[Commlist] New Book: Seeing Human Rights: Video Activism as a Proxy Profession

New Book - Paperback and Open Access Edition

*Seeing Human Rights: Video Activism as a Proxy Profession*

Sandra Ristovska

MIT Press
ISBN: 9780262542531288pp. | 6 in x 9 in | 30 b&w illus.August 2021

https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/seeing-human-rights 
<https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/seeing-human-rights>

*Publisher's Description *

Visual imagery is at the heart of humanitarian and human rights 
activism, and video has become a key tool in these efforts. The Saffron 
Revolution in Myanmar, the Green Movement in Iran, and Black Lives 
Matter in the United States have all used video to expose injustice. 
In/Seeing Human Rights/, Sandra Ristovska examines how human rights 
organizations are seeking to professionalize video activism through 
video production, verification standards, and training. The result, she 
argues, is a proxy profession that uses human rights videos to tap into 
journalism, the law, and political advocacy.

Ristovska explains that this proxy profession retains some tactical 
flexibility in its use of video while giving up on the more radical 
potential and imaginative scope of video activism as a cultural 
practice. Drawing on detailed analysis of legal cases and videos as well 
as extensive interviews with staff members of such organizations as 
Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, WITNESS, the International 
Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY), and the 
International Criminal Court (ICC), Ristovska considers the unique 
affordances of video and examines the unfolding relationships among 
journalists, human rights organizations, activists, and citizens in 
global crisis reporting. She offers a case study of the visual turn in 
the law; describes advocacy and marketing strategies; and argues that 
the transformation of video activism into a proxy profession privileges 
institutional and legal spaces over broader constituencies for public good.

*Author*

Sandra Ristovska is Assistant Professor of Media Studies in the College 
of Media, Communication and Information at the University of Colorado 
Boulder and coeditor of/Visual Imagery and Human Rights Practice/.

*Endorsements*

“Engaging and lucid,/Seeing Human Rights/offers a vital analysis of the 
institutions and collectives that mobilize video in the fight for human 
rights, tackling key issues of our times.”

/

Lisa Parks,

Distinguished Professor of Film and Media Studies, University of 
California, Santa Barbara

/


“Ristovska transforms an older conversation on humanitarianism and 
photography by investigating the uses and limits of video technologies 
for human rights campaigning. Her focus on attempts to mediate visually 
between activists and institutions is original and productive.”

/

Samuel Moyn,

Yale University; author of Not Enough: Human Rights in an Unequal World

/


“Ristovska has written a definitive book on how human rights activists 
use video technologies globally. As she closely examines experiences and 
tactics, she has produced a theoretically sophisticated and empirically 
rich analysis.”

/

Silvio Waisbord,

Director, School of Media and Public Affairs, George Washington 
University; coeditor of The Routledge Companion to Media and Human Rights

/


“Professor Sandra Ristovska's illuminating book about human rights video 
activism offers fresh interdisciplinary insights important across 
several fields, including law, human rights, political science, 
journalism, and information science.  Drawing on extensive original 
research,/Seeing Human Rights/offers a superb account of how networks of 
human rights activists and media players deploy video activism, creating 
new possibilities for human rights work and visual evidence. This vital 
book charts fresh pathways in human rights activism and appeals to 
scholars, activists, practitioners, and general readers from diverse 
domains.”

/

Mary D. Fan,

Jack R. MacDonald Endowed Chair in Law, University of Washington and 
author of Camera Power: Proof, Policing, Privacy, and Audiovisual Big Data

/



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