Hope for Haiti How media narratives can transform a destination in despair

Author(s):  
Nicholas Wise

Haiti has been beset by a series of natural disasters over the past decade, notably the 2010 7.0 magnitude Haiti Earthquake and Hurricane Matthew in 2016, which caused catastrophic flooding. However, in addition to the natural disasters, Haiti is the poorest economy in the western hemisphere and has a history of politically turbulent events, each of which have contributed to despair and a negative destination image (Séraphin, 2018; Séraphin et al., 2017). This is a troubling combination for a tourist destination. Haiti, as a destination in the Caribbean, has a strategic advantage with its expansive coast and natural attractions, but the underdevelopment of tourism in Haiti is linked to shadows of natural disasters, economic dependence on foreign aid and political uncertainty (see Séraphin et al., 2017; Wise and Díaz-Garayúa, 2015). The power of nature has placed much media attention on Haiti, and it has gained much negative attention in recent years in the media, but the images of a ‘beautiful destination’ is now changing the narrative to a destination on the rise (Caribbean News Now, 2017a; The World Bank, 2018). However, tourism in a developing country comes with numerous obstacles, as extensive investments are needed to allow tourism to thrive in the increasingly competitive Caribbean market. This is where the media plays a crucial role in transforming how a destination is portrayed. This chapter will assess narratives sourced from newspaper travel articles published in 2017 to understand how presentations of tourism in Haiti are constructing a new image of the country as an emerging tourism destination—an attempt to overcome the range of negative connotations. However, while the chapter focuses on image recovery in relation to the recent natural disasters in Haiti, it must also be noted that Haiti is also a destination with longstanding image issues given the extent of poverty, violence and political corruption (Séraphin, 2018).

2013 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 155-175 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hou Yuxin

Abstract The Wukan Incident attracted extensive attention both in China and around the world, and has been interpreted from many different perspectives. In both the media and academia, the focus has very much been on the temporal level of the Incident. The political and legal dimensions, as well as the implications of the Incident in terms of human rights have all been pored over. However, what all of these discussions have overlooked is the role played by religious force during the Incident. The village of Wukan has a history of over four hundred years, and is deeply influenced by the religious beliefs of its people. Within both the system of religious beliefs and in everyday life in the village, the divine immortal Zhenxiu Xianweng and the religious rite of casting shengbei have a powerful influence. In times of peace, Xianweng and casting shengbei work to bestow good fortune, wealth and longevity on both the village itself, and the individuals who live there. During the Wukan Incident, they had a harmonizing influence, and helped to unify and protect the people. Looking at the specific roles played by religion throughout the Wukan Incident will not only enable us to develop a more meaningful understanding of the cultural nature and the complexity of the Incident itself, it will also enrich our understanding, on a divine level, of innovations in social management.


2018 ◽  
Vol 30 (2) ◽  
pp. 192
Author(s):  
Erda Rindrasih

Tourism has emerged as one of the largest and most rapidly growing economic sectors in the world. Nevertheless, many tourist destinations have been periodically confronted by natural disasters that threaten their survival as an industry by negatively impacting their image and safety perception. This research assessed tourists’ perception of the risk and images of a destination that is considered prone to natural disasters, by surveying 537 tourists in Yogyakarta and Bali. This study contributes to the debate on tourism development issues related to negative perceptions and images that have discouraged prospective tourists from visiting affected destinations. The results of the survey indicated that the occurrence of past disasters did not strongly influence tourists’ decision to visit Indonesia. Instead, the creation of the destination image was informed more by its current situation, and it is these current factors that may encourage or discourage potential tourists. These findings should signal to tourism planners that while environmental disasters are unavoidable, post-disaster rehabilitation of a destination’s image would significantly increase its chances of rebounding quickly.


Author(s):  
William Ghosh

V.S. Naipaul is one of the most internationally acclaimed twentieth-century writers from the Caribbean region. Yet it is usually assumed that he was neither much influenced by the Caribbean literary and intellectual tradition, nor very influential upon it. This chapter argues that these assumptions are wrong. It situates Naipaul’s life and work within the political, social, and intellectual history of the twentieth-century Caribbean. Naipaul’s work formed part of a larger historical debate about the sociology of slavery in the Caribbean, the specificity of Caribbean colonial experience, and the influence of that historical past on Caribbean life, culture, and politics after independence. The chapter closes with a reading of Naipaul’s late, retrospective book about Trinidad, A Way in the World.


