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Final Conclusions on Juarez Femicide Reporting

The murders of thousands of women (femicides) in Ciudad Juarez have been happening for over a decade. In March of 2008, that number was 500. Today scholars estimate that number is in the thousands. Since the recent crisis of the narco war continues to receive a lot of international and local press, it is important not to forget the issue of the femicides and how they tie into the broader context of the social, political and economical issues at the U.S.-Mexico border. The media has always played a crucial role in informing the public about crime and violence, and, in this region, this reporting is also vital to the exposure of the issue, as women’s voices are not traditionally recognized in international conflicts.

Based on the research that I conducted in my paper I learned that the femicides of women in Juarez, Mexico happen too often, and I believe that the media has a duty as storytellers to help spread awareness on this issue accurately. While media coverage on the issue is apparent, the portrayals and descriptions of each case do not seem to do the victim’s justice. The literature review on this topic should be used as a model of what can be done in the future to aide in the advocacy of women’s voices in international conflict, but especially in the realm of femicide. Although it is admirable that journalists put their lives on the line to provide such coverage about the femicides, the victim-blaming, sensationalism and stereotyping that is coming out of these stories should be re-evaluated from an ethical journalism standpoint.

When you are a journalist, it is your duty to get the story right and share its importance and value with the community. To alter a story in an effort to shock people or to garner attention is dangerous and dishonest to the entire profession. Media coverage on this topic is extremely important, as it is common that the women in this region that are abducted are from low socio-economic backgrounds, and when looking at the patriarchal structure, the murders of women and the inaccurate media reporting on the issue, we see a consistency of voices being left behind and of truth being smothered—similar to what is happening to the women of Juarez.

We need advocates to share the truth on femicide, not only in Juarez, but across the world. One of the strongest tools to aide in this discussion is media. As discussed before, the media has the power to not only shed light on this issue but apply pressure to international and national political figures who must have some stake in wanting to protect the lives of women—which is exactly what is missing from this discussion.

If you are interested more in this topic, here is a great resource. I visited this organization when I was in Juarez in 2007.

Google Reader: What's the Controversy About?

This week, Google announced that on July 1^st, it will be retiring its service Google Reader, the company’s service for viewing blogs through an RSS (“rich site summary”) feed.

The demise of this service, covered here and here, has caused two common reactions, as USA Today reports: “What’s Google Reader?” and “How could you?” Indeed, I had heard of Google reader as a service to use to keep updated on news, events, etc. but did not use the service myself; I do, however, know many people that are upset about the end of its run. Google Reader, as the article continues,  “was late to the field when this free service debuted in 2005, but it soon offered a tantalizing combination to RSS fans: a great Web interface, plus the ability to check the same feeds in standalone apps in computers and mobile devices.”

For many people, it is a core part of their internet use; a way for them to get information from a variety of sources in one feed on a daily (or even more frequent) basis. While there are plenty of other applications out now that serve similar functions (I am partial to Flipboard), it would appear that Google Reader is affecting a wide segment of the population, one that is uproarious, at least in the digital world.

This made me consider our conversations about technology’s role in communication that we had in class; we have come to a point where we cannot seem to live without digital communication. From blogs to news sources, Flipboard to Facebook, the majority of us get most of our news in digital form. As Damien Smith-Pfister and Jordan Soliz explain in their piece, “(Re)conceptualizing Intercultural Communication in a Networked Society”: “The internet, by reducing cost and access barriers, albeit unevenly, produces a range of for a from websites to blogs to social networking…these new sites…help constitute communities of discourse united by shared interest and, in some cases, even produce novel styles of communication” (247). Indeed, we are all part of various digital communities when we take part in using a specific website, or aggregator like Google Reader, in our daily lives.

The controversy over Google Readers’ decision to shut down will eventually die out, and a new leader in RSS feed/information gathering will emerge for the digital community. The question is, what do these websites have to provide to get people to become loyal to their services? And how was Google Reader able to do so?

How Racism is Bad for our Bodies

Featured yesterday in the Atlantic:

How Racism Is Bad for Our Bodies

The piece goes into detail about how racism has been shown recently to be linked to raising the risk of many emotional and physical problems:

Discrimination has been shown to increase the risk of stress, depression, the common cold, hypertension, cardiovascular disease, breast cancer, and mortality. Recently, two journals -- The American Journal of Public Health and The Du Bois Review: Social Science Research on Race -- dedicated entire issues to the subject. These collections push us to consider how discrimination becomes what social epidemiologist Nancy Krieger, one of the field's leaders, terms ‘embodied inequality.’”

It is also not just racism but the fear of racism that brings stress upon people of minorities. These individuals are also less likely to seek help to extinguish the stress, due to many already being at a social disadvantage. The last sentence of the article explains this best: “Racial profiling should be considered a social determinant of health, because it exposes people to discrimination and the fear of discrimination. Race may be a social construct, but racism materializes in poor health.”

Indeed, here we can look at racism using performance theory – racism being embodied physically, especially within a person, as part of a political and social construct in society. As Dwight Conquergood wrote in his piece “Performance Studies: Intervention and Radical Research”: “It is no longer easy to sort out the local from the global: transnational circulations of images get reworked on the ground and redeployed for local, tactical struggles. And global flows simultaneously are encumbered and energized by these local makeovers” (145).  In this case of racism, the body is the local and the issue the global; the issue of racism is reflected in individual health and well-being. 

We cannot just look at racism now from an outer, critical perspective – as these studies show, a more performative-based, interpretive approach is needed to address this issue and work towards solutions. 

Iran to sue Hollywood over ‘Argo’ film

Iran is suing Hollywood for allegedly portraying the country in a negative light in the film Argo.

