scholarly journals Human Rights Advocacy in Silicon Valley: Civil Society’s Perceptions of Platform Accountability Efforts and Stakeholder Engagement Processes

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kayla Brown
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Social Change ◽  
Civil Society ◽  
New Media ◽  
Stakeholder Engagement ◽  
Media Coverage ◽  
External Pressure ◽  
Business Interests ◽  
Human Rights Advocacy ◽  
Private Corporations

This research project evaluates civil society’s perceptions of human rights advocacy and stakeholder engagement within the particular context of content governance and platform accountability. It is informed by critical theories of new media and scholarship on social movements and social change. Findings reveal that, within the context of platform accountability and content governance, organized civil society advocates for human rights by applying external pressure through media coverage and by networking directly with platform companies, many of which are hiring dedicated human rights leads and establishing more robust stakeholder engagement or governance processes; corporate interests underpin both strategies, however, the individuals interviewed identified the former as the most effective. Although organized civil society is an important counterweight to corporate power, findings reveal that business interests are still a significant barrier to enacting meaningful social change. Findings also suggest that good faith by and good actors within platform companies are ultimately not enough, reinforcing the important role organized civil society plays in increasing democratic accountability, even as private corporations begin to create processes to govern themselves.

scholarly journals Human Rights Advocacy in Silicon Valley: Civil Society’s Perceptions of Platform Accountability Efforts and Stakeholder Engagement Processes

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kayla Brown
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Social Change ◽  
Civil Society ◽  
New Media ◽  
Stakeholder Engagement ◽  
Media Coverage ◽  
External Pressure ◽  
Business Interests ◽  
Human Rights Advocacy ◽  
Private Corporations

This research project evaluates civil society’s perceptions of human rights advocacy and stakeholder engagement within the particular context of content governance and platform accountability. It is informed by critical theories of new media and scholarship on social movements and social change. Findings reveal that, within the context of platform accountability and content governance, organized civil society advocates for human rights by applying external pressure through media coverage and by networking directly with platform companies, many of which are hiring dedicated human rights leads and establishing more robust stakeholder engagement or governance processes; corporate interests underpin both strategies, however, the individuals interviewed identified the former as the most effective. Although organized civil society is an important counterweight to corporate power, findings reveal that business interests are still a significant barrier to enacting meaningful social change. Findings also suggest that good faith by and good actors within platform companies are ultimately not enough, reinforcing the important role organized civil society plays in increasing democratic accountability, even as private corporations begin to create processes to govern themselves.

scholarly journals The Party’s Turn to Public Repression: An Analysis of the ‘709’ Crackdown on Human Rights Lawyers in China

2018 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-48 ◽  
Author(s):  
Eva Pils
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Civil Society ◽  
The Political ◽  
Rational Argument ◽  
Political Emotions ◽  
Legal Advocacy ◽  
Human Rights Advocacy ◽  
Party State

The intensified and more public repression of civil society in China is part of a global shift toward deepened and technologically smarter dictatorship. This article uses the example of the ‘709’ government campaign against Chinese human rights lawyers to discuss this shift. It argues that the Party-State adopted more public and sophisticated forms of repression in reaction to smarter forms and techniques of human rights advocacy. In contrast to liberal legal advocacy, however, the Party-State’s authoritarian (or neo-totalitarian) propaganda is not bounded by rational argument. It can more fully exploit the potential of the political emotions it creates. Along with other forms of public repression, the crackdown indicates a rise of anti-liberal and anti-rationalist conceptions of law and governance and a return to the romanticisation of power.

Civil Society in the OSCE: From Human Rights Advocacy to Peacebuilding

2016 ◽  
pp. 359-374
Author(s):  
Natascha Cerny Ehtesham ◽  
Laurent Goetschel
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Civil Society ◽  
Human Rights Advocacy

Women’s Rights are Human Rights

2019 ◽  
pp. 223-230
Author(s):  
Bai Guimei
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Social Change ◽  
Civil Society ◽  
Women's Rights ◽  
Social Contexts ◽  
Women’S Rights ◽  
Public And Private ◽  
Cultural Setting ◽  
Chinese Perspective

This comment on the contribution by Hilary Charlesworth and Christine Chinkin focuses on three apparent antinomies of women’s rights: margin–mainstream, specialist–generalist, and family–individual. Adding a Chinese perspective to these discussions, the comment highlights the importance of choice of terminology in a particular cultural setting. It also questions the positioning of actors in terms of centre–periphery and shows how various actors can work across limits and perceived locations. Going beyond the discussions in UN bodies, the comment emphasizes the local social contexts and persisting stereotypes that need to be at the centre of social change. This requires a translation of international normative endeavours into local public and private spheres of civil society, economy, and government.

Paradigm for a New Millennium

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Emile G. McAnany
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Social Change ◽  
Social Entrepreneurship ◽  
Advocacy Group ◽  
The Past ◽  
The Social ◽  
Communication Work ◽  
Human Rights Advocacy ◽  
Communication For Development ◽  
Definition Of

This chapter describes a fourth paradigm that has arisen in the social change and development arena over the past two decades: social entrepreneurship (SE). It begins with an overview of disagreements over the definition of SE, along with the origins of the concept. It then considers what is new about the SE paradigm and how it might be incorporated into the field of communication for development (c4d). It also evaluates four projects that highlight innovations to serve people and the kinds of social entrepreneurship that they have incorporated: Indonesia's Radio 68H; Grameen Foundation's village phone initiative in Uganda; the Barefoot College of Tilonia in Rajastan, India; Witness, a human rights advocacy group founded by musician Peter Gabriel. Drawing on the case of SE, the chapter concludes by asking how paradigms in communication work.

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