Lisa Brooten

Human rights discourse and the development of democracy in a multi-ethnic state

This study examines the effects of the global discourse of democracy and human rights, and specifically the western emphasis on individual civil and political rights, on the multi-ethnic movement in opposition to the military regime in Burma (Myanmar). The impact of rights discourse on refugees and ethnic minorities from Burma is detailed within the context of changes in international refugee policy and the development of Burmese opposition media. The study demonstrates how narrow interpretations of human rights can act to reinforce stereotypes that create or reify inequalities among the various groups in a multi-party coalition or multi-ethnic state, and calls on political communication researchers and practitioners to attend to the varying and highly contextualized effects of such discourses on marginalized peoples whose perspectives are not normally represented in media.

Political Violence and Journalism in a Multiethnic State A Case Study of Burma (Myanmar)

Debates about the role of media in situations of political violence call into question whether journalists should focus on “objective” reporting or instead facilitate conflict resolution. Yet an increasingly problematic assumption is that journalists are outsiders to the communities in conflict, especially as aid agencies increase their funding for media development and journalism training in conflicted areas. By focusing on the situation facing journalists from Burma (Myanmar) living in exile in Thailand, this article explores the consequences of political violence on the development of indigenous journalism in a multiethnic state. Although influenced by the recent surge in foreign funding, these journalists struggle to develop a context-specific model for their work, calling into question the relevance of the dominant U.S. approach to “objectivity.” The contested nature of concepts such as unity, independence, and censorship in these often high-risk areas suggests the need for a more complex model of media development in contexts of political violence.

Blind Spots in Human Rights Coverage: Framing Violence Against the Rohingya in Myanmar/Burma

Thousands of stateless Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar (also called Burma) face a humanitarian crisis since communal violence began in June 2012, displacing more than 180,000 and leading to more than 280 deaths. Yet the recent political and media opening in Myanmar has provoked celebratory headlines as eager foreigners rush in with investment ideas. These changes distract from atrocities in rural areas, as media serve as the entry point to such crises for most outsiders. This study analyzes a series of 2013 Reuters investigative reports on the Rohingya that won the 2014 Pulitzer Prize, and then a series of blog posts that further the story appearing in English language transnational media. Drawing theoretically from critical human rights scholarship, this analysis provides insight not only into how human rights discourse is employed and for what potential purposes but also into the hierarchies and tensions inherent in the processes of global journalism.

Traumatized victims and mutilated bodies: Human rights and the ‘politics of immediation’ in the Rohingya crisis of Burma/Myanmar

In June of 2012, global media attention turned to the deadly violence erupting in Western Burma/Myanmar between the Rakhine Buddhists and the stateless Muslim Rohingya, widely identified as one of the worlds most persecuted minorities. This study employs critical human rights theory and literature on the use of emotion in media to analyze the constructions of the Rohingya situation in The New York Times (NYT), Inter Press Service (IPS). and the largest and most active Rohingya Facebook site, the Rohingya Community page. The Facebook page engages in an obvious politics of immediation, in which social actors mobilize extreme, violent victim images to provoke global political activism. Surprisingly, the NYT employs a similarly straightforward delineation of the savage–victim–savior framework while the IPS coverage is far more complex. This suggests the utility of a concept we have called the corporate politics of immediation and raises important questions about mainstream conflict reporting.

THE “PINT‐SIZED TERRORISTS” OF GOD'S ARMY

This study explores US media coverage of the child soldiers of Burma (or Myanmar) in order to better understand how such coverage functions ideologically. The study examines coverage during the past 20 years in five top U.S. print news sources: The New York Times, Washington Post, Time, Newsweek, and US News & World Report. The coverage is dominated by representations of two prepubescent twin boy soldiers, Luther and Johnny Htoo, who became famous as the child leaders of Gods Army, a splinter group of ethnic Karen minority rebels. A close textual analysis reveals a heavy Orientalist framing combined with a lack of context, such as the situation facing the Karen and US investment in Burma, functioning to divert attention from the predicament of the Karen and maintain an image of US superiority. The analysis also reveals how a 2002 report by Human Rights Watch successfully intervened to challenge earlier representations.

Producing the News: Reporting on Myanmar’s Rohingya Crisis

ABSTRACT Since communal violence erupted in Myanmar’s Rakhine State in 2012 between Buddhist and Muslim communities, the plight of the Rohingya Muslims has received much media attention both inside and outside of the country. Rarely, however, do we get critical analyses of how such reporting is constructed. Research on communal conflict and journalism tends to focus on the how-to of conflict-sensitive reporting and the dangers of employing local fixers and interpreters whose influence is seen to reduce the objectivity of news, rather than on the actual news gathering strategies used in specific conflicts. Based on personal observations of a freelance reporter in Myanmar, and interviews with journalists and “fixers” working in the country, this article analyses the news production processes in reporting on the conflict. The article maps out the various actors involved in the production of news, such as foreign and local journalists, local producers (the “fixers”) and interpreters, and the various challenges and limitations they face. These challenges function to perpetuate a familiar set of reporting routines and “us vs them” or binary narratives, with consequences for the de-escalation or perpetuation of the conflict.