In 1994, government and military officials in Rwanda orchestrated one of the twentieth century’s most extreme human rights crimes. During a three-month period, in the midst of a civil war that they were losing, Rwandan officials led an extermination campaign against the country’s minority Tutsi population that left some 500,000 civilians dead.1 At the time it occurred, despite the magnitude and character of the violence, the genocide in Rwanda received relatively little attention in the English-speaking developed world. Rwanda was a small, land- locked, coffee-and-tea-exporting, francophone, and strategically insignificant country. However, more than a decade later, interest in Rwanda has surged, as evidenced by a raft of major motion pictures, documentaries, and books (both scholarly and popular) about the country. Through these various media, Rwanda has emerged as one of the most recognizable contemporary cases of mass violence and as a textbook example of the international community’s inaction in the face of genocide.
A prominent theme running through the corpus of work on Rwanda is the pervasive and pernicious role that modern media, in particular “hate radio,” played in stoking the genocide.2 In popular settings, films on the Rwandan genocide invariably feature radio.3 In policy circles, debates on how to contain the genocide often focus on jamming the radio.4 For skeptics of rapid democratization, Rwandan private radio is a showcase example of the dangers of media liberalization.5 In addition, students of genocide,6 journalism,7 and international law8 all highlight Rwandan radio. And in a major decision in 2003, the United Nations International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) found two radio journalists and a print journalist guilty of inciting genocide, the first international court to do so since the Nuremberg conviction of Julius Streicher.9 In short, radio has become a symbol of the genocide in Rwanda, and Rwanda has become a paradigmatic case of hate radio sparking genocide.10
However, despite the central role regularly attributed to radio, there has been little sustained social scientific analysis of radio media effects in the Rwandan genocide. Many of the standard methods and concepts of political communications empirical research—such as exposure, timing, frequency, reception, audience selectivity, and survey research—have found little to no application in the litera- ture on Rwanda. This is the case despite the presence of often quite strong claims about media effects, found especially in film and popular writings. Such claims often assert or imply undifferentiated, direct, and massive media effects— effects that, if true, would be at odds with decades of political communications empirical research. Scholarship on Rwanda shows greater differentiation, but many observers suggest large-scale media effects or employ somewhat vague terms, such as radio “fomenting” genocide.11
Given the importance of the Rwandan case and given the centrality of hate radio to the commentary on Rwanda, a better assessment of radio media effects in the genocide is needed. At stake is not only getting the Rwandan story right, which has implications for a series of related issue areas, including genocide studies, ethnic conflict, humanitarian intervention, and democratization. The issue also matters for the political communications field, for which the bulk of research focuses on voting behavior and electoral outcomes in Western countries. But perhaps most significantly, the Rwandan radio case raises the question of how outside observers conceptualize extreme behavior in poor, non-Western settings. The conventional wisdom on hate radio and massive media effects in Rwanda is undoubtedly an improvement on ahistorical and empirically untenable claims that “ancient tribal hatred” drove the violence—a view common to press commentary on Rwanda and ethnic conflict in general. Nonetheless, much of the conventional wisdom on hate radio reproduces simplistic models of political behavior that attribute little or no agency to Rwandans and that minimize the context in which extreme violence took place. Reexamining radio effects in Rwanda thus allows for a reintroduction of causal complexity to help explain what was a very complex and multidimensional outcome.
To gain analytical leverage on the issues at hand, the article focuses on two researchable questions: first, do radio broadcasts account for the onset of genocidal violence in Rwanda; second, is radio responsible for prompting ordinary citizens to become genocide perpetrators? I examine the questions using a series of methodologies and triangulating available data and original field research, including a survey of convicted perpetrators. On the whole, I conclude that radio alone cannot account for either the onset of most genocidal violence or the participation of most perpetrators. That said, I find some evidence of conditional media effects. Radio catalyzed a small number of individuals and incidents of violence, framed public choice, and reinforced messages that many individuals received during face-to-face mobilization. Situated in context—that is, seen alongside the primary dynamics of violence that drove the genocide—I hypothesize that the effects had a marginal impact on the outcome. To be clear, the overall point is not to exonerate, legally or morally, journalists found guilty of incitement; radio broadcasts were at times racist and openly inflammatory, and those responsible deserve punishment. Rather, the point is to evaluate systematically and empirically, using the tools of social science, the conventional wisdom about media effects for what has become a world-historical event.
The article is laid out in four sections. In the first, I discuss the media environment in Rwanda as well as the main claims about radio media effects in the Rwandan genocide, isolating causal mechanisms in the literature. In the second, I underline a series of theoretical and empirical problems with the conventional wisdom. In the third, I test the hypotheses that radio drove the genocide and participation in violence against available evidence. In particular, drawing on methods and concepts from the political communications field, I examine broad- cast exposure, timing, content, and reception. I also discuss the results of a survey of perpetrators conducted in Rwanda. In the final section, I conclude by proposing an alternative model of conditional media effects, which take on significance only when embedded in an analysis of the principal dynamics of the genocide.he “radio dispatcher of murder,”23 “radio murder,”24 the “voice of genocide,”25 “a tool for mass murder,”26 and “call to genocide.”27 The most common sobriquet— Radio Machete28—directly equates RTLM with a violent weapon.
