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Exiled Journalists as Active Agents of Change: Understanding Their Journalistic Practices
Abstract
The author fills a vacuum that exists in research into journalistic practices and principles of exiled journalists. He first explores the professional norms of exiled journalists by discussing their motivations and conceptions of professional standards, and touches on the concepts of Peace Journalism and Human Rights Journalism. He later explores the role of a group of exiled journalists from Sri Lanka, Journalists for Democracy in Sri Lanka, in instigating the island’s accountability and justice process, and sheds light on how they intervened to establish international pressure on issues surrounding human rights violations and mass atrocities, in a manner to identify the type of journalistic model that inspires and guides them. Using ethnography and interviews he identifies three principal themes: (1) Diagnostic and Proactive Approach; (2) Triple Win Approach; and (3) Justice, Accountability and Advocacy.
... While the phenomenon of journalists seeking protection away from their home countries is not a novel occurrence (see Burrows 2000), recent trends indicate a significant escalation in its frequency. Indeed, the exodus of journalists into exile is inextricably linked to the alarming spike in their killings (Balasundaram 2019). According to the latest report by the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) (Dunham 2023), "journalist killings in 2022 rose nearly 50% globally amid lawlessness and war." ...
... However, diaspora journalists challenge and expand some of these traditional role paradigms by serving as "active agents of change" (Balasundaram 2019). For example, Porlezza andArafat (2022, 1884) proposed four novel roles of exile journalists in promoting news safety: (a) sousveillance (e.g., monitoring and documenting violations against reporters by regime forces and armed opposition factions), (b) defender (e.g., acting as lobbyists, relief workers, and fundraisers to defend, rescue, and support local journalists), (c) trainer (e.g., capacity building by offering training programmes), and (d) regulator/ policy developer (e.g., establishing codes of conduct and safety guides to regulate the media work and protect local and diaspora journalists' rights). ...
... Lastly, we move to answer RQ3. Recall the domains of journalistic roles identified by Mellado (2020) and their extensions (Balasundaram 2019;Porlezza and Arafat 2022); our results suggest that diaspora journalists perceive a combination of these distinct roles. However, we found that the audience approach is the starkest domain of role perception expressed by the interviewees. ...
The escalating dangers journalists face globally have led to a marked increase in media professionals seeking safety away from their home countries. As a result, journalists are increasingly forced to choose between silence and survival, with many opting for the latter in the form of diaspora relocation. This article investigates the role of kinship in community building among diaspora journalists, highlighting how these networks impact their collaboration and resource mobilisation. Drawing from interviews (n = 12) with reporters and editors from Latin America, Hong Kong, and the Middle East, this article examines diaspora journalists’ changing roles and proactive measures in establishing inclusive information and educational infrastructures, enhancing advocacy and empowerment for their communities. Findings demonstrate how journalists leverage kinship to connect with their audiences and guide their journalistic practices, editorial choices, and technological adoption. Findings further revealed that the role of diaspora journalists is evolving into one characterised by what this article terms “civic information workers.” These civic information workers are not only reporters but also intermediaries who provide vital data and insights that facilitate the everyday life and integration of diaspora communities into new societies, thus using journalism as a tool for civic empowerment.
... Diaspora journalism refers to "the collective, organized, sometimes individual, sporadic practices, of diasporic subjects to purposively engage in activities of news and information gathering and dissemination as a tool for self-expression and for engaging in the socio-political and cultural interests of self, and of community, in the contexts of their homeland and host country" (Oyeleye 2017, 24). Empowered by digital technologies, diaspora journalists use their new locations to continue their truth-telling mission, support the human rights initiatives, provide unfiltered independent news to local, diasporic, and international audiences, and de-westernize the representations of their homeland conflicts by diversifying the coverage perspectives (Balasundaram 2019;Kämpe 2017;Ogunyemi 2018). Literature on diaspora journalism has focused primarily on investigating the level of professionalism in exiled journalists' online media, their promotion of advocacy agendas through conflict reporting, as well as the digital and physical threats that influence their daily practice (e.g., Ahmed 2019;Skjerdal 2011;Ristow 2011;Wojcieszak, Brouillette, and Smith 2013). ...
