Clicca qui per scaricare

Condividi
Inserting political understanding into the humanitarian narrative
Titolo Rivista: SOCIOLOGIA DELLA COMUNICAZIONE  
Autori/Curatori: Suzanne Franks 
Anno di pubblicazione:  2013 Fascicolo: 45 Oltre le narrazioni dell’umanitario. Lingua: Italiano 
Numero pagine:  15 P. 22-36 Dimensione file:  136 KB
DOI:  10.3280/SC2013-045003
Il DOI è il codice a barre della proprietà intellettuale: per saperne di più:  clicca qui   qui 


Western media reporting of disasters in faraway countries (especially in Africa) frequently follows a template which fails to take account of political circumstances. Very often journalism relies upon familiar stereotypes - using frames such as "primitive tribal hatreds" or resorting to explanations based upon "natural disaster", when there are in fact complex underlying social and political causes to many crises and complex emergencies. This paper will analyse the way that so called "humanitarian reporting" has failed to take account of political explanations with reference to key case studies and explain why this is a matter of vital concern. It will highlight the powerful and consciously apolitical position of international aid agencies and examine the many layered and interrelated factors which contribute to the absence of political analysis in the way that distant crises are described and understood.

I reportage dei media occidentali relativi a catastrofi che colpiscono Paesi lontani (soprattutto in Africa) molte volte seguono uno schema che non prende in considerazione le circostanze politiche. Molto spesso il giornalismo si basa su stereotipi familiari - utilizzando frames come gli "odi tribali primitivi" oppure ricorrendo a spiegazioni basate su "catastrofi naturali" - quando alla base di molte crisi ci sono in realtà cause politiche e sociali complesse, così come complesse sono le stesse emergenze. Il saggio analizzerà il modo in cui il cosiddetto "reportage umanitario" ha omesso di prendere in considerazione le spiegazioni politiche con riferimento a casi studio chiave e spiegherà perché si tratta di una questione di interesse vitale. Si metterà in evidenza la posizione di potere e consapevolmente apolitica delle agenzie umanitarie internazionali e si esamineranno i diversi fattori stratificati e interconnessi che contribuiscono all’assenza di analisi politica nelle modalità in cui le crisi lontane sono descritte e interpretate.
Keywords: Umanitario, politica, catastrofe, report, crisi, narrazioni.

