Click the star to add/remove an item to/from your individual schedule.
You need to be logged in to avail of this functionality.

Accepted Paper:

Stealing from the Victims: State, NGO, and Media Negotiations over Human Rights Coverage in Mexico  
Ella McPherson (University of Cambridge)

Paper short abstract:

Ethnographic research shows that victims of human rights violations are largely marginalized in the process of human rights newsmaking in Mexico, while human rights NGOs battle the state for credibility in the eyes of the media. The end result in this post-authoritarian state is that the government appropriates the majority of the human rights discourse in the media.

Paper long abstract:

Many consider the media instrumental to the fight against human rights violations. Yet, ethnographic research shows that victims of human rights violations are marginalized in the process of human rights newsmaking in Mexico. Initially, victims meet with human rights organizations. If victims' stories suit their missions, these organizations appropriate victims' situations and transmit them to newspapers. Mexican state officials often accuse human rights NGOs of appropriating these stories to attract international donations actually used to fund lavish lifestyles or subversive activities. Newspapers, in turn, are fearful of losing the credibility they have so recently and precariously earned among audiences and advertisers in their transition from financial dependence on the state to the market. As a result, they are loathe to report on stories that have not been vetted by other credible organizations, thereby excluding victims' unmediated voices, as well as on information transmitted by organizations whose credibility is in question, thereby eliminating most human rights NGOs discredited by the state. The end result is that the government appropriates the majority of the human rights discourse in the media, and the institutional secrecy and limited mandate of its National Human Rights Commission restrict human rights-based criticism of the state. This research raises questions about the extent to which the media coverage of human rights does actually assist victims. The government's ability to appropriate one of the most established sectors of state criticism also raises the larger question about the persistence in Mexico of 'authoritarian enclaves' (Lawson, 2000) post-democratic transition.

Panel P10
Claiming and controlling need: who owns development and philanthropy?
  Session 1