Abstract

The purpose of this study was to examine the role of broadcast media on conflict resolution on the Anglophone armed conflict. A propulsive sampling technique was used to select 80 respondents who have witnessed or have been affected by the conflict.

The researcher made use of Primary sources of data with the help of Questionnaires and interviews conducted to collect data for the study, the data was presented using tables, bar charts and pie charts. The data were analysed using percentages and the Pearson Correlation technique was used on descriptive statistics to test the hypotheses. The study found that broadcast media has a statistically significant effect on conflict resolution.

This was ascertained when the Hypothesis was tested at a 95% confidence interval and P(0.000)<0.05 thus giving us room to reject the null hypothesis which had assumed that there was no effect. It was recommended that both parties involved in the conflict must see Media as a means to enhance and bring peace rather than seeing it as threat. Also, it was further recommended that another study could be carried out in other Towns not only in Buea and also in the two regions as well.

CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

1.1 Background to Study

Human beings as social animals have always been embroiled in temporary and continuous disputes and fracas collectively called conflicts since time immemorial. This comes in the form of individuals against individuals, families against families, kingdoms against kingdoms, and more contemporary, countries against countries (Boulding, 1989).

Over the years Countries around the world have engaged in many conflicts in one way another other for various reasons. Weak governance, historical animosities, exclusionary politics, contested legitimacy, resource competition, external factors, globalized conflicts and extremist ideologies have combined to create various episodes of violent conflict across the world.

Conflicts and wars can be historically traced to the Paleolithic and Neolithic era. Bronoski, (1978).

Reflects that, the early conflicts of the Neolithic era, emanated spontaneously from a contest to control the surpluses and resources discovered by man in that era. Conflicts of old as much as those of the contemporary era had stemmed also from the selfish divergence of views, in the form of political ideologies, religious differences and ethnic and social factors.

Documented conflicts can also be traced from the Punic wars to the Greco-Persian conflicts, to the Barbarian  invasions  of  the  Romans,  to  the  Crusaders  of  the  Arab  world,   the   Northern wars, the French wars, the Nazi wars, the Isreali-Palestine conflict, the independence and insurgency wars, and most recently terrorist conflicts. Boulding, Kenneth. (1962). World War I, an international conflict that in 1914–18 embroiled most of the nations of Europe along with Russia, the United States, the Middle East, and other regions. The war pitted the Central Powers mainly Germany, Austria-Hungary, and Turkey against the Allies mainly France, and Great Britain World War II, was a conflict that involved virtually every part of the world during the years 1939-45.

The principal belligerents were the Axis powers Germany, Italy, and Japan and the Allies France, Great Britain, the United States, the Soviet Union, and, to a lesser extent, China has been at war at some point in time. The breadth and diversity of the contemporary CR field is a consequence of the long history of the field and of the many sources of its present-day character. Its contemporary manifestation initially focused on stopping violence but it has broadened greatly to incorporate building the conditions for peace, including post-violence reconciliation, enhancing justice, establishing conflict management systems, and many other issues.

Certainly, calls and actions for alternatives to war and other violent conflicts have a long history; major exemplary documents, starting from classical Grecian times, are available in Chatfield and Ilukhina (1994). The time between the American and French revolutions and the First World War deserves noting, prior to discussing the more proximate periods.

The revolutions of the late 1770s established the importance of popular participation in governance and  of  fundamental  human  rights.  Many   intellectual   leaders   of   that   time, particularly in Europe and North America, discussed the processes and procedures to manage armed conflict and to avoid tyrannies. They include Voltaire (1694-1778), Jean , Rousseau (l712-1778), Adam Smith (1723-1790), Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826), and James Madison (1751-1836).

The moral and practical issues related to dealing with various kinds of conflicts were widely discussed, emphasizing the importance of reasoning. For example, Immanuel Kant (1724-1804) wrote about perpetual peace resulting from states being constitutional republics and John Stuart Mill (l 806-1873) wrote about the value of liberty and the free discussion of ideas. But the path of progress was not smooth; wars and oppression obviously were not abolished.

Many explanations for these social ills and ways to overcome conflict were put forward, including the influential work of Karl Marx (1818-1883), which emphasized class conflict and its particular capitalist manifestation. Vladimir Ilyich Lenin (1870-1924) elaborated Marxism with his still influential analysis of the relationship between capitalism and imperialism, which generated wars and struggles for radical societal transformations. Many other non-Marxist and more reformist efforts were undertaken to advance justice and oppose war-making and avoid armed conflict.

