxford), Phil Clark (SOAS, University of London), Roddy Brett (University of St Andrews), Nicole Stremlau (University of Oxford), and many others! The panels will explore critical questions and debates at the nexus of transitional justice, media, conflict, and peace-building. For example, topics include the challenges of evidence collection and outreach for international criminal courts and the ethical and conceptual dilemmas of social media campaigns such as Kony2012 or documentaries such as the BBC’s Rwanda’s Untold Story. The workshop will also look at the role of media in the peace negotiations in Colombia and discuss many other case studies from Ethiopia, Somalia, Uganda, Rwanda, Cambodia, and the Balkans.

The workshop is a launch event for our new collaborative project with OTJR’s partner Fondation Hirondelle: JUSTICEINFO.NET, an online platform, offering real-time journalistic coverage and academic analysis of transitional justice (TJ) processes, globally. Against this backdrop, the workshop aims at developing a better understanding of what roles different media can play to inform the practice and policy-making of TJ processes. A key focus of the workshop is exploring the complex relationship between academic research, the practices of TJ institutions, and the media.

For this purpose, this international workshop will bring together journalists, academics, and TJ practitioners to discuss the following questions:

• In what ways can media influence TJ policy-making and practice?
• How can innovative media tools be used to inform different audiences about global, national, and local TJ processes?
• What are the challenges for independent media coverage and analysis in volatile conflict- and post-conflict settings and how can they be addressed?
• What are possible pathways to an effective collaboration between academia, TJ institutions, and media?
• How can JusticeInfo.Net be tailored in terms of content, format, and methodology to address the needs of affected communities and to empower local media?

If you would like to attend the workshop, please RSVP via email to Elena Butti by 17 June 2015. A light lunch and coffee will be provided on both days and there’s no registration fee. Please don’t hesitate to contact the organizers if you have any further questions related to the workshop.

Download a copy of the programme.