Social Justice And Mainstream Media

Mainstream media, as well as the government, typically attempt to maintain a narrow focus, and provide select information on what they want the public to acknowledge. On many occasions, these facets of information capture our attention, and suppress our curiosity by turning it away from the significant topics or important facts, rather than encouraging people to engage in critical discussion towards a situation in its entirety. Instead, much of the mainstream media focuses on stories that are often slanted, misleading, or missing details. Human Rights Watch is an independent and worldwide organization who acts as a form of media, which is determined to expose as many facts as possible when it concerns human rights cases. Not only do they conduct

As I filled out the Social Justice quiz that was conducted by Bill Quigley, it came to my attention that many of the answers to his questions were only found through extensive research, and even more so when it came to questions regarding statistics in Canada. These findings leads me to this question: why do we not know more? I for one, had not even heard of some of the issues that were touched upon in the quiz, neither have I heard about many details regarding these topics in the media. I was especially shocked about how high statistics were for poverty, and the amount of people living under the line of poverty. Having now been exposed to such information, it was hard for me to believe, or understand, why we as a society, are not more well informed of the issues that exist today, issues that are growing more prominent each year. Why is that, as seen in the Occupy Wall Street movement, media often fails to provide us with all the evidence concerning a movement, a protest, or any event that is occurring, locally or globally. This experience was eye opening for me, because it made me realize just how much mainstream media either side steps the important facts in a story, or withholds certain evidence or footage. Each year, there are new organizations that work to provide the public with as much

By publicizing information, this is a fundamental form of direct action that the organization utilizes in order to embarrass the governments who abuse human rights in front of society, and pressures these people of authority in order to make changes in how citizens are being treated. Fundamentally, the organizations use of direct action is non-violent and strategic, meaning that it is “formed around a clear sense of boundary” (Richardson, 1). This is different from tactics, which can often become violent, in which the participants partake in “makeshift, temporary infiltrations from the inside through actions of theft, hijacks, tricks and pranks” (Richardson 1). Human Rights Watch is different in that they “are committed to working on difficult situations, where long-term attention is required for meaningful impact” (“About Us”) and only consider themselves to have been successful if the results of their actions are positive, and enforce sustainable change (“About Us”). The organization uses both electronic, as well as in person strategies, in order to accomplish an overall goal. Electronically, they send multiple letters to the government, or group of people who are abusing human rights. In the case of the Ferguson protests, in their second letter they states that