Revision – Humanitarian
Communications
Humanitarianism
• What is humanitarianism and why do we care about the faraway
victims of conflict, famine and natural disasters?
Humanitarianism is normally defined as relating to the good of
mankind. A humanitarian individual or group acts to achieve the
good of mankind. It is altruism in action.
But are humanitarian actions on a global scale purely altruistic – do
they actually work for the good of mankind? Iraq, Kosovo, Libya,
Somalia and other interventions often put as forms of humanitarian
intervention – does this devalue humanitarianism?
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How do we define humanitarian crises? Natural disasters, famine to what extent are then man-made?
Defining humanitarian crises
• Humanitarian crises take a number of forms and involve a number
of factors, often in combination:
• Natural disasters – earthquakes, floods, tsunamis, drought. These
may cause loss of life, destruction of crops, stored food, homes and
infrastructure.
• Man-made ,accidental disasters - flooding due to breaks in dams,
levees, chemical or gas leaks (eg: Bhopal) or nuclear accidents
(Chernobyl).
• Economic factors – rising food prices, falling employment,
resettlement, agricultural collectivisation etc
• Political factors – marginalisation of communities or regions or
denial of aid for political reasons
• War or civil/communal conflict – humanitarian effects of war with
displacement/ethnic cleansing (eg: former Yugoslavia), destruction
or seizure of crops/livestock, genocide (Rwanda, Cambodia)
Humanitarian responses
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Crusades – humanitarian reaction to plight of Christians and pilgrims in Palestine, threat to
Byzantine empire mixed with less admirable motives – hatred of the “Other”, breed, diversion of
warring parties in Europe to other forms of warfare etc.
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Late 19th and early 20th century – hospitals in the Crimea, formation of Red Cross after Solferinoi
etc
After the first world war ended, the Britain kept up a blockade that left children in cities like Berlin
and Vienna starving. Tuberculosis and rickets were rife. "The children's bones were like rubber.
Clothing was utterly lacking. In the hospitals there was nothing but paper bandages." Dr Hector
Munro, Save the Children, 1919. Eglantyne Jebb and her sister Dorothy Buxton decided that direct
action was needed as well as campaigning. The Save the Children Fund was set up at a public
meeting in London's Royal Albert Hall in May 1919
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Second World War –1942. Oxford Committee for Famine Relief set up
In the middle of World War II the Committee initially lobbies the government for the relaxation of
the Allied blockade of occupied Europe, and to ensure the supply of vital relief to civilians,
especially in Belgium and Greece.
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Cold War effect – dampened down state involvement in humanitarian crises because of
political/strategic considerations
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Post cold war scenario - power blocs replaced by a less polarised system and varying forms of
warfare and the development of humanitarian intervention by states.
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Huge rise in capacity to act – development of NGO sector, effects of instant mass media and
celebrity humanitarianism
Scope of Humanitarianism
• Increasing size, scope and multi-agency approach to disasters: In Bosnia,
eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, and northern Iraq aid logistics
operations reached new heights.
• The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees described its
humanitarian operations in Bosnia as unprecedented in "scale, scope and
complexity." They included the Sarajevo airlift, the longest running
humanitarian airlift ever-surpassing even the 1948-49 airlift in Berlin –
deliver aid to Sarajevo while it was under siege from Serb forces.
• impressive new logistical feats as well as new security models. The idea of
safe havens was born, where protection and assistance are provided
within a war-affected country, usually with the involvement of UN
peacekeeping or ceasefire monitoring forces.
• Mixing military and aid efforts – even under UN auspices – led to a
questioning in the 1990s of the concepts of humanitarian aid. Questions
were asked about whether aid prolonged conflicts, became tied up in
widespread corruption in conflict or disaster areas and helped support
oppressive or exploitative regimes.
Which crises matter?
• Do some emergencies matter more?
• How do they differ? Is the significance in the location of the
suffering or the ability to empathise with people from similar
cultures?
• ‘Are famines natural disasters or do they always result from human
action (or inaction)? Does this affect responses?