... Diaspora journalists serve as human rights advocates with the power to influence the international media agendas and policy decision-makers and mobilize transnational processes of justice and accountability (Balasundaram 2019). Their transnational engagement in conflict mediation and resolution incorporates documenting arrests and violations and communicating the evidence of oppression and election irregularities to the international foreign media and broadcasting stations (Pidduck 2012) as well as promoting the "inside-out" and "outside-in" channeling of voices for democracy" (Zaw 2006, 237). ...
... First, it proposes new advocacy-driven functions of the journalists' online networks beyond their traditional roles in building journalists' social capital, disseminating and verifying information (Millen and Dray 2000;Vergeer 2015). Like Ethiopian, Iranian, Sri Lankan, and Burmese exiled journalists (Balasundaram 2019;Skjerdal 2011;Wojcieszak, Brouillette, and Smith 2013), Syrian diaspora journalists practice advocacy reporting by creating news websites to cover oppression and violations, maintain ties with local actors, and influence international media agendas. However, they took a further innovative step by developing online advocacy networks to serve as a virtual diasporic union for gathering exiled journalists and activists to perform collective action and promote a real-world change challenging the traditional journalistic roles reported in literature (Hanitzsch and Vos 2018). ...
Using digital ethnography and in-depth interviews, this study offers a comprehensive understanding of how diaspora journalists maintain connections with their conflict-torn homeland and advocate for transnational human rights and political reforms after fleeing its repressive political sphere. To this end, the paper examines how Syrian diaspora journalists engage in transnational advocacy practices through building digital networks that blur boundaries between journalism, activism, human rights advocacy, social movements, and civil society work. The paper further investigates how these advocacy practices shape the diaspora journalists’ perceptions of their roles as well as their understanding of the different political, economic, procedural, organizational, and professional factors that influence how they perform them. Findings demonstrate that diaspora advocacy journalism poses various challenges to traditional journalism paradigms as journalists’ roles go beyond news gathering and publishing to include petitioning, creating transnational solidarity, collaborating with civil society organizations, and carrying out various institutional work. In so doing, the paper rethinks hybridity in journalistic role perceptions proposing two unique approaches for serving democracy from exile. A novel definition of diaspora advocacy journalism and comprehensive discussion of the various sources of influence on news reporting and advocacy networking in the unique transnational conflict context are further proposed.
... It can also be used to diversify the voices in the public sphere. Scholars note that diaspora journalists, empowered by digital technologies, are using their new locations to continue their truth-telling mission, support the human rights initiatives, provide unfiltered independent news to local, diasporic, and international audiences, and de-westernize the representations of their homeland conflicts by diversifying the coverage perspectives (Balasundaram, 2019;Kämpe, 2017;Ogunyemi, 2018;Arafat, 2021). ...
... For example, Syrian diaspora journalists use their Facebook pages as a platform to promote homeland related advocacy and developing the independent Syrian media sector; connect the Syrian cause to international human rights movements; create transnational solidarity; document violations and threats against journalists; cooperate with local news websites to produce visual stories; update followers about the networks' regional and international meetings/conferences; and inform journalists about training programs, job vacancies, and grant competitions either organized by them or by third parties (Arafat, 2021). Hence, Balasundaram (2019) argues that when diaspora journalists collaborate in this way, they serve as human rights advocates with the power to influence the international media agendas and policy decision-makers and mobilize transnational processes of justice and accountability (ibid). ...
Governments and continental organizations are making policies to harness the potential of their diasporas for national developments. They are engaging with diaspora agencies and diasporic media to project their message and win support for diaspora development projects. However, diaspora journalism is limited by its orientation and connective roles and needs to adopt social responsibility principles to take advantage of this opportunity. However, doing that will make it susceptible to ideological and political influences from homeland governments. Adopting a scoping review, this chapter selectively focuses on the dynamic roles of diaspora journalism between 2000 and 2021 and attempts to offer a critical evaluation of some potentials and challenges of using it as collaboration platforms between the Global North and South.
