Upwards of one million people died during the Genocide, Civil War, and Refugee Crisis in Rwanda and surrounding nations, during one of the fastest Genocides to occur in modern history. Even though the United Nations and its member states had a legal mandate to intervene in cases of Genocide due to the 1948 UN Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of Genocide, the world chose not to. While there were a myriad of reasons for this the media played a part in this situation. Using the coverage of US print magazine articles, this thesis argues that the media missed the point and the signs of what was happening on the ground due to a fundamental lack of understanding of Rwanda, the African Great Lakes region, and Africa itself. Borrowing concepts of the creation of the “other,” lack of understanding of Africa, imperial language, and first world views of the third world from Edward Said and Curtis A. Keim this master’s thesis shows that there were intellectual disconnects happening within the American press that made intervention nearly impossible. Once the Genocide was nearly complete and a more prosaic refugee crisis started America jumped at the chance to aid the refugees, a large number of them perpetrators of the Genocide, and the media showed reinvigorated interest in Rwanda. What misconceptions about Rwanda caused the media to miss the point? Did the print media help perpetuate those misconceptions, knowingly or unknowingly? With a death toll from the Genocide alone of roughly 8,000 people per day and the vast majority of them dying within iii the first several weeks of the Genocide, many lives may have been saved if Rwanda was made a priority by the media. Instead, while the media reported stories about chthonic hatred, the world was more concerned about a much slower Genocide in Eastern Europe. While attention was focused on other global and national stories, a racist regime intent on exterminating the Tutsi was allowed to stay in power in Rwanda

Thesis (M.A.), Experimental Psychology--University of Central Oklahoma, 2007. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 43-44).

Thesis (M.A.)--University of Oregon, 2008. / Typescript. Includes vita and abstract. "List of journalists interviewed": p. 88. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 104-109). Also available online.

Thesis (B. S.)--University of Wisconsin -- La Crosse, 2008. / Also available online. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 19-20).

Thesis advisor: David Hollenbach / Despite the triumphalistic story of human rights progress, the twentieth century has witnessed the bloodiest human rights violation in of all of human history and the death toll of these atrocities has yet to decrease as we proceed into the new millennium. If it is evident that the egregious reality of violation of human rights is widespread and covers a large part of the globe, it is nonetheless also crucial to note that it has particularly taken on unbearable proportions on the African continent. Strangely enough, despite this extremely alarming situation, the world remains stonily undisturbed. One of the most flagrant and upsetting examples of this reality, which has distressed even the most skeptical, is the 1994 genocide of Rwandan Tutsis. In fact, nowhere else has the abstract and idealistic rhetoric of human rights, as well as the international community and the Church's commitment to human rights protection been as deeply demystified and radically questioned as in Rwanda. Hence, the present dissertation raises the question of how human rights discourse can articulate a vision of the subject of right that is not purely abstract and idealistic, but also takes into account the actual humanness of the subject of rights in his or her socio-historical condition. Furthermore, it asks how such a vision, one that is consistent with human rights exercise, can help reconstruct human rights ethics in a way that promotes greater respect for human rights for all, and how it can resolve the problem of apathy in the face of the human cry. In response to the above questions, the dissertation suggests an alternative to the inadequacy of the present human rights discourse that it articulates in two important moments. First, in a critical moment, it uses the tools of both political and liberation theologies in their respective critiques of modernity and colonial legacy of exploitative systems to formulate a threefold argument. This is an argument that challenges the epistemological assumptions, the ideological practical stance, and the perverse operation of human rights in the historical context of Africa in general, and that of Rwanda in particular. In its second moment, the argument relies on the dialogue between political and liberation theologies and, through a creative and internalized reading of their mutually constructive contributions, suggests new possible paths towards a new ethics of human rights. Such an approach not only reclaims the socio-historical conditions of the subject of rights, but it also places her suffering and its redemptive praxis at the heart of ethical concern and the struggle for human rights. Finally, it proposes an ethics that fosters a revolutionary anthropology of the suffering subject as a call to liberation and solidarity, as well as its consequential promotion of social structural transformation. / Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2010. / Submitted to: Boston College. Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. / Discipline: Theology.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Murdoch University, 2009. / Thesis submitted to the Faculty of Arts and Education. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 290-317)

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Tennessee Technological University, 2009. / Title from title page screen (viewed on Feb. 3, 2010). Bibliography: leaves 153-157.

The Rwandan genocide exhibited a faster rate of killing than any genocide in recent history, taking place over 100 days; however, at the time of its occurrence, it was relatively ignored by the international community. In 2005, Major General Romeo Dallaire singled out the Western press coverage and condemned it for its failure to adequately publicize the genocide. Nevertheless, few studies have analysed the media’s coverage of the genocide and no studies have looked at Canadian media or the criminal aspects of the genocide reporting. This study examined articles printed in the New York Times and the Globe and Mail and consisted of a two-stage content and discourse analysis. The content analysis involved analysis of 17 variables in 577 articles, while the discourse analysis examined the extent to which common themes associated with crime served as a framework for making sense of the Rwandan genocide in 311 articles. As part of the discourse analysis, the data was assessed through a cultural criminological perspective which focused on five criminological themes; crime, perpetrators, victims, law enforcers and law and order. Overall, the results show that Rwanda was presented in the media as a chaotic and primitive country, in many ways beyond the reach of law, and therefore the language of crime was rarely used to describe the genocide. The planning, organization and systematic perpetration of the genocide were largely ignored and the media instead presented genocide in Rwanda as a natural and anarchic result of a primitive and tribal society.

The Rwandan genocide exhibited a faster rate of killing than any genocide in recent history, taking place over 100 days; however, at the time of its occurrence, it was relatively ignored by the international community. In 2005, Major General Romeo Dallaire singled out the Western press coverage and condemned it for its failure to adequately publicize the genocide. Nevertheless, few studies have analysed the media’s coverage of the genocide and no studies have looked at Canadian media or the criminal aspects of the genocide reporting. This study examined articles printed in the New York Times and the Globe and Mail and consisted of a two-stage content and discourse analysis. The content analysis involved analysis of 17 variables in 577 articles, while the discourse analysis examined the extent to which common themes associated with crime served as a framework for making sense of the Rwandan genocide in 311 articles. As part of the discourse analysis, the data was assessed through a cultural criminological perspective which focused on five criminological themes; crime, perpetrators, victims, law enforcers and law and order. Overall, the results show that Rwanda was presented in the media as a chaotic and primitive country, in many ways beyond the reach of law, and therefore the language of crime was rarely used to describe the genocide. The planning, organization and systematic perpetration of the genocide were largely ignored and the media instead presented genocide in Rwanda as a natural and anarchic result of a primitive and tribal society.

Thesis (M.A.)--Villanova University, 2007. / Political Science Dept. Includes bibliographical references.