• Hurricane Katrina in USA vs Cyclone Nargis in Burma/ tsunami in
Pacific v DRC crisis/ intervention in Somalia 1993 but not in Rwanda
Media coverage affects reaction and
donations
Huge disparity in allocation $10 per victim in Congo
wars and $1000 per victim in Tsunami – due to
media
Some crises are invisible and others are given major
media coverage – Chinese famine/ Congo war –
Kosovo
African poverty – ‘tsunami every day’ in terms of
deaths but not a media story – no SUDDEN
emergency
Tsunami death toll
Dead/Missing
Number of Stories
19.12.04 – 16.01.05
Indonesia
167,000
343
Sri Lanka
35,000
729
Thailand
8,200
771
Source: UN Office of the Special Envoy for Tsunami Recovery Source: Analysis of Lexis Nexis Stories
• In Complex Emergencies, David Keen (p.1) says he omitted
humanitarian from the title of his book because it “ carries
certain dangers. One is the implication that the solution lies
with humanitarian relief (rather than with tackling
underlying human rights abuses, for example). Another is
that the word may prejudge the motives of interveners as
altruistic (when they may be much more complicated).”
• This is a key aspect of humanitarianism. There was a period
when humanitarianism was viewed as based solely on
compassion and altruism. If it was ever possible to do that,
it is not now. Even NGOs have vested interests; the media
has its frames and operating practices; and governments
have a variety of motives, many of them far from altruistic.
Changing media frames
• Since the Cold War, new frames have been developed
because:
• The world has , in the view of neo-liberals and Western
securocrats, become more chaotic and threatening as a
result of what they see as:
• new forms of conflict
• upsurge in ‘ethnic/tribal’ antagonisms
• ‘rogue states’
• terrorism aimed against West
• Rise of Islam
• The Cold War is seen to have contained these dangers –
though, of course, it didn’t – Afrghanistan, Angola, IRA,
ETA, Corsican separatism, Cyprus, Biafra, Bangladesh (being
just a few examples).
Growth of ethnic/tribal label that
deters intervention
• Greater volume of news output = tighter deadlines, less
time to research and prepare stories
• Fewer journalists, fewer experts, less specialisation
• In Jean Seaton’s words,
• “they know less, they cost less, but they produce news that
is disseminated more powerfully than ever”
• Ethnic/tribal explanations are a simplistic form of framing
and representation that exclude many factors and may
distort understanding. Socio-economic and political factors
tend to be kept out of the frame and cultural, religious and
ethnic ones included.
Media effects - Vietnam
Huge
coverage of Vietnam war and gradual move into reporting
humanitarian aspects of war began to change the approach of
media coverage of humanitarian issues, conflict and war’s
consequences. The great William Shirer had done this at end of
WWII when he reported the scenes of horror at liberated Nazi
concentration camps, Russell had done it during the Crimean
War and some reporters during the Boer War. But most wars
covered as a contest with death tolls like sports results. But
Vietnam, the first TV war, really brought it home to audiences.
As the global reach of major newspapers and broadcasters
increased and technology made instant reporting possible, the
reporting of war and humanitarian crises became a more regular
part of news content.
But not all conflicts were covered and the questions began to be
asked about why some were covered and some not. Did the
media cover important events or did events become important
because they were covered?
Vietnam
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In his book, The War Within: America's Battle Over Vietnam, Tom Wells gives a
dramatic account of the Tonkin Gulf incidents. He says that American media
"described the air strikes that Johnson launched in response as merely `tit for tat'
— when in reality they reflected plans the administration had already drawn up for
gradually increasing its overt military pressure against the North.“
Why was news reporting so wrong? Wells blames the media's "almost exclusive
reliance on U.S. government officials as sources of information" — as well as
"reluctance to question official pronouncements on 'national security issues.'“
Daniel Hallin's classic book The "Uncensored War" observes that journalists had "a
great deal of information available which contradicted the official account [of
Tonkin Gulf events]; it simply wasn't used. The day before the first incident, Hanoi
had protested the attacks on its territory by Laotian aircraft and South Vietnamese
gunboats.“ What's more, "It was generally known...that `covert' operations against
North Vietnam, carried out by South Vietnamese forces with U.S. support and
direction, had been going on for some time."
