Redrawing boundaries: WITNESS and the politics of citizen videos

Farrell, Nathan; Allan, Stuart

doi:10.1177/1742766515606291

Cited by 6 publications

(9 citation statements)

References 26 publications

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“…Lastly, the deliberate professionalization of the media depiction of suffering through NGOs and organizations such as "Witness," which "trains and supports people using video in their fight for human rights" (https://witness.org), can lead to forms of "strategic witnessing" (Ristovska, 2016). While these images and stories-designed to meet the technical and narrative requirements of mainstream mediacan offer alternative narratives and viewpoints that are usually unavailable through professional journalism (Farrell & Allan, 2015), they can risk appearing manipulative to ordinary viewers, leaving them feeling exploited rather than moved to empathy. Particularly in conflict situations, media display of the outgroup's suffering can be interpreted by their adversaries as part of a propaganda struggle for sympathy.…”

Section: Moral Concern and The Mediated Suffering Of Othersmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…There is thus a need for serious reconsideration of the purported link between exposure to others' suffering through dialogue and mediated encounters and the elicitation of empathy and moral concern. This focus is justified not only because previous research shows that moral factors play important roles in dialogue and intergroup conflict, but also because new user-driven digital communication practices and "citizen witnessing" (Farrell & Allan, 2015)-such as amateur video footage of violent clashes distributed through social media (And en-Papadopoulos, 2014)-alter popular exposure to narratives and images that invite moral response to conflicts.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Imagine All the People: Negotiating and Mediating Moral Concern through Intergroup Encounters

Maoz

Frosh

2020

Negotiation Conflict Man Res

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Intergroup encounters can often become difficult conversations in which power relations and disagreements are perpetuated and re‐enacted through the interaction and communication between the participating groups. Thus, especially in asymmetric settings, moral inclusion and moral responsibility toward members of other groups are crucial to dialogue, conflict resolution, and reconciliation. Yet it is exactly the circumstances of asymmetry—involving threat and dehumanization—that pose barriers to the elicitation and sustaining of moral concern. Drawing on and integrating two separate research traditions—the psychology of intergroup conflict, dialogue and peace building, and communication research on “mediated suffering”—this article discusses perceptions, representations, and emotions that underlie recognition of and empathy toward the suffering of others with the aim of increasing our understanding of when and how we can be brought—through mediated and unmediated dialogues and encounters—to care about the suffering of others.

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Section: Moral Concern and The Mediated Suffering Of Othersmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Imagine All the People: Negotiating and Mediating Moral Concern through Intergroup Encounters

Maoz

Frosh

2020

Negotiation Conflict Man Res

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“…Meanwhile, grassroots international human right organizations, like WITNESS, specialize in shooting and collating video via networks of amateur in-country activists (Farrell and Allan, 2015). This includes working in partnership groups of local activists, such as the Papa Reto collective, which operates in Brazilian favelas (Shaer, 2015, cited in Powers 2016c.…”

Section: Television and Videomentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Important areas for further research here include the efforts of film-makers, NGOs and journalists to square the claims of such video texts to objective truth, whilst also coping with issues of subjectivity, including, in some cases, film-makers' explicit commitment to certain kinds of political activism (Farrell and Allan, 2015).…”

Section: Television and Videomentioning

confidence: 99%

NGOs as News Organizations

Wright¹

2019

Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Communication

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Non-governmental organizations (NGOs) are not-for-profit groups, which are independent of commercial businesses and government agencies. They claim to serve various notions of the public good, including advocacy and service delivery. So the definition of an “NGO” is broad, including many different kinds of organizations, such as aid agencies, human rights, indigenous, feminist and environmental lobby groups. Throughout the 19th and early 20th century, the predecessors of NGOs—pressure groups—tried to advance their cause by cultivating close relations with the mainstream press, and/or publishing their own periodicals. But from the late 20th century onward, many NGOs started routinely producing their own news content, including written text but also photojournalism, video, and sophisticated interactive projects. Some of this material is disseminated through “alternative” outlets, social media and activist hubs. But it is difficult for NGOs to gain a mass audience in these ways, so most major NGOs recruit or commission experienced journalists to carry out this work for them. Much of the research in this area has focused on either journalists’ increased dependence on NGOs, or on the restructuring of NGOs’ resources, priorities and working cultures in accordance with news norms. Most scholars have also focused on the work of international aid agencies and/or human rights organizations, as well as particular kinds of crises, such as famines, hurricanes and conflicts. The extant literature is heavily weighted toward organizations which are based in North America or Europe. However, a small but growing number of scholars are challenging this, exploring the news work of other NGOs and/or news outlets, in other countries, and during other kinds of news-making periods, including conferences, summits and “quiet” news weeks. These more diverse approaches to studying NGOs as news organizations have led to the theorization of NGO journalism becoming more nuanced. Researchers have shifted away from polarized, and somewhat over-generalized, assessments of the effects of NGO news-making, toward a greater awareness of complexity and heterogeneity. This has involved them using theory about organizations, institutions, fields and moral economies. However, the kinds of power which NGO workers are able to acquire by becoming news reporters is still under-theorized, and scholars still tend to avoid examining the frameworks they use as a basis for normative evaluation. Finally, changing media practices (including social media practices) and NGOs’ adoption of new communication technology (including satellite and drone imagery) means that this area of news work is still evolving very rapidly.

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“…When discussed in relation to its political dimension, new media witnessing is still generally regarded as a positive form of emancipation from the mass media construction of reality. In other words, the political potential of networked video-mediated communication is presented in relation to its strategic use by activist groups which embrace grassroots video production for documentation and counter-surveillance purposes (Farrell and Allan, 2015; Gregory, 2015). In these cases, the technology-enhanced mediability of reality is strategically employed by media activists to support collective action and expose repression (Andén-Papadopoulos, 2014; Lo, 2016).…”

Section: Online Political Engagement and The Emergence Of Real-time Dmentioning

confidence: 99%

Online distant witnessing and live-streaming activism: Emerging differences in the activation of networked publics

Martini

2018

New Media & Society

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Since its formal approval, the Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL) project raised public concern about environmental sustainability and security. Thanks to the systematic use of Internet and communication technologies (ICTs), the nonviolent resistance organized by the Sioux tribes of Standing Rock Reservation to oppose the planned construction rapidly attracted public attention. In view of their strategic use of online video-sharing for documentation and counter-surveillance purposes, this study aims at describing how diverse modes of user activity are triggered by two different forms of distant witnessing: online video and live streaming. To this aim, this study analyzes the user activity which took place on the Digital Smoke Signals Facebook page, one of the most widely followed information outlets of the NO DAPL movement. Findings suggest that online video and live streaming trigger different forms of connective activity. The highlighted differences reflect the ways in which synchronous and asynchronous forms of online audio-visual communication impact users’ everyday life.

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Redrawing boundaries: WITNESS and the politics of citizen videos

Cited by 6 publications

References 26 publications

Imagine All the People: Negotiating and Mediating Moral Concern through Intergroup Encounters

Imagine All the People: Negotiating and Mediating Moral Concern through Intergroup Encounters

NGOs as News Organizations

Online distant witnessing and live-streaming activism: Emerging differences in the activation of networked publics

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