... Previous scholars argued that networked media environment, empowered by social media and digital technologies, offer new opportunities for diaspora journalists to engage in conflict mediation and resolution in the homelands by serving as advocates for democratic reforms, supporting human rights initiatives, and documenting war crimes against civilians in their transnational news reporting (Balasundaram 2019;Kämpe 2017;Ogunyemi 2018). However, this study moves the discussion forward by explaining how diaspora journalists use their new locations to develop digital advocacy networks that serve as a "defense mechanism" through which they enact and activate counterstrategies and propose new practices that go beyond the traditional news gathering and reporting tasks. ...
Diaspora journalists and digital media play an important role as stakeholders for war-ridden homeland media landscapes such as Syria. This study analyzes, from a safety in practice perspective, the physical and digital threats that challenge the work of Syrian citizen journalists examining the role of three online advocacy networks created by Syrian diaspora journalists to promote newsafety. Through a metajournalistic discourse analysis of the networks’ published visions and missions, and 12 in-depth interviews with the founders and other selected members of the networks, the paper investigates how journalists working for these networks perceive threats, what counterstrategies they adopt, and how they understand the changing nature of their roles. Findings demonstrate that diaspora journalists perceived physical and digital threats as inescapable, following them across borders. Counterstrategies are implemented through collaborations with civil society actors and human rights organizations, aiming to offer professional safety training programs and emergency rescue for journalists under attack, but also through the release of safety guides or codes of conduct. Grounded on the findings, we propose four novel journalistic roles for promoting newsafety from exile: sousveillance, defender, trainer, and regulator/policy developer. While the networks follow some traditional journalistic ideologies, they also show a hybrid conceptualization of journalism.
This study examines the motivations, resilience and innovative contributions of exiled journalists from sub-Saharan Africa, focusing on those from the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Ethiopia, Eritrea, Kenya, Somalia, Uganda and Zimbabwe. It categorises these journalists into voluntary exiles, who leave due to a commitment to journalistic integrity and dissatisfaction with censorship and corruption, and involuntary exiles, who flee threats, violence or imprisonment linked to their investigative work. Through in-depth interviews with 32 exiled journalists, the study explores their adaptation strategies in host countries, their persistent motivations despite significant challenges and their use of new communication technologies and online platforms to bypass censorship. The findings underscore the essential role of exiled journalists in upholding press freedom and ethical reporting, emphasising their resilience and dedication despite considerable risks and sacrifices. These insights highlight the need for robust support systems, including increased funding, legal assistance and technological resources, to empower exiled journalists and ensure their continued contributions to global journalism.
Since the renewed outbreak of the ongoing crisis in Burundi in May 2015, triggering a media crackdown, over one-third of the country’s reporters have gone into exile. They therefore joined an increasing number of journalists worldwide who are forced into exile. Between 2015 and 2021, many of the exiled Burundian journalists continued reporting for newly founded exile media in neighbouring Rwanda. Before their forced closure in 2021, these exile media had established themselves as successful outlets providing the only independent information from an otherwise blacked-out country. Based on semi-structured interviews with 10 exiled Burundian journalists conducted in Rwanda in 2020, this article exemplifies how the condition of exile impacts journalistic practice and norms, and renegotiates ideas of media professionalism. It is shown how Burundian exiled journalists display a strong personal conscience as journalists highlighting the voice of the voiceless and attempting to separate activism from their journalism. At the same time, the findings identify the main struggles of Burundian exiled journalists in maintaining operational objectivity, which depends on funding, providing balanced reporting without access to official sources and conducting verification of information in the unattainable field. These challenges are in line with the findings of several other case studies with exiled journalists from different regions. Therefore, this article complements the rapidly growing body of literature on exile journalism with a Global South perspective, which to date is not well represented on the map of exile journalism that mostly features cases of exile in the Global North. Furthermore, this article shows that situating exile experiences within existing theories and frameworks of journalism presents limits as exile journalism, as in the Burundian case, is journalism ‘in another form’ with new practices and renegotiated standards of professionalism.
