Peace Researcher Johan Galtung Passes Away

Norwegian sociologist Johan Galtung, aged 93, passed away as reported by the Peace Research Institute Oslo Prio on their website. Galtung was born October 24, 1930 in Oslo and passed away in Bærum on Saturday, February 17, 2024.

Galtung is recognized as a fundamental contributor to peace research. His academic background includes studying statistics and sociology, and in 1959, he founded Prio. In 1964, he established the Journal of Peace Research and by 1969, he was appointed as a professor of peace research at the University of Oslo.

Throughout his career, Galtung received multiple honorary doctorates from around the world, including one from the University of Tampere in 1975.

Among his contributions, Galtung developed the concept of structural violence, which asserts that social structures can hinder the fulfillment of basic human needs. This concept includes class structures, racism, and gender roles.

In 1965, Galtung and Mari Holmboe Ruge published a significant article that described how the media’s news criteria are formed. They identified twelve key features that influence the media’s coverage selection.

The more these features apply to a topic, the more likely it is to make the news. Such features include, for example, conflict within the topic, its novelty, and importance. The article by Galtung and Ruge has become a primary reference for journalism research and is widely used in journalist education to teach news criteria.

However, Galtung clarified in a 2019 interview with The Guardian that he intended the article “as a warning, not as a guideline,” expressing his disappointment that news had become overly negative, sensationalist, and confrontational.

During his career, Galtung expressed numerous controversial opinions. For example, he predicted that US influence would decline in the 2020s. His views on communist regimes attracted criticism in the West, and he faced accusations of anti-Semitism, which he denied.