ABSTRACT
With the transition from war to peace, a broader range of political discourses became included in coverage, each competing to try and gain the initiative and stake out the substantive issues which might determine the direction of peace. This chapter concerns how politicians perceived this development, how they viewed the role of television news in relation to peace and how they tried to use it as part of negotiations. It offers a valuable insight into how representatives interacted with television news and tried to use it for promoting peace. The chapter therefore provides original primary research on how politicians dealt with and viewed news as part of the transition from conflict to conflict resolution in Northern Ireland. It identifies the problems they experienced when dealing with news whilst engaged in delicate negotiations, and creates a detailed picture of how the media were seen in the light of political objectives concerned with developing peace.