Author(s):  
Manfred B. Steger

Economic globalization refers to the intensification and stretching of economic connections across the globe. ‘The economic dimension of globalization’ gives a brief history of the emergence of the global economic order. Towards the end of the Second World War, the Bretton Woods Conference laid the foundations for institutions such as the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank, and World Trade Organization. In the 1980s, rising neoliberalism led to the deregulation of financial transactions. Significant developments include the internationalization of trade, the increasing power of transnational corporations, and the enhanced role of international economic institutions. We have recently experienced setbacks like the 2007–10 recession and the slowdown of the Chinese economy.


2002 ◽  
Vol 112 (477) ◽  
pp. F119-F135 ◽  
Author(s):  
Edward Marcus

2018 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-39
Author(s):  
Anton Holzer ◽  
Elisabeth Lauffer

Between the mid-1920s and the early 1930s German photojournalism experienced a profound, far-reaching upheaval. Up until this time, the illustrated mass media had favoured the reproduction of single photos, but during this brief period the photo-essay rose to prominence. Photographs and texts were integrated into a new, complex narrative unity: photoreportage. This article aims to reconstruct the historical conditions under which modern photo-reportage arose during the Weimar Republic. It will also revise certain accepted judgements about the history of photojournalism between the world wars. The development of modern photojournalism has until now been identified almost exclusively with the achievements of individual protagonists, mainly prominent photographers. Although these individuals played an important role in the production process of photoreportage, they were rarely consulted regarding editorial questions and layout. In order to better understand the economic development of photoreportage and its growth as a medium, it is necessary to examine the editorial work being done behind the scenes at the magazines and newspapers of the time. This article will therefore focus more on the development of the media and economic macrostructures at play in the emergence and growth of photo-reportage, and less on individual photographers’ contributions and photojournalistic output. It ultimately shows that the consolidation of modern photo-reportage was the result of closely connected media-related and social developments, commercial strategies and aesthetic decisions that went far beyond the agency of individuals.


2011 ◽  
Vol 19 (5) ◽  
pp. 1265-1271 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tiago Braga do Espírito Santo ◽  
Taka Oguisso ◽  
Rosa Maria Godoy Serpa da Fonseca

The object is the relationship between the professionalization of Brazilian nursing and women, in the broadcasting of news about the creation of the Professional School of Nurses, in the light of gender. Aims: to discuss the linkage of women to the beginning of the professionalization of Brazilian nursing following the circumstances and evidence of the creation of the Professional School of Nurses analyzed from the perspective of gender. The news articles were analyzed from the viewpoint of Cultural History, founded in the gender concept of Joan Scott and in the History of Women. The creation of the School and the priority given in the media to women consolidate the vocational ideal of the woman for nursing in a profession subjugated to the physician but also representing the conquest of a space in the world of education and work, reconfiguring the social position of nursing and of woman in Brazil.


Author(s):  
Tammi-Marie Phillip

This chapter presents an in-depth look at the potential for telemental health within the diverse region of Latin America and the Caribbean. A review of history of mental health and the current needs and limited available services in the Caribbean and Latin America will be provided. The chapter will use the example of, yet primitive, experience of implementing telemedicine or telehealth in the region to infer the potential utility of technological means in bridging the existing mental health gap. Although this mode of treatment has not been implemented yet, horizons for implementation of telemental health are open in this region, as it promises increased access to mental health treatment to those who need it the most. Future steps will have address cost-effectiveness and cultural acceptability unique to this part of the world.


Author(s):  
Taylor St John

Chapter two outlines antecedents of the ICSID Convention. The antagonisms emerging from the long history of investment dispute settlement are briefly discussed, in particular historical memories about separate courts and separate law for foreigners. Early twentieth-century efforts to replace the use of force with arbitration and later work to reframe foreign investment as a tool for development instead of a tool of imperialism provided more hopeful antecedents. Decolonization brought with it high expectations, but also disillusionment: disputes like Abadan (in which the British government sent gunboats, then asked the UN Security Council, the ICJ, and the World Bank to act, before ultimately staging a coup) made capital-importing governments wary and led many officials to believe the world needed new machinery to resolve disputes between investors and states.


Author(s):  
Anthony Pagden

Europe's incursion into the Atlantic — the ‘occidental break out’ — after the mid-fifteenth century created many challenges and generated many kinds of ‘newness’ for all of those caught up in it. For the peoples of the African littoral, of the Canary Islands, of the Caribbean, and of the American mainland, the contact with Europeans throughout this period was inevitably, if not always initially, violent. Both Africa and America had been the site of large political structures which the Europeans called ‘empires’, Zimbabwe and Benin, Aztec Mexico and Inca Peru, before the fifteenth century. The discovery of America had seriously undermined both classical geography and the traditional Christian accounts of the creation and subsequent peopling of the world. It offered, however, other, less direct, challenges to the ancient understanding of the world which in the end, were to be even more devastating for the subsequent history of Europe.


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