The discursive impact of transnational advocacy networks : how amnesty international and human rights watch influenced the media coverage of the Rwanda genocide

Initial representations of the Rwanda genocide in the Western media were at best inaccurate and at worst, stereotypical, citing African tribal savagery and centuries-old tribal hatred as the reason for the mass killings. Two major human rights organizations, Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, had the opportunity to correct media portrayals and help shape the agenda for policymakers. The purpose of this study was to take a critical look at media portrayals and discover whether these two nongovernmental organizations played a role in influencing the coverage. An extensive media analysis of three elite Western newspapers found that NGOs were the single largest source of nuanced political explanations countering stereotypes of African tribal warfare. Human Rights Watch, in particular, played a pivotal role in sensitizing the media to the genocide\u27s character as a planned, politically motivated campaign