Communicating about Peace and Peacebuilding: Challenges, Opportunities, and Emerging Recommendations

Publisher: Alliance for Peacebuilding & Partners Global

Publication date: June 2020

Abstract:

As a part of a broader Narratives for Peace initiative, member organization PartnersGlobal together with AfP, have been investing in bridging narrative theory and practice to make “peacebuilding” a more salient policy priority for the broader public. With support from Humanity United and the Open Society Foundations, we are working closely with Frameworks Institute on a social science research project to uncover effective narrative frames for peacebuilding in US foreign policy. At the half-way point of the research, Frameworks recently released a report that summarizes their findings of the US public’s existing understanding of - and perceptions about - peace and peacebuilding, including some overarching challenges and opportunities that we can apply now in our communications. As we collectively prepare for the International Day of Peace on September 21st, and our on-going policy advocacy efforts, we hope this research is useful to all AfP members. You can read the entire report here, and find an overview of their research methods here.  If you would like to watch a webinar of the research team presenting these findings, you can watch the 45 minute video presentation on YouTube at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=odgzqnq2CSg

Stay tuned for updates on this exciting research initiative that is now embarking on more focused testing of specific narrative frames for peacebuilding messaging in the US.

Authors:

Eric Lindland, PhD, Senior Fellow

Andrew Volmert, PhD, Vice President of Research

Lindsey Conklin, PhD, Senior Researcher

Leann Down, MPP, MSW, Research Analyst