Submitted by Dr E. McPherson on Wed, 23/07/2014 - 15:00
In May, I was a key speaker for the inaugural Media and Governance in Latin America conference on 'Exploring the Role of Communication for Development.' It was hosted by the Department of Journalism Studies, Department of Hispanic Studies and Sheffield Institute for International Development at the University of Sheffield. The conference brought together many of us researching journalism and media in Latin America and, as such, provided a fascinating overview of current research directions in this area.
My talk was entitled, 'Contesting Credibility: Human Rights Reporting in Mexico.' The bulk of the presentation was on my previous research about human rights reporting at mainstream Mexican newspapers. In the Q&A afterwards, however, we talked about the tension for citizen witnesses of human rights violations between the risk of including metadata in their social media reporting and the necessity of doing so in order for others to verify their information. In Mexico, unfortunately, bloggers and journalists who report on human rights violations and crime face grave security risks, as documented in Jorge Luis Sierra's Freedom House and International Center for Journalists report, Digital and Mobile Security for Mexican Journalists and Bloggers.