In 2015, many journalists left Burundi following the outbreak of violence caused by President Nkurunziza’s candidacy for a third presidential term. From abroad, several managed to continue their journalistic activities through social media. In this article, we present the findings of a study conducted among fifteen Burundian exiled journalists in Belgium supported by the association Ensemble-Groupe d’Aide aux Journalistes Exilés (En-GAJE). We observe how journalists understand and manage the emotions provoked by exposure to social media content in exile, and we analyse their knowledge of and attitude towards post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and secondary traumatic stress (STS). Our study highlights that while emotions are acknowledged by Burundian exiled journalists, emotional detachment remains a professional principle of reference for them; avoiding inactivity results to be the main coping strategy used to deal with work-related emotions and possible trauma, and this allows them to maintain their journalistic identity and authority on social media.
By presenting five studies on connected research questions, this cumulative dissertation develops a novel understanding of the concept of Hybrid Diasporic Public Sphere by examining how three groups of diasporic exiles, including journalists, activists, and ordinary refugees settled in democratic states, use digital media to engage in transnational conflicts and advocate for political and social change in their homelands. The study demonstrates that the roles of the three diasporic political actors are highly interactive, overlapping, and complementary and their digitally-empowered collaborations blur boundaries between their normative role distinctions creating new interchanging political logics, norms, and practices. The novel contribution of this thesis lies at three levels. First, it redefines diaspora journalism in conflict contexts by examining the Syrian journalists’ media advocacy strategies and digital networks that blend activism, human rights advocacy, and social movements. Second, it further identifies five barriers to the digital diasporic political participation of ordinary refugees demonstrating new forms of democratic divides. Third, the study develops the concept of connected diaspora activist identifying the current challenges that undermine the potential of social media use for mobilizing a political change in non-revolutionary times. The dissertation employs four qualitative research methods including digital ethnography, content analysis, metajournalistic discourse analysis, and a total of 94 in-depth interviews.
The study of forced internal displacement (FID) frequently focuses on the personal effects of structural violence. However, the targeted victimization of members of risky occupations is less studied, neglecting the importance of professional factors in mediating people's experiences of displacement. Based on 20 in-depth interviews, this study uses a social-ecological approach to explore the challenges and experiences of journalists living under forced internal displacement in Mexico City, analyzing the multiple hardships journalists face in their resettlement processes at macro-structural, meso-professional, and micro-individual levels. Findings show that the most relevant aspects of the journalists’ experiences are family, economic and psychological concerns at the individual level; the partial or total disenfranchisement of journalistic practice, professional demotion and deskilling at the meso-level; and the general distrust of government programs at the structural level. We conclude that displaced journalists, already victimized by occupational violence, become even more vulnerable and suffer from specific profession-related hardships on top of the challenges that usually afflict displaced populations. Journalists suffer from unique and isolated forms of displacement. We call for more studies that explore the professional traits and conditions of victimized members of risky occupations to account for their overall experiences of displacement and resettlement.
The struggle to find resilient journalism revenue models is nowhere starker than for exiled or politically pressured news media operating in fragile markets. One route forward is to explore inter-firm collaborations as a modus operandi to achieve more financial resilience through a collaborative approach amongst themselves. This article presents findings from a multi-stakeholder atelier that assessed operational revenue conditions for such media. It presents a co-created definition of collaborative revenue capture, then addresses the conditions and forms for collaborative structures. It conceptualises opportunities in four areas: technology, revenue-based systems, coordinating actions and journalism production. The article adds new knowledge by assessing collaborations as a revenue strategy within the under-researched media development area through a participatory mode of inquiry.
This paper contributes to the ongoing debate on the precarization of journalistic work by looking at the case of Syrian exiled journalists in Turkey, whose professional and personal lifeworlds are underpinned by multiple layers of precarity. The article builds on data collected during a 3-month-long period of participant observations at the newsroom of Enab Baladi, a Syrian news outlet based in Istanbul, Turkey. It develops a relational notion of precarity through insights from the growing body of work on precarity in the journalistic field, as well as research on precarity and migration. It proposes a multidimensional understanding of the 'precarious newsroom' that takes into account the people, organization and place, as a way to map how different layers of precarity, and responses to them, are articulated, experienced and negotiated. Our research underlines the complex anatomy of the precarious newsroom as a paradoxical place and an amalgamation of precarity and agency.
