Routledge Companion to Media and Humanitarian Action

In this moment of unprecedented humanitarian crises, the representations of global disasters are increasingly common media themes around the world. The Routledge Companion to Media and Humanitarian Action explores the interconnections between media, old and new, and the humanitarian challenges that have come to define the twenty-first century. Contributors, including media professionals and experts in humanitarian affairs, grapple with what kinds of media language, discourse, terms, and campaigns can offer enough context and background knowledge to nurture informed global citizens. Case studies of media practices, content analysis and evaluation of media coverage, and representations of humanitarian emergencies and affairs offer further insight into the ways in which strategic communications are designed and implemented in field of humanitarian action.

Preface by Sir Peter Sutherland, UN Special Representative of the Secretary-General on International Migration and DevelopmentIntroductionThe Power of Media in Times of Humanitarian Crisis: Global Challenges, Constraints and Consequences - Robin Andersen and Purnaka L. de Silva Section 1: Theories and Practice of Media and Their Impact on Humanitarian Action1) Media, Politics, Compassion and Citizenship in the Post-Humanitarian Debate: Visual Storytelling and the Humanitarian Imaginary - Robin Andersen 2) Communicating for Impact, The Voice of the Victims: The Role of Media Design in Humanitarian and Human Rights Organizations- Tamara Alrifai 3) The Aljazeera Effect: News Media Coverage of Global Humanitarian Emergencies - Yehia Ghanem 4) Dignity in Times of Crises: Communicating the Need for Global Social Climate Change - Evelin Gerda Lindner and Linda Hartling 5) When Media is Used to Incite Violence: The United Nations, Genocide and Atrocity Crimes - Adama Dieng and Simona CrucianiSection 2: Documentary, News, Human Traffickers and the Rescue Narratives of Global Migrations: Humanitarianism and Human Rights in an Age of Crisis6) Frontline Doctors: Winter Migrant Crisis, BBC 1 - Alexander Van Tulleken 7) A Humanitarian Battlefield: Redefining Border Control as Saving Victims - Pierluigi Musarò 8) From Pity to Control: Regulated Humanitarianism in German Media Coverage of Refugees and Asylum - Elke Grittman 9) Regional Implications of Human Trafficking and Forced Migration: Looking for Solutions in Libya - Purnaka L. de Silva10) The Drowning of SPHERE in the Mediterranean: What Has Happened to Humanitarian Standards in Fortress Europe?- Pamela DeLargy <

Robin Andersen is Professor of Communication and Media Studies at Fordham University in New York. She is the author of four books, dozens of book chapters, journal articles and writes media criticism for a variety of publications. Her book A Century of Media: A Century of War won the 2007 Alpha Sigma Nu Book Award, the honor society of Jesuit colleges and universities. She helped develop the curriculum for Fordham University’s MA Program on Humanitarian Action. Purnaka L. de Silva is Director at the Institute for Strategic Studies and Democracy Malta. He was previously Senior Advisor at the United Nations Global Compact in the Executive Office of Secretary General Kofi Annan and served as a Lecturer in the School of Politics and the Centre for the Study of Ethnic Conflict at The Queen’s University of Belfast in Northern Ireland. He has over thirty years of experience in conflict and peace studies with special focus on political violence, paramilitaries, counter-terrorism and transnational security, as well as the role of diplomacy and the United Nations system.