According to therawstory.com, Isabelle Coutant-Peyre has been hired as the lawyer on the case, who says Hollywood directors and producers have "promoted Iranophobia." The film Argo won best picture this year and was directed by Ben Affleck.

In the article, it is noted that the controversial Coutant-Peyre is married to terrorist Ilich Ramirez Sanchez, who she is also representing, for killing two French police officers and an informant in 1975. (The article provides this information to provide background on the lawyer, but it makes the article sound bias in my opinion).

In case you haven't seen the film, it tells the story about six diplomats who were held hostage in 1979 in Tehran. All of them were rescued in a CIA mission in which the diplomats were able to escape the embassy compound before its "full seizure by young revolutionaries."

Between Argo and Zero Dark Thirty coming out this year in theaters, I have found both of these films to attract a lot of socio-political controversy. I did see Zero Dark Thirty, which was about the siege of Osama Bin Laden, and I thought the film was done pretty well. There were some undertones of American imperialism in the film (i.e. torture scenes), but I thought the film was good overall.

For class we read the Orbe and Everett reading about Interracial and Interethnic Conflict and Communication. Based on this reading, I would argue that the case between Affleck and the rest of Hollywood (which we also learned was 80% comprised of white men) is directly related to race, ethnicity and conflict (p.575). In this regard, we see that the different cultural styles of individuals, like Affleck and Coutant-Peyre, are more problematic than the conflict itself (Ting-Toomey, 1988). This can also be true due to the fact that the actual conflict happened so long ago.

I really enjoy how film and music can move people into political action, and this is exactly what has happened in Iran, but from an international perspective. Zero Dark Thirty was more controversial in the U.S. Thus, I am very interested in how this case will pan out. It's quite thought provoking that Affleck is being sued by Iran. Think about that for a second...from a culture perspective...from a communications perspective...and so on. Pretty good stuff.

Did you see either of the films and, if so, what did you think?

Cry Your Way to the Top

In case we hadn’t heard enough about Sheryl Sandberg’s new book…

Cry Your Way to the Top, Ladies

In a recent speech (also covered here), Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg, author of the new controversial novel Lean In, discussed her career success – and that part of it could be attributed to crying at the workplace. While making a plea for business leaders to be empathetic, and get to know “the real you”, she said the following:

“I’ve cried at work. I've told people I've cried at work. And it's been reported in the press that Sheryl Sandberg cried on Mark Zuckerberg's shoulder, which is not exactly what happened. I talk about my hopes and fears and ask people about theirs. I try to be myself. Honest about my strengths and weaknesses and I encourage others to do the same. It is all professional and it is all personal, all at the very same time.”

I found this idea to be in intriguing on a few levels, but mainly on the level of female identity, both in its appearance and within self. While Ms. Sandberg has been “able” to cry at work – why is this something that needs to be discussed with women, specifically? Or is this something more specific to Ms. Sandberg’s career, something that cannot necessarily be applied to every woman’s working world? Another novel published two years ago by Kelly Cutrone, a PR exec infamous on reality TV for her mentorship of Lauren Conrad, has also addressed this issue, in the title alone: If You Have to Cry, Go Outside. The book goes into detail about how crying should not be at the workplace, that it is personal and should not be something associated with your professional identity.  So whose perception is more valid? Which identity is better?

This also made me think of the case we read about Sarah Palin, who in the television coverage during the first week of her Vice Presidential run, had her identity represented in a variety of ways. As Harp et.al explained, “While Palin at times performs and is constructed as masculine, Palin’s gender is normalized (feminized) as her masculine performance is mixed with a normative feminine identity. The indication is that women are allowed to be tough as long as they continue to fit stereotypical notions of femininity” (305). This hybrid identity can be applied to women as well in the workplace – crying when appropriate, when it feels necessary, or comfortable, and when a woman accepts that it may then be associated with her at work.

Women today face many identity issues, especially in the working world, and in the end, a hybrid identity looks like it is the best option for women to maintain their success – but what can be done about this culture in the workplace?

To say no, or remain silent

I have been following this case in Steubenville, Ohio (as I am sure many of you are as well), which finally goes to trial today:

This is the trial of two high school football players charged with raping a 16 year old girl during a night of partying, both in a car and in a basement last August (see more here).  I heard about this case early on since it occurred in a town not one hour from my own, but it made national headlines after graphic cell phone photos and video (including one where a student jokes about the rape) went viral online.

As the article states, “Prosecutors appeared to try to show how drunk and nonparticipatory the alleged victim was, while the defense attempted to show that she was making decisions that night and at one point told friends she was fine and able to take care of herself.” While the prosecutors argue that the young girl was too drunk to say “no,” and was not in a conscious state when the incident occurred, the defense counters that she was able to make her own decisions that evening.

The “unable to say no” part of this case is most striking to me. We’ve all learned that “no means no” when it comes to this kind of abuse, but what about silence? How is one to judge if someone is capable of communicating this, especially in such a horrid situation as this rape? The girl has stated she does not remember the incident at all – showing that she certainly was not purvey to making any decisions that night, communicating what was permitted and not at that time. 

This situation can also be looked at in a performative way. Rape is an act, and this act enforces a continued rape culture, where rape is acceptable, as we discussed in class on January 28.  Rape is an embodiment of a violation of women’s rights, but in our society it has actually been normalized, to a point where we actually question if a woman said “yes” or “no” and was “part” of this act.

I am intrigued by what each side of the court will say on this case, and how the girl’s words that fateful night in August will be intertwined into this testimony, evidence and other witnesses – hopefully in a way that preserves the dignity and humility of this young woman, today and in her future.