Lecture delivered at the UGC Sponsored Course on Human Rights
What does ‘cultural studies’ refer to as human rights?
Human Rights as commonly referred
to the rights written in both national and international constitutions,
memoranda and some achieved by conventions otherwise, are those categories/structures
which an individual associates with his/her identity. So it may include any
extent of individual association with any event up to his/her satisfaction.
‘Human Rights’ beyond national or
international declarations therefore is that ‘unconscious category’ of [an]
individual[s] that comes after the immediate conscious or experience at the
time of communication. So ‘human rights’ is that mental affair or judgement which
an individual gives verdict on any act of communication in social peripheries.
‘Human rights’ therefore largely reminds those rights which are only in problem
or crisis and precisely easy to measure and understand through empirical
methodologies and can be represented through statistical figures. This
easy-to-measure approach helps authorities and NGOs to initiate proper legal action.
But the problem with Human Rights
academic approach is that the measuring of ‘events and primary experience’ are
being regularly performed empirically through lots of survey methodologies
which can only set some cases for further investigation. This would largely identify
the perpetrators under the purview of law.
But compared to the violators of
human rights there are many more victims remained undernourished and
undertreated in all respects which empirical studies can identify but cannot
represent properly. The above so called behaviourist approach of human rights
discourse cannot move beyond that keeping the rest to be performed by the state
despite being aware that it won’t do anything for some stray cases unless it
gets huge mass attention. So ‘mass attention’ becomes an imperative to validate
and arrange proper representation for any such case of violation in social
space.
So there is an inevitable gap
between the human rights violations as empirically determined facts and statistical
figurations and those affected identities that suffer huge pain and loss
through a profoundly ‘unconscious route’ which people or any institutions are
largely unaware of. On this construction ‘human rights’ is such a process that
behind our backs, produces and structurates our consciousness in such ways we
are not really aware of. Human rights then are those rights which are enlisted
in all declarations of statements to be violated by the perpetrators but do not
in real terms include my autonomy to make a judgement on it.
The common route to handle or
describe ‘human rights’ is the cases and experiences so far been acknowledged either
by the state, human rights organizations and NGOs. Now to analyze further those
acknowledged cases of violations of human rights which has already been taken
care of by the judiciary means to make a critique largely on whether the agents
democracy have performed their duties or not.
So even after exploring the
factual incidents and a mapping of human rights violations in different nations
and also internationally, the empirically driven information and judgements on
that, the whole human rights studies or academic approach becomes largely
insufficient to catch up the real foundation or the reasoning of that in terms
of heavy loss of individuality.
The ‘idea’ behind this approach
is not to invoke any unnecessary commentary against the performances of the agents
but to establish the insufficiency of empirical approaches that would hardly say
the ‘sociology’ of the ruled and victims. The state and NGOs and their people must
take some initiatives to discover that unconscious route of pain and loss of
human rights of an individual even if it appears difficult to implement. It
would then form a new politics and a new dream of movement that may locate the
broader area of human rights violations and the notion of at least what our
human rights are, under whatever professions and identities we work and live.
Anyone therefore may learn how to
acknowledge the human rights violating acts, and international guidelines of
what human rights are but he/she has also to learn the ideology of human rights
which human being lives life within. For that, some traditional processes and
views must be reshaped and revised so that a real alternative human rights
movement can be started not just to launch protest against the perpetrators but
to discover and address the unconscious route of human sufferings and loss
which statistical figures and other forms of empirical information do not really
represent.
Media and Human Rights:
Now when we attach or install
media in human rights academics it would give you a further mode of
representation of your society that originally represents the same arguments
and empirical impositions of aspects of human rights violations and also to
investigate whether agents of democracy have performed their duties properly.
So installation of media in human
rights approach would therefore appear to be just a mode of representing not
the society only but they have also to establish some amount of integrity to
the ruling establishments for their own sustenance.
Media are supposed to perform
certain degree of representation in general:
(a) To
investigate the acts of human rights violations;
(b) To
investigate whether agents of democracy have performed their duties;
(c) To
represent the victims objectively as per information or representing voice available;
(d) To
represent both agents and institutions to prepare opinion of the civil society;
if so, public opinion;
(e) To
cover in favour of or opposition to the establishment;
(f) To
safeguard the culture industry, in terms of the ruling entertainment market, as
much as possible; because for majority of cases people and civil society
members often hold entertainment boom as responsible for human rights
violations on the other side of traditional problems like illiteracy,
ethno-religious superstitions, economic underdevelopment etc. etc.
(g) Finally,
to establish the claim of representing the unknown and undifferentiated mass;
But apart from the above
mandatory representations media are also supposed to be critical to the social inequalities
among masses in general. So despite keeping the side of advertisers and culture
industry media have enough space to criticize any violation of ‘human rights’ in
terms of news, soap operas, reality shows, talk shows, and news magazines such
as ‘Satyameva Jayate’.
Media and its behaviourist approaches:
Media in the contemporary phase
of international political alignment under US-led version of democracy and
growth of human rights concepts largely promote US behaviourist approaches. These
mass media approaches basically promote a common axiomatic condition, i.e.
people’s consent. People both in individual and mass forms are considered to be
assertive and proactive to everything that media promote, propagate, initiate,
formulate, show, and represent.