In the absence of independent journalism, the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution — the
closest thing there ever was to a declaration of war against North Vietnam —
sailed through Congress on Aug. 7The resolution authorized the president "to take
all necessary measures to repel any armed attack against the forces of the United
States and to prevent further aggression.“
This style of reporting – accepting government accounts and being swayed by calls
for patriotism or reluctance to question on issues of “national security” then
dominated US reporting for several years until doubts among politicians and the
military gave journalists the chance to be more courageous
Henry Rhodes (full piece on Mooddle)
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American academic’s view of the press and Vietnam as a
consumer:
I decided to develop a unit on the Vietnam War era because I am a
product of this era. When I think back to my grammar school days
during the 1960’s, I can’t help but remember the first time I heard
about Vietnam. Mr. Creto, my 7th grade teacher, made reference to the
fact that the boys in our class had better ready themselves to serve in
Vietnam… If things were as serious as Mr. Creto said they were,
everyone would have been talking about Vietnam and it would have
been plastered all over the papers, which was not the case at the time.
When I got to high school I started to notice articles in the local paper
concerning the Vietnam War. The articles portrayed the U. S. (the good
guys) fighting to stop communism (the bad guys) in Vietnam. I never
once questioned the writer’s objectivity or whether or not the facts that
were reported were accurate. My perception, values, and attitudes
about the Vietnam War were being based on what I read in the local
paper and saw on television.As the war came to an end and the truth
about Vietnam started to emerge, the anger and mistrust I felt towards
the American government was unbelievable. I felt as though I had been
betrayed by the American press, whose integrity and objectivity I had
thought was beyond reproach.
CNN effect – latest media effect
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Blair Doctrine on humanitarian intervention ‘prodded by CNN to act’ according to
Blair and other politicians
Boutros Ghali UN Sec general : ‘CNN is 16th member of the Security council’
Modern origins in Gulf War – real time coverage 1990/1 ‘Live from Bagdad’
But how new is the idea of media coverage prompting action? Is the CNN effect
the same as effects say of Times reporting of Crimean War, British newspaper
reporting of Boer War and US reporting in Vietnan War?
While there are some similarities the key aspect of the CNN effect is speed,
constant, repetitive reporting, concerted agenda setting and the effects on
government no longer bound by the restrictions on action produced by the Cold
War.
There were media effects in pre-24 hour news period but not the same, that is
why it is questionable talking of a CNN effect in Vietnam and why it requires
particular examination as a concept applicable from late 1980s and particularly
from the end of the Cold War
Livingston on CNN
Media as Accelerant
Accelerant Media shortens decision-making response time.Television
diplomacy evident. During time of war, live, global television
offer potential security-intelligence risks. But media may also
be a force multiplier, method of sending signals. Evident in
most foreign policy issues to receive media attention.
Impediment Two types: 1. Emotional, grisly coverage may undermine
morale. Government attempts to sanitize war (emphasis on
video game war), limit access to the battlefield.
2. Global, real-time media constitute a threat to operational
security.
Agenda Setting Emotional, compelling coverage of atrocities or humanitarian
crises reorder foreign policy priorities. Somalia, Bosnia and
Haiti said to be examples.
• Research Paper CLARIFYING THE CNN EFFECT: An Examination of Media Effects
According to Type of Military Intervention by Steven Livingston
• June 1997
• The Joan Shorenstein Center - shorensteincenter.org/wpcontent/uploads/2012/03/r18_livingston.pdf
Robinson on CNN
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Robinson gives a v good table on p 118 setting out 6 crises – describing the media framing (whether critical,
empathetic, mixed, supportive or creating distance), level of policy uncertainty and then his decision about the
relationship between media and state and so the strength or absence of the CNN effect.
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In Somalia, media coverage, he believes, came after the decision to intervene by Bush; it created a manufacturing
consent effect plus an enabling effect – so CNN effect was weak. Empathetic news coverage has an enabling effect
for government policy.
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Lack of coverage or coverage that shows complexity or confusion has a distancing effect.
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Where there is policy certainty and elite unity media will often follow that line and become a form of
manufacturing of consent.