ในปี 1994 รัฐบาลและเจ้าหน้าที่ทหารในรวันดากลั่นหนึ่งของอาชญากรรมสิทธิมนุษยชนมากที่สุดของศตวรรษที่ยี่สิบ ในช่วง 3 เดือน ท่ามกลางสงครามกลางเมืองที่พวกเขาได้สูญเสีย เจ้าหน้าที่ Rwandan นำแคมเปญการกำจัดกับชนกลุ่มน้อยของประเทศประชากร Tutsi ที่เหลือ 500000 บาง dead.1 พลเรือนในเวลาที่มันเกิดขึ้น แม้ มีขนาดและลักษณะของความรุนแรง พันธุฆาตในรวันดาได้รับค่อนข้างน้อยให้ความสนใจในการพูดภาษาอังกฤษได้รับการพัฒนาโลก รวันดาเป็นตัวเล็ก ที่ดิน-ล็อค กาแฟ และการ ส่งชา francophone และกลยุทธ์สำคัญประเทศ อย่างไรก็ตาม กว่าทศวรรษภายหลัง สนใจในรวันดาได้จากเพิ่มขึ้น เป็นเป็นหลักฐาน โดยแพใหญ่ภาพเคลื่อนไหว สารคดี และหนังสือ (scholarly และนิยม) เกี่ยวกับประเทศนั้น ผ่านสื่อต่าง ๆ เหล่านี้ รวันดาได้ผงาดขึ้น เป็นหนึ่งของความรุนแรงโดยรวมกรณีร่วมสมัยโด่งดังที่สุด และ เป็นตัวอย่างตำราของของประชาคม inaction หน้าพันธุฆาตA prominent theme running through the corpus of work on Rwanda is the pervasive and pernicious role that modern media, in particular “hate radio,” played in stoking the genocide.2 In popular settings, films on the Rwandan genocide invariably feature radio.3 In policy circles, debates on how to contain the genocide often focus on jamming the radio.4 For skeptics of rapid democratization, Rwandan private radio is a showcase example of the dangers of media liberalization.5 In addition, students of genocide,6 journalism,7 and international law8 all highlight Rwandan radio. And in a major decision in 2003, the United Nations International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) found two radio journalists and a print journalist guilty of inciting genocide, the first international court to do so since the Nuremberg conviction of Julius Streicher.9 In short, radio has become a symbol of the genocide in Rwanda, and Rwanda has become a paradigmatic case of hate radio sparking genocide.10However, despite the central role regularly attributed to radio, there has been little sustained social scientific analysis of radio media effects in the Rwandan genocide. Many of the standard methods and concepts of political communications empirical research—such as exposure, timing, frequency, reception, audience selectivity, and survey research—have found little to no application in the litera- ture on Rwanda. This is the case despite the presence of often quite strong claims about media effects, found especially in film and popular writings. Such claims often assert or imply undifferentiated, direct, and massive media effects— effects that, if true, would be at odds with decades of political communications empirical research. Scholarship on Rwanda shows greater differentiation, but many observers suggest large-scale media effects or employ somewhat vague terms, such as radio “fomenting” genocide.11Given the importance of the Rwandan case and given the centrality of hate radio to the commentary on Rwanda, a better assessment of radio media effects in the genocide is needed. At stake is not only getting the Rwandan story right, which has implications for a series of related issue areas, including genocide studies, ethnic conflict, humanitarian intervention, and democratization. The issue also matters for the political communications field, for which the bulk of research focuses on voting behavior and electoral outcomes in Western countries. But perhaps most significantly, the Rwandan radio case raises the question of how outside observers conceptualize extreme behavior in poor, non-Western settings. The conventional wisdom on hate radio and massive media effects in Rwanda is undoubtedly an improvement on ahistorical and empirically untenable claims that “ancient tribal hatred” drove the violence—a view common to press commentary on Rwanda and ethnic conflict in general. Nonetheless, much of the conventional wisdom on hate radio reproduces simplistic models of political behavior that attribute little or no agency to Rwandans and that minimize the context in which extreme violence took place. Reexamining radio effects in Rwanda thus allows for a reintroduction of causal complexity to help explain what was a very complex and multidimensional outcome.
To gain analytical leverage on the issues at hand, the article focuses on two researchable questions: first, do radio broadcasts account for the onset of genocidal violence in Rwanda; second, is radio responsible for prompting ordinary citizens to become genocide perpetrators? I examine the questions using a series of methodologies and triangulating available data and original field research, including a survey of convicted perpetrators. On the whole, I conclude that radio alone cannot account for either the onset of most genocidal violence or the participation of most perpetrators. That said, I find some evidence of conditional media effects. Radio catalyzed a small number of individuals and incidents of violence, framed public choice, and reinforced messages that many individuals received during face-to-face mobilization. Situated in context—that is, seen alongside the primary dynamics of violence that drove the genocide—I hypothesize that the effects had a marginal impact on the outcome. To be clear, the overall point is not to exonerate, legally or morally, journalists found guilty of incitement; radio broadcasts were at times racist and openly inflammatory, and those responsible deserve punishment. Rather, the point is to evaluate systematically and empirically, using the tools of social science, the conventional wisdom about media effects for what has become a world-historical event.
The article is laid out in four sections. In the first, I discuss the media environment in Rwanda as well as the main claims about radio media effects in the Rwandan genocide, isolating causal mechanisms in the literature. In the second, I underline a series of theoretical and empirical problems with the conventional wisdom. In the third, I test the hypotheses that radio drove the genocide and participation in violence against available evidence. In particular, drawing on methods and concepts from the political communications field, I examine broad- cast exposure, timing, content, and reception. I also discuss the results of a survey of perpetrators conducted in Rwanda. In the final section, I conclude by proposing an alternative model of conditional media effects, which take on significance only when embedded in an analysis of the principal dynamics of the genocide.he “radio dispatcher of murder,”23 “radio murder,”24 the “voice of genocide,”25 “a tool for mass murder,”26 and “call to genocide.”27 The most common sobriquet— Radio Machete28—directly equates RTLM with a violent weapon.
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