Framing Peace: The Role of Media, Perceptions, and United Nations Peacekeeping Operations in Haiti and Côte d’Ivoire

Despite conducting sixty-six peacekeeping missions, the United Nations (UN) must repeatedly justify the necessity and wisdom of continuing these operations to the international community. Domestic success is contingent to a large degree on the willingness of citizens to cooperate with peacekeepers. Consequently, public perception in both the host country and abroad has become crucial to the continuation and maintenance of UN Peacekeeping Operations (UNPKO). A discourse analysis of domestic and international newspapers, radio transcripts, and television broadcasts about contemporaneous UNPKOs in Haiti and Côte d’Ivoire reveals staggering disparities. Diverging interpretations of mission mandates, violence, censorship, and colonial practices contribute to the way in which peacekeeping missions are perceived. This article identifies how current UNPKOs are perceived domestically and internationally and emphasises the role of these perceptions as a basis for evaluating and improving these operations.