Understanding the role of the Colombian news media in a peace process during crisis times: The 2015 escalation of the conflict

This article contributes to the understanding of the role of the media in peace processes. By applying Wolfsfeld’s politics–media–politics model, the author assesses the role that the Colombian media played at the moment of the worst escalation of the conflict – in 2015 – during the peace negotiation (2012–2016) between the Colombian government and FARC. He does this by drawing upon a triangulation of methods that combines Structural Topic Modelling on 17,688 news articles, thematic analysis (n = 146), and interviews (n = 26) with politicians and journalists. Findings show that the Colombian media considerably amplified the escalation of the conflict and provided a pessimistic narrative with regard to the future of the negotiations. Importantly, the news media embraced an elite-driven approach to report on the events: they tended to deem only FARC accountable for the loss of trust around the negotiations during the crisis (although the government also committed violent attacks). This shows that the news media sided with the government’s communication strategy which aimed to make FARC politically accountable for the crisis. In the end, the crisis reached a positive outcome: an agreement to de-escalate the conflict was reached after the government publicly threatened FARC to end the negotiations in its first public interview. Considering these findings, this article argues that the news media intervened by amplifying the crisis, worsening the political atmosphere of the negotiations and pressuring both delegations to come to an agreement to change the approach of negotiating amidst the conflict.