Abstract
This article argues that media rights are currently understood as being founded on freedom of expression, which makes them inherently skewed in favour of the producer – as the party doing the expressing – vis-à-vis the receiver, or object of communication. It claims that in genocidal situations this imbalance has dangerous consequences, as demonstrated by the impact of the RTLM radio station in Rwanda and Serbian state television in Bosnia and Herzegovina. The articles argues that the next step in the democratic development of media-related rights is to bind the media to standards derived from an ethics of communication, as distinct from an ethics of self-expression. It concludes that the international community must take the initiative to reach that step as it would benefit from holding media outlets accountable to an ethics of communication.
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Notes
- 1.
Herman Rosenthal and Max Rosenthal, “Kishinef (Kishinev ),” JewishEncyclopedia.com, http://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/view.jsp?artid=247&letter=K&search=kishinef (Accessed June 9, 2009).
- 2.
Edward H. Judge, Easter in Kishinev . Anatomy of a Pogrom (New York : New York University Press, 1992), 30–31.
- 3.
Ibid., 137.
- 4.
The risks of majority rule and the characterization of genocidal acts as part of a process of nation-building are discussed in Douglas Greenberg, Chapter 5 (above).
- 5.
Roger Manvell and Heinrich Fraenkel, Doctor Goebbels . His Life & Death (London: Greenhill, 2008), 85.
- 6.
Ibid, 217.
- 7.
Ibid, 184.
- 8.
A discussion of what constitutes incitement is provided in Irwin Cotler, Chapter 9, Section 9.2 (below).
- 9.
Mark Thompson, Forging War. The media in Serbia , Croatia , Bosnia and Herzegovina (Luton and London: Article 19 & the University of Luton, 1999), 89.
- 10.
Ibid, 95–96.
- 11.
Alison Des Forges , “Silencing the Voices of Hate in Rwanda ,” in Forging Peace. Intervention, Human Rights and the Management of Media Space, eds. Monroe Price and Mark Thompson, (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2002), 242.
- 12.
Ibid, 248–249.
- 13.
The harm principle is addressed in Irwin Cotler, Chapter 9, Sections 9.1 and 9.2 (below).
- 14.
John Stuart Mill , Utilitarianism. On Liberty . Essay on Bentham, ed. Mary Warnock (Glasgow: Collins Fount, 1979), 183.
- 15.
Onara O’Neill, “Rethinking freedom of the press ,” transcript of an address given at the Royal Irish Academy, December 4, 2003, 4, http://www.ria.ie/reports/pdf/pressfreedom.pdf (Accessed June 10, 2009).
- 16.
I am indebted to the philosopher Onora O’Neill for this reading. As she says, “If we are to have democracy , the media must not only express views and opinions but must aim to communicate and to inform.”
- 17.
Jeremy Waldron, “Boutique Faith,” London Review of Books, July 20, 2006.
- 18.
What, you might ask, is the connection between the output of RTLM or Serbian state television in 1994, on one hand, and our daily diet of television or radio news?
- 19.
The peace -building potential of the media is examined in Mary Kimani, Chapter 20, Section 20.4 (below).
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Thompson, M. (2011). Incitement, Prevention and Media Rights. In: Provost, R., Akhavan, P. (eds) Confronting Genocide. Ius Gentium: Comparative Perspectives on Law and Justice, vol 7. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-90-481-9840-5_6
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