How the Media's Codes and Rules Influence the Way NGOs Work

"'Branding' and 'marketing' are concepts not often associated with the ideals and aims of humanitarian work. However, due to the large number of humanitarian organizations, these NGOs compete intensely for media attention and donor funds. The organizations must maintain public trust and credibility, 'protect their brand' from media scandals, and distinguish themselves from their competitors in the media marketplace."

Against the changing global backdrop of humanitarianism, this paper seeks to sketch what the authors characterise as a "relationship of dependency" of non-governmental organisations (NGOs) on the news media. It is based on interviews conducted with communications managers and media officers working in 6 aid NGOs: the International Committee of the Red Cross, Save the Children, Oxfam, CARE, Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), and World Vision. The research reflects on how these interactions are informed by relations of communicative power and how this impacts NGO claims, and capacity, to promote humanitarianism around the globe.

The authors begin by articulating a familiar, well-researched phenomenon: "The practices and priorities of global reporting play a key role in determining whether humanitarian emergencies are routinely covered in the news, sensationalized as spectacular media events, or simply buried along with countless imageless victims in 'forgotten emergencies' and 'hidden wars.'" Research and anecdotal evidence suggests that, in a competitive media environment informed by the pursuit of readers, ratings, and revenue, the media spotlight is drawn selectively to images of distress rather than issues of structural disadvantage, and is apt to roam quickly from one disaster or emergency to another....[T]he news media lens is peculiarly insensitive to the distant suffering of others."

To flesh out this picture, the authors make the following observations about the relationship between humanitarian organisations and the media:

• NGOs compete for media attention and donor funds within an increasingly crowded humanitarian aid field.
• They confront new forms of humanitarian crises in addition to the permanent emergency of global poverty, such as: so-called "new wars" that deliberately target civilian populations and infrastructure; the military use of starvation and systematic terror; and the increased numbers of internally displaced people (IDPs), refugees, and the victims of climate change and other emergent global threats.
• In the post-9/11 political environment and the ensuing global "war on terror," NGOs have had to renegotiate their position, practices, and even their principles when conducting their work in occupied territories and/or in response to new agendas of human security and normative discourses of human rights.

At the same time, the authors note, the world ecology of news is also quickly changing and growing in complexity and changing due to factors such as proliferating local-to-global news services and constant ("24/7") "real-time" news. NGOs seeking to publicise their work in this news environment may be challenged by features such as increased capacity for "global surveillance" and a discernible increase in the news media's proclivity for scandals, "a phenomenon that can prove disastrous for the public reputations of NGOs and their capacity to raise donations and carry out their humanitarian work."

On the positive side, the rapidly changing communications environment affords NGOs new communications opportunities. NGOs can tailor new communication technologies (mobile telephony, videophones, satellite linkups, the internet and networked coordination, communication, and information systems) to their needs and requirements both in the field and in their communication with their different stakeholders.

Against this backdrop, NGOs "have become increasingly embroiled within a 'media logic' that is far removed from the ideals and aims of humanitarianism. This is demonstrated in how aid NGOs seek to 'brand' their organizations in the media in response to an increasingly crowded, competitive and media-hungry field; how they pitch and package stories in ways designed to appeal to known media interests, deploying celebrity and publicity events; how they regionalize and personalize media coverage of humanitarian work in the field, marginalizing if not occluding local relief efforts and the role of survivors; and also how they expend valuable time, resources and energy to safeguard their organizational reputations and credibility against the risks of media-led scandals."

Specific sections of the paper explore the following topics, in part by integrating selected quotations from communications personnel at each of the 6 NGOs taking part in the research:

• NGO branding and the crowded aid-NGO field: "In this media dependent and competitive NGO environment, NGOs have necessarily become increasingly concerned with promoting and protecting their brand and warding off potential media criticism..."
• Packaging media reports and facilitating the field: "Packaging information and images in conformity to the media's known predilections has now become institutionalized inside aid agencies, whether this means putting a number on death tolls, featuring celebrities or 'making it visual'...While 'event days' [e.g., World AIDS Day] are designed to deliberately chime with the 'event orientation of news'...[s]ome NGOs now detect a growing media reluctance to report such NGO 'pseudo events.' A further strategy to capture media interest is to make use of celebrity....However, these tactics are already shaped by the news media culture, and some may question their fleeting and shallow representations."
• Regionalising 'global' humanitarianism: "When we are invited to see the world of disasters and human need through a mediated national prism that splinters the category of global humanity into 'us' and 'them,' ...the active agency of indigenous aid workers (and survivors) is minimized, and a Western-led and Western-centric view of humanitarianism is reinforced."
• Risk, reputation, and mediated scandals: "NGO reputation, based on public trust and an organization's credibility, is a bankable currency in the competitive field of humanitarian NGOs....Aid agencies reflexively respond to this latest 'media logic', which pursues scandals, with communication strategies deliberately aimed at safeguarding their brand..."

In concluding, the authors affirm that more proactive NGO collaborations can mobilise collective resources and maximise impact on the media with respect to major world issues and concerns, as illustrated by the Make Poverty History campaign. Yet, while "it may occasionally be possible for humanitarian organizations to lead, rather than follow, prevailing 'media logic.'...the general findings and observations documented above...point to how today pervasive media logic has become incorporated into the communication practices of humanitarian NGOs."