Role of media and Human Rights

Writers: Maria Dolores Banda, Lucy Coronel and Sofia Guerrero

The media and its elements have turned out to be a useful and efficient tool to broadcast and emphasize human rights issues in the world. Since the 1990s, the projection of human rights issues became more public which developed as an initiative for all the media. Media resources like internet networks, television, newspapers and other online services have created an impact in the world on the basis of human rights, in order to be heard and to support these universal standards. The point of the media is to promote human rights and to give suggestions about the coverage and treatment of these standards. According to the International Federation of Journalists (IFJ), their purpose is to prevent corruption in societies and public life and to abolish illicit acts around the world, by publishing and exposing violations of rights. The actual Syrian conflict and the presence of the media is a clear example of how media works to make violations of human rights public, in order to inform the world about conflicts and to support the idea that human rights should be treated seriously.

“Awareness is key to the promotion of rights. Citizens must be able to celebrate achievements and successes. Media have a role to play in reporting good examples of tolerance, peace and respect for human rights. It is not all bad-news dominated by conflict and strife.” (IFJ)

Another example of this is the case fo Yoani Sanchez. She is a young woman who works for the Internet portal of “El País” newspaper. Yoani was a victim of human rights violation and abuse of power by the Cuban authorities. She was arrested in Bayamo, in southeastern Cuba. As she was completing her work as a correspondent, she had to cover the trial of a Spanish politician, who was judge to crash a car accident where a person died.

She was unconcerned about the punishments she had to confront. She simply described that three uniformed women took her to a room and tried to undress her. Yoani admitted that she resisted to these acts, so the Cuban authorities took custody for nearly 30 hours on charges applied by authorities and she said that one of the officers tried to talk to her, to make an argument against her. But she fought demanding her right to make a phone call.

Due to her personal experience, she was totally grateful with the media since they were present by investigating and trying to find out what were the reasons of these unlawful acts. In this case, the media became a useful tool that helped Yoani to publicize her rights and how they were violated. It is important to consider that Yoani represents one of the most important newspapers in Spain, and by using her phone to publish on twitter she had to face several consequences. This determines the intervention of the Cuban government to restrict the use of technology in society and the access to media sources like the Internet, however Yoani had access to the Internet to publicize her work on twitter. This implies that Cuba has a controlling system to regulate and control social media as it happen with Yoani. The same Cuban Communist Party controls and finances all kinds of media sources (Amnesty International).  Their system is characterized as a monopoly over any social media in society and their Constitution clearly says that: it recognizes of freedom of the press but expressly prohibits private ownership of the mass media (Article 53).

We have to say that the influence of media in human rights is really important. We can search for on Internet and we’ll be automatically connected with all the information we need. Unfortunately, there are a lot of people who don’t have an immediate and easy access to the Internet or media sources. Because of this issue, there are a lot of programs that help people to connect and get involved with human rights.

As human beings we have the right to know our basic human rights, therefore governments and States have been conscious about this and have implemented some kind of programs who can be seen by almost everyone.

One example of this is the programs that the Ecuadorian government is implementing in the national TV. For example, the “Ecohuellas” and “Ojos que no ven”, are both programs that have won a prize in Premios Iberoamericanos de TV in Spain. Now days we can watch educational programs that are helpful to understand human rights. As a fact, we think that this is really important for the future generations. Children have to know that diversity is part of our culture, and none of them should be discriminated, no matter the race. When kids and all human beings are aware of their rights, it’s easier for them to respect each other. We all have rights, and it’s really important that the government implements this kind of politics into states polices to make them public, so that no one can violated human rights.

Therefore, media has a crucial role regarding human rights. They have focused on the protection of these rights internationally in order to show their importance in different societies. The media and its components have become a useful tool to inform how human rights are being violated in the world and how people sometimes are not concern about this universal topic.