The Routledge Companion to Media and Human Rights offers a comprehensive and contemporary survey of the key themes, approaches and debates in the field of media and human rights.
The Companion is the first collection to bring together two distinct ways of thinking about human rights and media, including scholarship that examines media as a human right alongside that which looks at media coverage of human rights issues. This international collection of 49 newly written pieces thus provides a unique overview of current research in the field, while also providing historical context to help students and scholars appreciate how such developments depart from past practices.
The volume examines the universal principals of freedom of expression, legal instruments, the right to know, media as a human right, and the role of media organisations and journalistic work. It is organised thematically in five parts:
Communication, Expression and Human Rights
Media Performance and Human Rights: Political Processes
Media Performance and Human Rights: News and Journalism
Digital Activism, Witnessing and Human Rights
Media Representation of Human Rights: Cultural, Social and Political.
Individual essays cover an array of topics, including mass-surveillance, LGBT advocacy, press law, freedom of information and children’s rights in the digital age. With contributions from both leading scholars and emerging scholars, the Companion offers an interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary approach to media and human rights allowing for international comparisons and varying perspectives.
The Routledge Companion to Media and Human Rights provides a comprehensive introduction to the current field useful for both students and researchers, and defines the agenda for future research.
1 Mapping the Field: Media and Human Rights Part 1 Communication, Expression and Human Rights 2 UNESCO’s evolving perspectives on the media and human rights 3 History of Media and Human Rights 4 Media freedom of expression at the Strasbourg Court: Current predictability of the standard of protection offered 5 Communication freedoms versus communication rights: Discursive and Normative struggles within Civil Society and Beyond 6 Freedom of Information and the Media 7 Freedom of Expression and the Chilling Effect 8 Human Rights and Press Law 9 Human rights and the digital 10 Children’s rights in the digital age 11 Media and Information Literacy (MIL): Taking the digital social turn for online freedoms and education 3.0 12 Digital Media Practices, Systems, and Rights 13 All human rights are local. The resiliency of social change. Part 2 Media Performance and Human Rights: Political Processes 14 Political determinants of media freedom 15 Beyond the binary of universalism and relativism: Iran, media and the discourse of human rights 16 Rights, reporting and mass-surveillance in a digital age 17 Civil society and political-intelligence elites: From manipulation to public accountability 18 Foreign policy, media and human rights 19 Public diplomacy, media, and human rights Part 3 Media Performance and Human Rights: News and Journalism 20 Global media ethics, human rights and flourishing 21 Investigative journalism and human rights 22 International reporting 23 Global violence against journalists: The power of impunity and emerging initiatives to evoke social change 24 Media, human rights and civic organizations 25 Rights and responsibilities when using user-generated content to report crisis events 26 Environmental Activism, Journalism and the ‘New War’ Part 4 Digital Activism, Witnessing and Human Rights 27 Social media and human rights advocacy 28 All the world’s a stage: The rise of transnational celebrity advocacy for human rights 29 Social media reinvigorates disability rights activism globally 30 Media and LGBT advocacy: Visibility and transnationalism in a digital age 31 Live-witnessing, slacktivism, and surveillance: Understanding the opportunities, challenges, and risks of human rights activism in a digital era 32 Human rights and the media/protest assemblage 33 Imaging human rights: On the ethical and political implications of picturing pain 34 Citizen Witnessing of Human Rights Abuses 35 Video and witnessing at the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia 36 Media, human rights and digital affordances Part 5 Media Representation of Human Rights: Cultural, Social, and Political 37 Media, culture, and human rights: Towards an intercultural communication and Human Rights Journalism nexus 38 Media and women’s human rights 39 News Coverage of female genital cutting: A seven country comparative study 40 Media, human rights and religion 41 The Role of News Media in Fostering Children’s Democratic Citizenship 42 News language and human rights: audiences and outsiders 43 Media, Human Rights and Political Discourse 44 Media, Human Rights and Refugees 45 Labor journalism, human rights and social change 46 Media, Public Safety, and Human Rights 47 Prisoners, Human Rights and the Media 48 Changes in War-Making, Media and Human Rights: Revolution or Repackaging? 49 Media, Terrorism, and Freedom of Expression
Howard Tumber is Professor of Journalism and Communication at City, University of London, UK. He is the founder and Co-Editor-in-Chief of Journalism: Theory, Practice and Criticism. He has published widely in the field of the sociology of news and journalism. Silvio Waisbord is Professor in the School of Media and Public Affairs at George Washington University, USA. He is the Editor-in-Chief of The Journal of Communication, and he has published widely about news, politics, and social change.
