The literature on disasters mainly focuses on natural disasters and looks at their coverage by the media. The paper argues that armed conflicts are also disasters and that Western relief agencies intervening in natura...The literature on disasters mainly focuses on natural disasters and looks at their coverage by the media. The paper argues that armed conflicts are also disasters and that Western relief agencies intervening in natural disasters and conflict are also proactive communicators. Taking a different approach from much of the available research, it explores agencies＇ communication work in these two types of crises and analyses the differences, challenges and dilemmas that they face in communicating their humanitarianism. It outlines the distinguished inherent characteristics of natural disasters and conflicts, and examines their impact on the understanding of the crises, the perception of affected populations, and the implementation of agencies＇ actions. It also investigates how, in turn, all these features influence agencies＇ communication practices that in natural disasters emergencies and conflict-related crises perform a different role and show different parameters. In this sense, the paper distinguishes between ＂humanitarian communication＂ to refer to the former, and ＂humanitarian advocacy＂ to refer to the latter. The paper briefly explores the operational challenges engendered by the contested interpretations of humanitarian advocacy, shows that the use of the parameters of humanitarian communication in conflict-related crises to overcome these problems caused additional concern, and presents two forms of humanitarian advocacy engendering less challenges and dilemmas.展开更多
文摘The literature on disasters mainly focuses on natural disasters and looks at their coverage by the media. The paper argues that armed conflicts are also disasters and that Western relief agencies intervening in natural disasters and conflict are also proactive communicators. Taking a different approach from much of the available research, it explores agencies＇ communication work in these two types of crises and analyses the differences, challenges and dilemmas that they face in communicating their humanitarianism. It outlines the distinguished inherent characteristics of natural disasters and conflicts, and examines their impact on the understanding of the crises, the perception of affected populations, and the implementation of agencies＇ actions. It also investigates how, in turn, all these features influence agencies＇ communication practices that in natural disasters emergencies and conflict-related crises perform a different role and show different parameters. In this sense, the paper distinguishes between ＂humanitarian communication＂ to refer to the former, and ＂humanitarian advocacy＂ to refer to the latter. The paper briefly explores the operational challenges engendered by the contested interpretations of humanitarian advocacy, shows that the use of the parameters of humanitarian communication in conflict-related crises to overcome these problems caused additional concern, and presents two forms of humanitarian advocacy engendering less challenges and dilemmas.