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Where CNN effect works is where there is policy uncertainty but a critical media coverage with empathy for
victims as in the February 1994 market place massacre in Sarajevo which was widely reported with film of the
aftermath and within four days there was an ultimatum to Serbs and threatened air strikes. Similar effect in July
1995 to defend the Gorazde safe area
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In Kosovo in 19998-99, there was policy certainty in the US that they did not want to commit ground troops but
would use air power – air war started on 24th March 1999, which lasted until June 1999, when a peace deal was
signed and NATO troops were put in to monitor peace. Elite criticism of the air strikes had fractured total unity
but there was no overwhelming desire among all the critics of the air strikes to become part of a ground war,
though former chairman of Joint Chiefs of Staff Colin Powell believed that air strikes weren’t sufficient. Senator
John McCain tried to force a ground intervention but elite criticism was not strong enough and post-Somalia the
body bag effect among the public was prevalent enough for critical media coverage of Kosovo and the air strikes to
be insufficient to prompt a change in policy – at best media coverage enabled the air strikes.
When does CNN effect come into
play?
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Most likely to happen where there is weak policy, lack of elite consensus or a need
to reassess policy in the light of events
Often, media reporting on major crises that appears to prompt interventions or
other forms of action is really “manufactured consent” (Herman and Chomsky) or
empathetic reporting that runs parallel with policy changes but neither prompts it
nor is directly prompted by government.
Post cold war notion – speed of media coverage and ad hoc policy rather than
programmed Cold War reaction to events. Can give the impression of more
reactive and responding to media.
Lawrence Eagelburger (acting US Sec of and a chief adviser on Yugoslavia) and US
Ambassador to Yugoslavia in early 1990s, Warren Zimmermann, said that media
coverage of Yugoslavia had little effect on Bush’s policies.
Eagelburger: “We had largely made a decision we were not going to get militarily
involved. And nothing, including those stories [Serb concentration camps and
atrocities against Croats and Bosnians], pushed us into it. It made us damned
uncomfortable. But this was a policy that wasn’t going to get changed no matter
what the press said.”
Famines –often hidden
• Irish Famine – hunger started by potato blight but plenty of
food for English and they refused to reduce corn tariffs to
provide enough food for the poor.
• USSR - Famine under Stalin collectivisation – peasants killed
livestock and refused to plant crops as Stalin used force to
collectivize farms.
• Bengal Famine 1943 – food shortages worsened by war and
neglect by British authorities.
• Chinese Famine - Mao’s collectivization and forced food
requisitioning to support industrialization. Belief in own
propaganda and unwillingness to accept and then act on
signs that harvest was poor. 15-30 million died, some critics
of the government say 40million.
Sen and famine – role of media
• Decline in entitlement to food
• Problem is food availability/distribution not production (see Bangladesh
famine of 1974 when available food went to army, civil service and urban
groups and not starving in rural areas)
• Different from malnutrition
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No famines happen in countries where there is a free press and democracy.
Why is this?
China vs India post 1949
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Sen has critics who say he ignores problem of famine threshold and so discounts Bihar
famine and tends to ignore famine and war link
Ethiopia 84-85 – key point in humanitarian reporting and NGO
development
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Buerk report hardly full of context or overall accuracy but huge impact. BBC had asked
Oxfam to find them some starving Africans to beat ITN to the story.
Basic figures and iossues
80,000-100,000 (figures from De Waal) died during resettlement campaign which he
believes matches the numbers saved by aid. Over 600,000 resettled by coercion or food
denial and left destitute in regions to which they were resettled without promised
water supplies, homes, power or agricultural support.
Aid used as a lure to get villagers in Tigre to go to feeding camps from where they were
forcibly resettled or denied food.
Resettlement was about the war not ending famine.
am to find them some starving Africans so they could beat ITN to story.
Politics and war downplayed.
Aid groups said famine due to drought, environmental decline and overpopulation in
arid areas.
But drought effects were magnified by army and militia raids in war areas and food
denial to those rural areas.
Theft of food aid/aid money by army and militias and rebels
(Keen, Complex Emergencies pp 103-4).
Rwanda
• The BBC World Service apart – and even then its coverage was
patchy – almost ignored the opening months of the genocide.
