Birds of a Feather…Gatekeeping human rights online news coverage via traditional and humanitarian news media

Date

2016-05

Journal Title

Journal ISSN

Volume Title

Publisher

Abstract

Raising awareness through news coverage has placed journalists in an important role in the human rights process (Joyce, 2013) because of their ability to document history, create evidence, inform the public, and ultimately inspire change (Plaut, 2014). Regardless, human rights related news coverage has been challenged by scholars for lacking context, not being exhaustive of all possible issues and overemphasizing a few, and presenting issues from a localized political view instead of a global one (Balabanova, 2014). Due to developments in digital media, more than traditional journalists are now informing the public on human rights and in particular because of the rise of NGO journalism (McPherson, 2015) and “news cloning” (Fenton, 2009), human rights organizations have begun to produce news content- hiring journalists and applying news values to their coverage (Fenton, 2009). Classifying these organizations as forms of humanitarian news media (HNM), this study compares how they and traditional news media (TNM) cover human rights. Moreover, it utilizes gatekeeping (Shoemaker & Vos, 2009) to understand how HNM are winnowing down many potential human rights stories into their coverage and if the social institutional and social system levels of analysis influence the outcome of content.
Firstly, a content analysis of six TNM (AP, CNN, BBC, Reuters, Xinhua Newswire, and Al Jazeera) and three HNM (Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, and the U.N.) was conducted coding for specific human rights, sources, geographic locations, audience interest (retweets, likes, and shares), and other media, governmental, and cultural forces. Secondly, ten in-depth interviews were conducted with media professionals who work for HNM to identify how these forces are considered within the content building process. Results produced a classification of HNM based on organizational structures and content. Coverage heavily focuses on civil and political rights related stories for both TNM and HNM except for Xinhua and the U.N. There is also a lack of incorporating human rights framework into all coverage. TNM are the greatest external force influencing HNM’s coverage, and moreover HNM’s expansion into producing news content has not replaced the importance they place on agenda building. Audiences respond to viral issues within a timely news cycle more than specific human rights’ issues and response does not always indicate support for human rights’ issues. Journalistic norms outweigh cultural forces, though HNM professionals recognize the importance of considering local cultures within their coverage. Further research is needed to continue to develop cultural dimensions.

Description

Keywords

Human rights, International news, Gatekeeping, NGOs, Humanitarian news media

Citation