Practising Communication Rights: Cases from Korea and Honduras

Communications The European Journal of Communication Research, 2020

In recent decades, the fields of journalism, advocacy, politics, and technology have been transformed fundamentally, resulting in new societal contexts in which the communication of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) is produced , disseminated, and received. Within these evolving contexts, Matthew Powers-one of the leading scholars in the field of NGO-journalism studies-provides an in-depth analysis of the journalistic roles of humanitarian and human rights NGOs. Adopting a multi-perspective,-disciplinary, and-methodological approach and drawing on diverse strands of research and theoretical frameworks , NGOs as newsmakers offers relevant insights into the communication efforts of these actors. The book proves to be a significant, innovative and wide-ranging contribution to the relatively fragmented academic literature and debate on contemporary NGO journalism in general and its content, production, and-to a lesser extent-reception dimensions. More concretely, NGOs as newsmakers consists of seven chapters which, using a historicized and contextualized approach, focus on various relevant but barely explored aspects of NGOs' communication efforts. The introductory chapter of NGOs as newsmakers discusses the research approach and central argument of the work, the state of the art, the selected theoretical frameworks, and provides an outline of the subsequent chapters. As such, the reader is immediately informed about the focus, context, and architecture of the book, which makes it even more readable. Chapter two then examines the longitudinal evolutions of the number and types of communication efforts of some leading humanitarian and human rights NGOs, their underlying reasons as well as broader implications. Drawing on these findings and a content analysis of humanitarian and human rights news found in leading American news outlets, chapter three investigates if and how the selected NGOs have also obtained a larger access to news media. Chapter four then focuses on how the NGOs use digital tools in their communication efforts. In connection therewith, chapter five examines why the NGOs prefer mainstream news coverage, despite new digital opportunities. Similarly, chapter six explores why journalistic norms continue to

International Studies Quarterly, 2005

What shapes the transnational activist agenda? Do non-governmental organizations with a global mandate focus on the world's most pressing problems, or is their reporting also affected by additional considerations? To address these questions, we study the determinants of country reporting by an exemplary transnational actor, Amnesty International, during 1986–2000. We find that while human rights conditions are associated with the volume of their country reporting, other factors also matter, including previous ...

This article analyzes the newsmaking experiences of selected NGOs in Latin America. It argues that the newsmaking experiences of NGOs reflect the ascendancy of a pragmatic approach characterized by organizations engaging with the press and state actors to gain visibility and construct social problems as public issues. The wide-ranging interests and goals among NGOs, coupled with the heterogeneous interests of news organizations and state officials, make it impossible to produce generalizations about the impact of NGOs in strengthening linkages with the press. Not all civic demands have similar chances of finding sympathetic and receptive actors. The fact that NGOs pursue separate newsmaking strategies with different results evidences the fragmented and conflictive character of civil society. The analysis has implications for understanding both the effectiveness of NGOs in making the press permeable to citizens' interests, and the articulation between civic society and the media.

… (2007)(eds). Radical Democracy and the Internet. New …, 2007

2021

The growing trend that is the shrinking of civil society has been raising concerns at an international level. Yet, further study is needed to determine how reducing civil space affects non-governmental organisations (NGOs) working on human rights, as in-depth research on the latter’s response strategies remains very limited. What specific measures are being implemented to curb humanitarian NGOs? What advocacy methods do NGOs employ as they navigate through highly insecure and oppressive settings? How do they rethink how to create and maintain connections with members and partners on different geographic scales? This research project investigates how NGOs strive to promote human rights in Cambodia by peering at the ways seven local and international NGOs active in Cambodia have been dealing with the constraints of shrinking civil space since the 2018 general elections. Based on online interviews data as well as the analysis of grey literature and academic publishing, I conclude that, in the face of a tense political landscape and limited NGOs' activities owing to health crises such as the current COVID-19 pandemic, Cambodian NGOs may greatly benefit from the use of mass media, particularly digital media (e.g., social media platforms, broadcasts, websites). While emphasising the potential for mass media to communicate with impact, this study also takes a critical stance and argues that mass media cannot act as a catalyst for social change on its own. As such, this paper shall add to the literature by identifying the ties between civil society and mass media, two key players in promoting democracy and human rights

The International Journal of Press/Politics, 2014

Historically, NGOs have relied on mainstream news media to expose human rights violations and encourage governments to pressure the perpetrators. Thanks to the Internet, NGOs are crafting new strategies for conducting information politics. Despite the obvious democratization of access to the means of communication, however, the new media may in fact represent a more challenging environment in which to be heard for some groups seeking global attention. We draw on agenda setting research to develop a theory of global attention competition and use it to explain the success of 257 transnational human rights groups at generating attention in both international mainstream news media and social media outlets. We conclude that most NGOs lack the organizational resources to compete effectively for either traditional news coverage or for public attention and that the Internet is unlikely to resolve the problem of global communication.

Media, Culture & Society, 2014

In January 1994 the Zapatista movement in southern Mexico inaugurated a new era of media use for dissent. Since that time, an array of dissenting collectives and individuals have appropriated media technologies in order to make their voices heard or to articulate alternative identities. From Zapatista media to the Arab Spring, social movements throughout the world are taking over, hybridizing, recycling, and adapting media technologies. This new era poses a new set of challenges for academics and researchers in the field of Communication for Social Change (CfSC). Based on examples from Mexico, Lebanon, and Colombia, this article highlights and discusses four such research challenges: accounting for historical context; acknowledging the complexity of communication processes; anchoring analysis in a political economy of information and communication technologies; and positioning new research in relation to existing knowledge and literature within the field of communication and social ...

Global Media Journal, 2012

Information and communication technologies (ICTs) present social movement actors with new opportunities for transnational communication, and for communication capacity building. In his book Communication Power, Manuel Castells identifies communication capacity, as well as processes associated with network building, as key contributors to social movement power and influence. However, scholars have yet to investigate these dimensions of communication activism. In order to better understand the processes and challenges associated with transnational communication capacity building, this article examined 10 Tactics for turning information into action, an initiative designed to promote communication capacity building among social movement actors in the global South. Drawing on Castells' ideas about reprogramming, switching, and connecting the local and global, we trace the networking process undertaken in the project's production, distribution and use. The examination of this case reveals a number of barriers to transnational communication capacity building and identifies dimensions of Castells' networking process that require further development or elaboration, most notably the critical role played by local agents in transnational networking. Transnational Networking and Capacity Building for Communication Activism Social movements are networks of social actors who organise and undertake collective action, share common purposes and interests, and challenge existing power relations (Castells, 2001; Tarrow, 2005; Tilly, 1998). Scholars have identified the availability and use of digital media and networks, strategic communication, and the development of communication capacity as increasingly important to social movement actors. The availability of relatively inexpensive digital devices for media production and the ability of digital content to traverse multiple distribution platforms and networks allow social movement actors to produce their own messages, circulate them to local and transnational audiences, extend and deepen strategic relationships, and engage in new and extended forms of collaboration and collective action (

International Journal of Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) and Essays (IJNGOE), 2021

For decades, it has become a common trend for Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs) to raise social justice issues and to present their views and positions for them. Their role as international "newsmakers" (=producer of news) has been in the centre of scholars', journalists', governmental officers' and businesses' interest and has been an area of great debate.

Global Media and Communication 5:1 (April 2009)