Although in May it was beginning to be covered, it was only the
“wrong” part of the story, the Goma exodus of Hutus fearing
retribution or driven out by the genocidaires, that sparked major
coverage and then led belatedly to coverage of the genocide.
• As Moeller writes in Compassion Fatigue (p 223) – “during the first
weeks of the killing spree, when upward of 200,000 were killed, it
did not command the same prominence or number of column
inches or time on the news as the elections in South Africa that
brought Nelson Mandela to the presidency or as the Serbian siege
of the “safe haven” of Gorazde that demonstrated the farce of the
U.N. presence in Bosnia”.
• Role of hate media – encouraged killing.
Glenda Cooper on NGOs and media
• Lines blurring between NGOs and journalists
• If aid agencies act as reporters they must
consider whether they are acting as journalists
or as advocates.
• While journalists — if sometimes imperfectly
— work on the principle of impartiality, the
aid agency is usually there to get a message
across: to raise money, to raise awareness, to
change a situation.
Band Aid v West African ebola song
White saviours narrative
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http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2014/11/nigeria-ebola-myth-white-saviours201411654947478.html
Robtel Pailey – Liberian academic and activist
In a 2012 article published by The Atlantic, Nigerian writer Teju Cole exposed the white saviour
industrial complex for what it is: a pathology of white privilege.
According to Cole, white saviours fundamentally believe they are indispensable to the very
existence of those on the receiving end of their "interventions". Like some potted plants, they tend
to bloom in "exotic" environments far removed from their natural habitats.
At the height of Ebola, the myth of the white saviour has resurfaced again and again, framing
Africans as infantile objects of external interventions. The white saviour complex has placed a
premium on foreign expertise, while negating domestic capabilities.
We've been assailed with images of mostly white foreigners flown out of the Ebola "hot zone" with
the promise of expert care abroad. As spokespersons for the thousands "left behind", they have
been catapulted into the heady limelight of overnight stardom.
We've been bombarded with a cacophony of non-African "expert" opinions about how to "save"
Liberia, Guinea, and Sierra Leone from Ebola. Yet, Ugandan and Congolese specialists, who
contained the virus repeatedly in their own countries, have been sidelined in the mainstream
international press.
Deliberately silenced
Indian writer and human rights activist Arundathi Roy once said, "there is no such thing as the
voiceless, only the deliberately silenced or the preferably unheard". Indeed, narratives
about African ingenuity, African agency, and African heroism in the age of Ebola have been
preferably unheard. As an African proverb aptly puts it: "Until the lion learns to write, tales of the
hunt shall always glorify the hunter“…
New media, Social media and UGC
• Tsunami: For the first 24 hours the best and
the only photos and video came from tourists
armed with 1.3-megapixel portable
telephones, digital cameras and camcorders.
And if you didn't have those pictures, you
weren't on the story
• Tom Glocer, head of Reuters
Morozov – Net Delusion and new
media limits
• Morozov: democracy bubbles could easily lead to
carnage – “the idea that the Internet favours the
oppressed rather than the oppressor is marred by what
I call cyber-utopianism: a naïve belief in the
emancipatory nature of online communication that
rests on a stubborn refusal to acknowledge its
downside…Failing to anticipate how authoritarian
governments would respond to the Internet, cyberUtopians did not predict how useful it would prove for
propaganda purposes, how masterfully dictators would
learn to use it for surveillance, and how sophisticated
modern systems of Internet censorship would
become…
Social media and Arab Spring
• The mobilizing effect of new information and social media
networks as catalysts of broad sociopolitical protest will
vary significantly from region to region and from one
political context to another.
• Internet access must be available to significant segments of
the population. This condition will exclude a number of
underdeveloped countries with minimal Internet
penetration.
• Much of Middle East/S Asia, with the exception of Iran,
cannot be exposed to social media activism because of
underdevelopment and the lack of Internet access (Internet
users made up just 1.1 percent of Iraqis and 3.4 percent of
Afghans in 2010, for example, as compared to over 21
percent in Egypt, 34 percent in Tunisia, and 88 percent in
Bahrain
Libya v Syria
• Doesn't Syria matter? Actually, the problem is that it matters more than
Libya.