  1. Alagiah G. (2001), A Passage to Africa, Little Brown, London.
  2. Allen T., Seaton A. J. (1999), The Media of Conflict, Zed Books, London.
  3. Article 19 (1990), Starving in Silence, London.
  4. Barrow O., Jenkins. M. (2001), The Charitable Response, NGOs and Development in East and North East Africa, James Currey, Oxford.
  5. BBC (1995), Nigerian War Against Biafra 1967-1970, Retrieved July 22, 2013 from www.youtube.com/watch?v=J3ReFoFp0Gs.
  6. Benn H. (2004) BBC-World Service Trust/DFID conference, The Media and Development; Communication and the Millennium Development Goals, November 24, Retrieved September 20, 2011 from http://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/+/http://www.dfid.gov.uk/news/files/speeches/bennmedia24nov04.asp.
  7. Benthall J. (2010), Disasters, Relief and the Media, Sean Kingston, London.
  8. Bertschinger C. (2005), Moving Mountains, Doubleday, London.
  9. Boegli U. (1998), A Few Thoughts on the Relationship between Humanitarian Agencies and the Media, Dispatches from Disaster Zones, www.icrc.org/Web/Eng/siteeng/html/57JPJG.
  10. Boltanski L. (1999), Distant Suffering, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.
  11. Brauman R. (1988), Refugee Camps, Population Transfers and NGO, in J. Moore, Hard Choices: Moral Dilemmas in Humanitarian Intervention, Rowman and Littlefield, Lanham.
  12. Buerk M. (2004), The Road Taken, Hutchinson, London.
  13. Chouliaraki L. (2006), The spectatorship of suffering, Sage, London.
  14. Chouliaraki L. (2012), The Ironic Spectator. Solidarity in an Age of Posthumanitarianism, Polity Press, London.
  15. Clark D. (2004), The Production of a Contemporary Famine Image, «Journal of International Development», 16, pp. 693-704.
  16. Clay J. (1989), Ethiopian Famine and the Relief Agencies, in B. Nicols, A. G.
  17. Loescher, The Moral National: Humanitarianism and US Foreign Pokicy Today, University of Notre Dame Press, Notre Dame.
  18. Clay J., Holcomb B. (1986), Politics and the Ethiopian Famine, Cultural Survival, Cambridge. Cooper G. (2011), From their own Correspondent. New Media and the Changes in Disaster Coverage. Lessons to be Learnt, Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism, Oxford.
  19. Curtis A. (2009), O Dearism, Retrieved July 23, 2013 from http://archive.org/details/AdamCurtis-OhDearism.
  20. de Waal A. (1997), Famine Crimes, James Currey, Oxford.
  21. Dowden R. (2004), War Reporting in Africa, Private seminar at St Anthony’s College, Oxford, November 4, 2004.
  22. Franks S. (2013), Reporting Disaster. Famine, Aid, Politics and the Media, Hurst, London.
  23. Gault C. H. (2007), New News out of Africa, Yale University Press, London.
  24. Giorgis D. W. (1989), Red Tears War, Famine and Revolution in Ethiopia, Red Sea Press, Trenton.
  25. Harrison P., Palmer R. (1986), News out of Africa. From Biafra to Band Aid, Hilary Shipman, London.
  26. Hawk B. G. (1992), Africa’s Media Image, Prager, New York.
  27. Hawkins V. (2008), Stealth Conflicts. How the World’s Worst Violence is Ignored, Aldershot, Ashgate.
  28. Holmes J. (2013), The Politics of Humanity. The Reality of Relief Aid, Head of Zeus, London.
  29. Humanitarian Practice Network (2002) Silent Crises. Humanitarian Exchange, March.
  30. Invisible Children (2012), Kony 2012, Retrieved July 25, 2013 from http://invisiblechildren.com/kony/.
  31. Kalcsics M. (2011), A Reporting Disaster? The Interdependence of Media and Aid Agencies in a Competitive Compoassion Market, Reuters Insitute Fellowship Paper, Oxford.
  32. Lidichi H. (1993), All in the Choosing Eye: Charity, Representation and the Developing World, Open University, Unpublished PhD thesis.
  33. Luyendijk J. (2010), Hello Everybody. One Journalist’s Search for Truth in the Middle East, Profile Books, London.
  34. Morozov E. (2005), The Net Delusion. How not to Liberate the World, Penguin, London.
  35. Myers G. T. (1996), The Inscription of Difference: News Coverage of the Conflicts in Rwanda and Bosnia, «Political Geography», 15(1).
  36. Nieman (2009), NGOs and the News, www.niemanlab.org/ngo/.
  37. Pawson L. (2007), Reporting Africa’s Unknown Wars, in S. Maltby, R. Keeble, Communicating War: Memory, Media and Military, Arima, Bury St. Edmunds.
  38. Polman L. (2011), War Games: The Story of Aid and War in Modern Times, Viking, London.
  39. Rieff D. (2002), A Bed for the Night. Humanitarianism in Crisis, Vintage, London.
  40. Robinson P. (2002), The CNN Effect: The Myth of News, Foreign Policy and Intervention, Routledge, London. Save the Children (2011), Retrieved July 24, 2013 from www.youtube.com/watch?v=lTyuJEyXquU.
  41. Sen A. (1981), Poverty and Famines. An Essay on Entitlement, Oxford University Press, Oxford.
  42. Sen A. (2011), Marginal on the Map: Hidden Wars and HIdden Media. Conflict in India’s Northeastern States, the Response of the State, How it Affects People and How it is Reported in the Media. Media in Conflict and Peacebuilding, Oxford Peace Conference.
  43. Smillie I. (1995), The Alms Bazaar, ITP, London.
  44. Smillie I., Minear L. (2004), The Charity of Nations Humanitarian Action in a Calculating World, Kumarian Press, Bloomfield.
  45. Terry F. (2002), Condemned to Repeat. The Paradox of Humanitarian Action, Cornell University Press, Ithaca.
  46. van der Gaag N., Nash C. (1987), Images of Africa, The UK Report, Oxfam.
  47. Wainaina B. (2005) How to Write about Africa, «Granta», 92, Winter.

Suzanne Franks, Includere la comprensione politica nelle narrazioni dell’umanitario in "SOCIOLOGIA DELLA COMUNICAZIONE " 45/2013, pp. 22-36, DOI:10.3280/SC2013-045003

   

FrancoAngeli è membro della Publishers International Linking Association associazione indipendente e no profit per facilitare l'accesso degli studiosi ai contenuti digitali nelle pubblicazioni professionali e scientifiche