Designation and definition of victims during conflict. The role of media representation in reconciliation process

The present study focuses on media representations of war and peace. Our hypothesis considers reconciliation processes as starting during the conflict itself by the action of minorities refusing to change loyalty to their own group into hate for enemies. The way in which journalists designate and speak about “our” or “their” victims during the conflict is a critical point. Theoretically, this perspective recovers both Vygotsky’s classical position on interdependence between thought, language and action and Moscovici’s idea of the innovative role played by active minorities. The research presented is based on a quanti-qualitative computer-assisted (TaLTaC2.5) content analysis performed on a large corpus of Italian articles (from 2003 to 2005) referring to the Nassiriya attack against Italian soldiers in 2003 published by four different Italian mastheads, oriented towards “ideal readers”. Conclusions show different linguistic choices between newspapers addressed to a generalist audience or to peace movements.