The First World War (1914-1918) destroyed many millions of lives and also shattered what seemed to have been illusions of international proletarian solidarity, of global harmony from growing economic interdependence, and of rational political leadership. The revulsion from the war’s mass killings was expressed in the growth of pacifist sentiments and organizations, in the Dada art movement, and in political cynicism.

Nevertheless, in the United States and in many European countries, peace movement organizations renewed their efforts to construct institutions to reduce the causes of war and in many cases to foster collective security to stop wars (Cortright 2008). Many societal developments in the period between the outbreak of World War I and the end of World War II were the precursors for contemporary conflict resolution.

They include research and social innovations that pointed to alternative ways of thinking about and conducting conflicts and ending them. The variety of sources in the emergence of CR resulted in diverse perspectives and concerns in the field, which produced continuing tensions and disagreements.

Conflicts with non-rational components may erupt and be exacerbated in varying degrees by generating misunderstandings and unrelated concerns. In some ways, however, the non-rational aspects of many conflicts can make them susceptible to control and solution, if the source of displaced feelings are understood and corrected.

The human relations approach to industrial conflict is built on this assumption (Roethlisberger et al. 1939). Other research about organizations stressed the way struggles based on differences of interest could be controlled by norms and structures if asymmetries in power were not too large. The experience with regulated collective bargaining provided a model for this possibility, as exemplified in the United States, with the establishment of the National Labor Relations Board in 1942. Mary Parker Follett (1942) influentially wrote about negotiations that would produce mutual benefits.

1.2 Statement of Problem

The prevalence of conflict in the world and particularly in  the  African  Sub-region  has been a major source of concern to individuals, families and the society at large. People have become apprehensive about the negative consequences of conflict, due to the way and manner it interrupts in our society (Anyanwu; 2013).

Violent conflict in developing countries is often characterised by use of light weapons and a blurring of the distinction between combatants and civilians. Such conflicts are increasingly waged by opposing groups through civilian populations such as in the case of the Anglophone armed conflict which has lasted since 2016.

History has shown that the media can incite people toward violence. Hitler used the media to create an entire worldview of hatred for Jews, homosexuals, and other minority groups. Rwanda’s radio RTLM urged listeners to pick up machetes and take to the streets to kill what they called ‘the cockroaches.’

Broadcasters in the Balkans polarized local communities to the point where violence became an acceptable tool for addressing grievances. The media’s impact on the escalation of conflict is more widely recognized than the media’s impact on peacebuilding. Yet it is not uncommon to hear experts pronounce that the media’s impact on peacebuilding must be significant given its powerful impact on conflict. However, this simple relationship must not be taken for granted and should be critically examined in order to most effectively use the media for conflict prevention and peacebuilding.

During conflict, Media plays a role First, to inform citizens of what is happening around them. Second, to educate them as to the meaning and significance of the ’facts’. Third, to provide a platform for public political discourse that must include the provision of space for the expression of dissent.

Fourth, to give publicity to governmental and political institutions (the watchdog role of journalism), and finally to serve as a channel for the advocacy of political viewpoints. Consequently, the media have a large potential for creating a common basis and thus cultivating conditions for conflict transformation through a variety of activities.

Over the years since the beginning of the Anglophone conflict, the state and non-state media has reported about the conflict and most times, after receiving information from the media, the population is either angry given the nature in which the information has been reported. This is because the media which is supposed to be the sole source of information to the population has been forced to either report wrong information or they simply allow government official to speak to the public what is not real (case of attack on children in Kumba last year).

Also, the separatist groups is using the media as their main tool to push their agenda and so there is need to understand what Broadcast media has contributed to the crisis. Furthermore, there have been an accusation of the Media by the population to have been working with the Government as well as the armed groups fighting for the restoration of the Anglophone statehood to have been inciting fear or hate speech.

And since every piece of information passes through the media and some of the killings happened because of anger where the government failed to acknowledge the killings through the media. It is of this backdrop that this study seeks to examine the role media has on the Anglophone armed conflict that started in November 2016.

From the foregoing, the following research questions were raised:

1. What is the level of interference of Broadcast Media on conflict resolution in the Anglophone armed Conflict-Cameroon?
2. To what extent has Broadcast Media contributed to conflict resolution in the Anglophone armed Conflict-Cameroon?
3. What are the challenges faced by Media personnel in reporting on the Anglophone conflict?

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