• The thing about Syria is that it sits in the very heart of the Middle East, at
the intersection of alliances and vested interests, ethnic and religious
groups. Like a house of cards, one reckless move could upset the stability
of the whole region – see what is now happening in Lebanon.
• Syria is not only allied with Iran and channels arms and support to militant
groups such as Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in Gaza.
• Attacking Syria risks a backlash from any or all of these forces.
• Syria's other important connection is with Russia, and Moscow is reluctant
to lose its best customer — and only remaining ally — in the Middle East.
• Little wonder that Moscow refuses to give the West a free pass to meddle
in Syria (assuming it really wants to) in the form of a Security Council
resolution.
• And who do you support – who are now the good guys? The lesson of
Loibya is that you need to know who you are supporting and why.
Images of conflict and humanitarian crisis – the Bowen row
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www.independent.co.uk/news/media/tv-radio/jeremy-bowen-we-live-in-more-violent-times-no-question-aboutit-9179966.html
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HE RECALLS HOW “ANGRY” HE FELT THAT PICTURES OF CHILDREN GASSED TO DEATH IN
DAMASCUS HAD BEEN REMOVED BY BBC EDITORS IN LONDON FROM A PACKAGE HE SENT
FROM SYRIA LAST YEAR. THE IMAGE WAS USED IN THE PRESS. “WE HAD A TELEVISION
VERSION OF THAT [IMAGE] AND I WANTED TO USE IT. WE PUT IT IN AT OUR END AND THEY
CHANGED IT AT THE OTHER END.”
BOWEN SAYS HE HAD “PLENTY OF COMPLAINTS” FROM BBC VIEWERS IN THE MIDDLE EAST
OVER THE LACK OF BODIES IN TELEVISION REPORTS ON VIOLENT CONFLICT. “I SAY WE ARE
TRYING TO SPARE THE VIEWER’S FEELINGS AND THEY SAY YOU ARE COVERING UP THE
TRUTH – THE TRUTH IS THAT KIDS ARE BEING BLOWN TO BITS.”
THE SEASONED JOURNALIST SAYS HE HAD FOUGHT A CAREER-LONG BATTLE AGAINST THE
“HOLLYWOODISATION” OF TELEVISION NEWS, IN WHICH SHOTS OF WAR PARTICIPANTS FIRING
WEAPONS ARE COMMONPLACE “BUT IT WASN’T CONSIDERED OK TO SHOW THE
CONSEQUENCES”. “YOU CAN SHOW THE EFFECT ON THE LIVING, THE SADNESS,” HE SAYS.
“BUT I THINK THERE IS A TIME AND A PLACE SOMETIMES TO SHOW DEAD BODIES, DEAD
BODIES OF KIDS.”
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BOWEN REMEMBERS COMPLAINTS FROM BBC BOSSES WHEN HE INCLUDED DISTANT IMAGES
OF DEAD BODIES IN A REPORT ON THE BANGLADESH CYCLONE OF 1991, WHEN 125,000
PEOPLE DIED. HE AND COLLEAGUES HAD “CONSTANT ROWS” WITH EDITORS OVER SHOWING
IMAGES OF CASUALTIES IN COVERAGE OF THE WAR IN BOSNIA.
BUT HE BELIEVES THE BBC’S APPROACH IS CHANGING DUE TO RISING LEVELS OF VIOLENCE
IN THE WORLD. “WE LIVE IN MORE VIOLENT TIMES THAN WHEN I STARTED WORKING, NO
QUESTION ABOUT IT.” HE POINTS TO LAST YEAR’S USE BY ITV OF GRAPHIC FOOTAGE OF THE
MURDER OF LEE RIGBY AS SYMPTOMATIC OF A “CHANGE IN THE CLIMATE” IN TELEVISION
NEWS.
Bowen article discussion -
Effects of media coverage?
• Only some stories matter – Bernard Kouchner
• Intervention by states involves many factors, not just responses to media
stories
• Coverage is a lottery – chance or a particular coincidence of stories may
affect coverage (eg: Rwanda coinciding with SA elections and Bosnia).
• Public response ‘something must be done’
• Some coverage may end up being an obstacle to further action – such as
the Kony 2012 video
• Some coverage has political effects
• Much more subtle relationship