This chapter articulates multimodal discourse analysis matrix integrated into the content analysis framework to analyse the extent to which the international newspapers exposed the issues of human rights within the Responsibility to Protect (R2P) framework, to construct interventionism in Sri Lanka. The overwhelming construction of the adventure typology of news stories in all the newspapers distances them from the aesthetic quality. The small quantity of emergency typology of news stories constructed by the newspapers largely contained ‘pamphleteering’ type, instead of philanthropy and sublimation. The low-level representation of the sublimation type of aesthetic quality caused by the lack of access to the war zone resulted in the severe undermining of the ability of the (emergency) typology of news stories to create cosmopolitan emotions and aesthetic impact. Space-time and agency analysis shows the lack of access to the war zone weakened the ability of the emergency typology of news stories to cause action within the R2P framework by establishing readers’ proximity to suffering.
Beware journalists in exile, warns Terje S. Skjerdal, a lecturer in journalism in both Norway and Ethiopia. He argues that journalists in the West are too willing to believe accounts from fellow journalists who have fled from oppressive regimes. Uncritical coverage of their stories risk being counterproductive, he argues. Drawing on his knowledge of Ethiopian media fugitives, he points to the fact that many could not be trusted and some were not, strictly speaking, journalists at all. He writes: "Perhaps the problem arises when journalists leave their professional objectivity behind and become activists." His central message: do the basics by checking your sources.
This study investigates the role of the diaspora online media as stakeholders in the transnational Ethiopian media landscape. Through content analysis of selected websites and interviews with editors, the research discusses how the sites relate to recognized journalistic ideals and how the editors view themselves in regard to journalistic professionalism. It is argued that the journalistic ideals of the diaspora media must be understood towards the particular political conditions in homeland Ethiopia. Highly politicized, the diaspora websites display a marked critical attitude towards the Ethiopian government through an activist journalism approach. The editors differ slightly among themselves in the perception of whether activist journalism is in conflict with ideal-type professional norms, but they justify the practice either because of the less than ideal conditions back home or because they maintain that the combination of activism and professionalism is a forward-looking journalism ideology. The online initiatives of the Ethiopian diaspora are found to prolong media contestations in the homeland as well as reinforcing an ideal-type professional journalism paradigm.
The previous articles (there were 2 before this 1) in this series discussed several methodological approaches commonly used by qualitative researchers in the health professions. This article focuses on another important qualitative methodology: ethnography. It provides background for those who will encounter this methodology in their reading rather than instructions for carrying out such research.
Ethnography is the study of social interactions, behaviours, and perceptions that occur within groups, teams, organisations, and communities. Its roots can be traced back to anthropological studies of small, rural (and often remote) societies that were undertaken in the early 1900s, when researchers such as Bronislaw Malinowski and Alfred Radcliffe-Brown participated in these societies over long periods and documented their social arrangements and belief systems. This approach was later adopted by members of the Chicago School of Sociology (for example, Everett Hughes, Robert Park, Louis Wirth) and applied to a variety of urban settings in their studies of social life.
The central aim of ethnography is to provide rich, holistic insights into people’s views and actions, as well as the nature (that is, sights, sounds) of the location they inhabit, through the collection of detailed observations and interviews. As Hammersley states, “The task [of ethnographers] is to document the culture, the perspectives and practices, of the people in these settings. The aim is to ‘get inside’ the way each group of people sees the world.”1 Box 1 outlines the key features of ethnographic research.
