Video Technology and Human Rights Fact Finding
| Published date | 01 June 1995 |
| Date | 01 June 1995 |
| DOI | 10.1177/016934419501300204 |
| Author | Matthew Cowie |
| Subject Matter | Part A: Article |
Video Technology and Human Rights Fact Finding
Matthew Cowie'
Abstract
There is an ambivalent relationship between technology and human rights. Film and video
technology not only have the power to control but also to frame accounts
of
human
suffering, protest and attempts to promote human rights. The history
of
ideologically
motivated film making has testified to the plasticity
of
forms
of
visual representations.
Non-Governmental Organisations in the human rights field should consider the potential
and the philosophical limitations
of
video to their work.
Introduction
There have been discussions at the highest levels in Amnesty International (hereafter
Amnesty) concerning how video technology could be used to promote and protect human
rights. Amnesty already has used video successfully in a documentary format and now
is beginning to think about how video could be used in field work.
Although at Amnesty International's 1992 Annual General Meeting (AGM), a motion
was debated on this matter and was defeated, concern about the manner and strategic use
of communication technologies has been raised in a structured way within the
organisation. Through Amnesty's new media strategy, a five year project, with the
objective of combining appropriate video, computer and audio technologies to different
regions, Amnesty hopes to harness new and old media forms in pursuit of Amnesty's
mandate.'
In a culture where television is by far the most important medium of mass
communication, it is difficult to ignore
the
importance of video in human rights practice.
In the last few years, human rights violations like Rodney King's beating and the Santa
Cruz Cemetery massacre in East Timor,? have in the most brutally clear manner,
reinforced the potential of video as an organising tool for Non-Governmental
Organisations (NGOs) in informing and generating public concern about human rights
violations.
I argue that not only do we live in a visual society but that the technologies that have
wrought these developments have human rights implications (section
1).3
Furthermore the
power of television, film and video has been used and is being used toshape both general
background and specific ideologies, in positive and dangerous directions (section II). This
section provides a
brief
introduction to thinking about trends in social discipline through
visual technology and the way in which the visual has been used in progressive social
movements struggling for civil liberties and social change. Given the primordial
importance of video, digital and computer technology as we move towards the 21st
Lecturer in Law, Law Department, Nottingham University.
This writer would like to thank Simon Jolly, British Council Member and Lecturer in Law, Nottingham
University for supplying this information. Thanks also to AnitaTiessen, Media (Audio/Video) Director,
Amnesty International, International Secretariat, London.
Max Stahl, 'Enemy Number One Eludes Jakarta', The
Independent
on Sunday, 27 February 1994, p. 14.
C.G. Weeramantry, Impact of
Technology
onHuman Rights-
Global
CaseStudies, UN University Press,
Tokyo 1993.
139
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