Media therefore perform certain
functions:
(a) Priming;
(b) Framing;
(c) Agenda
Setting;
(d) Gatekeeping;
And in every step of media
operation media houses generate enough space to cover certain amount of human
right awareness reports in terms of its violation and also certain initiatives
or human rights movements. But before this empirical information let us know a
bit detail of the above mediation activities. While performing these functions
media treat individual people firstly
as audience; then mass audience and nothing more than that. So media can create
a powerful opinion representing certain empirical data of human rights
violations and clips of some moves but can never be a ‘partner’ of the suffering
till that ends. Instead media would prefer to be partner of any programme
representing culture industry.
Growth of Human Rights and Journalism:
In this all pervasive
behaviourist approach of media operation and analysis journalism profession almost
becomes a complementary category of the authorities across disciplines. The
statement does not entail any quantitative survey to establish that there is no
sign of independent journalism anywhere in the world. But it is also a fact
that journalism particularly covering human rights violation issues faces a
massive political and authoritarian challenge across national boundaries. The
so called independence of the profession becomes a less debated topic nowadays—
very few are interested to initiate a startling debate on it, as it intrudes
unknowingly interests of immediate authorities.
The very first paragraph of
report on ‘Journalism Media and Challenge of Human Rights Reporting’ reveals interestingly
the base of human rights reporting. ‘International Council of Human Rights’
grounds certain questions:
How well
do the media report human rights issues? How should journalists and editors
themselves
judge the quality of their reporting in this area? What pressures and
constraints do
they face and how might
they be managed better?
The basic three questions focus ideological
queries on media operation which, I consider, give us any suitable answer. The
perspective on which these queries are being put forward is also very
interesting:
Human rights have become
increasingly prominent in recent years. Governments and political
leaders refer to
international human rights standards more frequently, both in formal
definitions
of policy and in public
speeches. Public awareness has similarly evolved. Human rights are
understood to be near the
heart of many international news issues, from Afghanistan to
Palestine, Colombia to
Sierra Leone — and increasingly linked to
discussions of international
debt and trade, education
and health. Coverage of human rights in the media is therefore likely to continue to grow — and it is appropriate
increasingly to expect journalists and broadcasters to
report them accurately.
Courtesy: © 2002, International Council on Human Rights Policy
You can add some more countries in
the list as we are all aware of basic political reason why or the politics
behind the listing. Now we are supposed to re-explore human rights in those
regions on the debris on human rights where human beings are denied of getting
basic needs of life almost a decade ago. Palestine
people are still denied of getting food and shelter, and we are talking about
sending relief there and not initiate a movement against the US-Israel pact
that causes such a blockade for years.
The relief is the conscious route
of political development; but the movement against the reason is the
unconscious route of politics where sufferings and loss ask for the real
foundation of relief. You can measure empirically how many relief operations
are being held there or any other areas but it is really difficult to measure
the suffering and the real cause of it. Journalism seldom does this operation. If
it does we all remember those reports, like Watergate scandal, Tehelka, Wikileaks,
Bofors Scam etc. Some other revelations like 2G scam, Coal mine scam are also
to be remembered.
Media however operating in
different regions often disclose many issues that cause serious harm to the human
rights like infant foeticide, child marriage. These revelations get hardly any
mass appeal unless any popular category like Amir Khan renders his presence for
these.
Findings of the Report:
(i)
Media, since 1990s, make reference to human
rights in their coverage more often and more systematically;
(ii)
Many human rights issues are underreported by
the media; although journalists have expanded coverage of human rights issues;
(iii)
Media do not explain and contextualize human
rights information as well as they might; In general, data on human rights
violations and on human rights standards are not lacking. However, the impact
of this information on the public is not as great as might be expected. The
media miss human rights stories because they do not pay attention to the
specific legal and policy implications they have. Often, they do not have
adequate knowledge of human rights and its relevance to the material they are
covering. The media frequently also miss the context of human rights stories.
These shortcomings diminish the professional quality of reporting, and hamper
the communication of information that is sometimes essential for understanding.
(iv)
News is all-pervasive. The news output of the
dominant providers is standardised. There is little difference in content
between the information given by different providers. In practice, the large
media corporations do not question one another’s journalistic values or
priorities — even though they are in fierce competition for audience.
Newsgathering operations have reduced serious analysis. Programmers adapt
programme content to appeal to the largest audiences.
(v)
Human rights issues become ‘human interest
stories’,forced to adhere to certain emotional clichés. Since the content of
news programmes is very similar, competition between providers leads them to
focus on presentation more than content.
The Editorial Process:
(i)
Reporting is essentially reactive. The breaking
news culture undermines editorial and ethical reflection, which is crucial to
human rights reporting.
(ii)
The selection of news is event-driven.the
news-driven information culture focuses on political and military events rather
than social and economic processes, and as a result ignores or under-reports
many human rights issues.
(iii)
The media determine what is newsworthy where
press freedom exists.
(iv)
The editorial environment is information-loaded.
Human rights news competes for the attention of journalists and editors with
vast amounts of other information.
(v)
The relationship between reporter and editor is
crucial. Reporters and editors are both involved in deciding what stories are
identified and selected, and how they are covered.
Conclusion:
The conclusion of this lecture is
thus again to explore the unconscious route to reach the core of the real
foundation of human rights reporting so that real public awareness accompanied
by a real movement can rule the order of the day.