#### Box 1 Key features of ethnographic research2
Human rights journalism is often associated with the reporting of human rights abuses, especially against the victims of political violence, and sometimes with freedom of expression, also a fundamental human right, which is enjoyed, denied or abused by journalists. While these two conceptualisations of human rights journalism are equally important, it is the third one, journalism for all human beings, regardless of race, nationality, race, gender or geographical location, that is the most important — and hence the focus of this book. Nevertheless, the first two conceptualisations of human rights journalism — free speech and reporting human rights conditions (good or bad) — are also very important as they are indispensable to the realisation of the third conceptualisation of achieving journalism for all. Moreover, the first two conceptualisations demonstrate the extent to which journalism or mass media are connected to human rights. The mass media-human rights nexus involves two different yet overlapping elements: first, the existence of independent and free media to communicate information to citizens, make them aware of certain human rights and claim them; and, second, the extent to which media organisations report on human rights situations such as cases of violation or protection. A country is generally said to respect and protect its people’s human rights if it allows the two elements of the mass media and human rights nexus: free press and the unhindered reporting of human rights conditions (Caliendo, 2009).
Business Journalism: A Critical Political Economy Approach critically explores the failures of business journalists in striking the balance between the bottom line business model and their role in defending the public interest. Drawing on historical and political economic perspectives and analysing these in relation to critical political economic theory, the book explores failures of business journalism through the dwindling of social responsibility in the business journalist's role in holding political and corporate power to account. Ibrahim Seaga Shaw draws on a diverse range of case studies, including. Investigative journalism in The Standard Oil and Enron Scandals. Corporate propaganda in relation to business reporting. Financial Journalism and the global financial crises of the late-90s and 2008. Public business journalism and subprime mortgage loans, horsemeat and bent iPhone 6 scandals. Ethical challenges of business and journalism from developed to emerging BRICS economies. Business or financial journalism? Modernity vs postmodernity, macroeconomics vs microeconomics. challenges of business journalism in the digital age. Business Journalism: A Critical Political Economy Approach is essential reading for students and scholars interested in understanding the historical failings and potential futures for business journalism and those wishing to develop specialist financial, economic and business reporting in today's globalised media landscape.
This article explores how the Zimbabwean station SW Radio Africa operates as an exile radio station in London. In contrast to most diasporic media, SW Radio Africa broadcasts from the diaspora back into the homeland via the shortwave. This article demonstrates how the station's journalists
combine old media such as radio with the use of new media technologies like mobile phones and the Internet in order to reach both new and existing audiences in Zimbabwe and in the diaspora. The article highlights the range of constraints that SW Radio Africa staff members face in their daily
work, including safety, threats, dependency on donor funding and challenges in consulting official government and opposition sources. It argues that SW Radio Africa journalists describe their own role in the context of the crisis as both journalist and activist. Their personal involvement
in the Zimbabwean crisis makes them feel part of an ongoing struggle that they cannot and do not want to abandon until independent media can operate freely from Zimbabwe.
News coverage of human rights is important for education, the protection of rights, and the development of foreign policy. The relationship between the media and human rights makes it essential to know how human rights are reported by the media. Previous studies on news coverage of human rights have examined only the amount of coverage, not its content. This study analyzes human rights coverage in the New York Times, Time magazine, and the CBS Evening News for a ten-year period, 1978-1987. An examination of the different indexes determined what rights and which countries received media attention. I found that the three news outlets present a similar view of human rights, focusing on civil and political rights; there is very little attention given to economic, social, and cultural rights. Geographical coverage focuses on a small number of countries primarily in two regions, Eastern Europe and Latin America.
Interviewed by Balasundaram
- S Balasooriya
Interviewed by Balasundaram
- F Harrison
Day of Reckoning in Sri Lanka. The International Crisis Group
- R Templar
Interviewed by: Balasundaram
- C Macrae
Media Freedom in Post War Sri Lanka and Its Impact on the Reconciliation Process
- S Natarajan
You Are Either with Us or Against Us
- S Patranobis
Sri Lankan Killing Video ‘Authentic’ Says UN Investigator
- M Vincent
The Structure of Foreign News: The Presentation of the Congo, Cuba and Cyprus Crises in Four Norwegian Newspapers
- J Galtung
- M Ruge
Independent Media in Exile: A Report to the Center for International Media Assistance. The Center for International Media Assistance (CIMA)
- B Ristow
On the Role of the Media in Worldwide Security and Peace
- J Galtung
New Army Chief a Blow to Justice
- Lanka Sri
Interviewed by Balasundaram
- A Vithanage