Frank Möller and David Shim, “Digital Images in Peacebuilding,” pp. 127–147 in Social Media and Peacebuilding: How Digital Spaces Shape Conflict and Peace, edited by Anna Reuss and Stephan Stetter
The digital world – data, social media, algorithms, artificial intelligence and so on – is not just a variation of the analogue world; it is something new entirely. Understanding digital spaces requires new theories and concepts, not just adaptations of established and familiar ones.
As the editors of this book, Anna Reuss and Stephan Stetter, argue in the introduction, “digital developments should be addressed beyond the technology-problematizing vs. technology-oriented spectrum. They should contribute to overcoming the binary and schematic logic that often characterizes debates on digital technologies and social media in relation to international conflicts.“ As such, this book examines “the role of social media in conflict, with a particular focus on the contexts in which technology supports peacebuilding.”
According to the publisher, the book “makes a novel contribution to the literature by examining the intersection of social media, conflict and peacebuilding.” It “explains why the impact of social media on peacebuilding is complex and depends on the political context and strategies of the actors involved in it. It uses an interdisciplinary lens to explore the potential and limitations of social media in peacebuilding, thereby contributing to a theoretical and empirical understanding of the role of digital technology in shaping conflict and promoting peace.”
In our chapter, we discuss the role and function of digital images in peacebuilding. We argue that the digital image can improve peacebuilding on the condition that the non-linearity and multi-directionality as well as the complexities and ambiguities of both peacebuilding and the conditions in which it interferes are acknowledged and consciously used in peacebuilding efforts.
We start by briefly introducing visual peace research and its underlying understanding of peace images as derivate, illustrative, and constitutive of peace as well as representative, pro-active, and participatory.
In the following section, we ask what the digital image can offer to peacebuilding – e. g., multifaceted ways of interaction and a surge in the number of peace image makers – so as to create a virtual community of visual peacebuilders from below.
Focusing on artificial intelligence and separating a photojournalistic peace photography from a peace photography inspired by peace and conflict studies, we then explore the potential contribution of AI-generated images to peacebuilding in the narrative tradition which aims to complexify conflict narratives in order to transform a given conflict.
Finally, we analyze the contribution of digitization to the practical work of peace researchers and peacebuilders in terms of network building and knowledge production.
Edited by Anna Reuss and Stephan Stetter (University of the Armed Forces Munich), the book appears in the series Rethinking Peace and Conflict Studies, edited by Oliver Richmond, Annika Björkdahl and Gëzim Visoka.
Palgrave Macmillan 2025
ISBN 978-3-031-73916-3 (hard cover); 978-3-031-73917-0 (e-book)
Further information can be found here.