What impact do mass media portrayals of atrocities have on activism? Why do these news stories sometimes mobilize people, while at other times they are met with indifference? Do different forms of media have greater or lesser impacts on mobilization? These are just some of the questions addressed in Media, Mobilization, and Human Rights, which investigates the assumption that exposure to human rights violations in countries far away causes people to respond with activism. Turning a critical eye on existing scholarship, which argues either that viewing and reading about violence can serve as a force for good (through increased activism) or as a source of evil (by objectifying and exploiting the victims of violence), the authors argue that reality is far more complex, and that there is nothing inherently positive or negative about exposure to the suffering of others. In exploring this, the book offers an array of case studies: from human rights reporting in Mexican newspapers to the impact of media imagery on humanitarian intervention in Somalia; from the influence of celebrity activism to the growing role of social media. By examining a variety of media forms, from television and radio to social networking, the interdisciplinary set of authors present radical new ways of thinking about the intersection of media portrayals of human suffering and activist responses to them.

Volume VI on Human Rights and Media introduces and analyzes the significant relationship and discourse of human rights and media. As agenda setters, framers and integral actors in human rights movements, various forms of media are analyzed by the contributing authors.

How small-scale drones, satellites, kites, and balloons are used by social movements for the greater good. Drones are famous for doing bad things: weaponized, they implement remote-control war; used for surveillance, they threaten civil liberties and violate privacy. In The Good Drone, Austin Choi-Fitzpatrick examines a different range of uses: the deployment of drones for the greater good. Choi-Fitzpatrick analyzes the way small-scale drones--as well as satellites, kites, and balloons--are used for a great many things, including documenting human rights abuses, estimating demonstration crowd size, supporting anti-poaching advocacy, and advancing climate change research. In fact, he finds, small drones are used disproportionately for good; nonviolent prosocial uses predominate.

In recent years there has been an explosion in the usage and visibility of the language of human rights, but what does this mean for the role of the media? For evolving ideas about human rights? And for the prospect of shared cosmopolitan values? Ekaterina Balabanova argues that in order to answer these questions there needs to be a deconstruction of monolithic ways of thinking about the media and human rights, incorporating the spectrum of political arguments and worldviews that underpin both. Ten case studies are presented which illustrate many of the problems and challenges associated with the relationship between the media and human rights. The examples range from cases of humanitarian intervention to analysis of global human rights campaigning on refugee issues; from immigration and asylum, to genocide, freedom of speech and torture. Anchored in an appreciation of the political conflicts and compromises at the heart of international human rights agreements, The Media and Human Rights is an invaluable resource for students studying media and human rights, international politics, security studies and political communication.

This book examines why press freedom has not become part of the established international human rights debate, despite its centrality to democratic theory. It argues that an unrestricted press is not just an important economic actor, but also an influential power in the political process, a status that interferes with government interests of sustaining their own power and influence. Despite the popularity of ideational explanations in the field of human rights studies, in the case of promoting press freedom, considerations of power and strategic interests rather than ideas dominate state behavior. The author makes the case that the current place of press freedom in the human rights debate needs to be rethought not only in developing countries, but in liberal democracies as well.

Essay from the year 2013 in the subject Communications - Mass Media, , language: English, abstract: There is no generally acceptable definition of Human Rights. This is perhaps because Human Rights scholars have different opinions about the concept. Human Rights are “generally moral rights claimed by everyone and held against everyone, especially against those who run social institutions’’, (Orend 2002 ). At the global stage, the United Nations (UN) has for years played a leading role in promoting and protecting human rights with support from International Non-governmental Organisations. In addition to the effort of the United Nations (UN), the state has basically been seen as the main actor in the promotion and protection of Human Rights. Unfortunately, states according to Hakemulder et al (1998), are often the very abuser of the rights of the citizens they are required to protect. It is noteworthy however that though the state bears the primary responsibility in issues of human rights, other organs of the society are included in the protection and promotion of Human Rights, (Addo, 1999). These organs, institutions and mechanisms include constitutions, law and legality, the courts among others. This write-up is about to discuss one of such mechanisms, the mass media in relation to how it carries out it promotion and protection role of Human Rights. Although there are International Human Rights Instruments which the United Nations (UN) has produced to serve as common standard of achievement of all people, countless Human Rights Violations occur locally and across the globe. These violations could be committed by the state as well as non-state actors. Non-state actors violate people’s Human Rights through direct involvement or indirectly when they consent to such violations. Non-state actors such as individuals, groups, informal or organized, ad hoc or continuous, may pose as violators, protectors or intermediaries.