'In a global media age communications are pivotal in the mobilization of human rights around the world, especially when denied in atrocious acts of inhumanity. This timely, insightful book throws a critical spotlight on mediated suffering, its power and performance.'
Professor Simon Cottle, School of Journalism, Media and Cultural Studies, Cardiff University
'Tristan Anne Borer has done a great service for both academics and activists by summarizing research on the world's "failure to act" in the face of human rights atrocities. Case studies serve to illuminate when inaction has been a news production or an audience reception problem, and point out not only immensely valuable lessons for educators and NGOs, but needed arenas for future study.'
Professor Susan Moeller, Philip Merrill School of Journalism
'This is the book that scholars in the humanities and human rights have been waiting for. Together, its contributors push perennial questions about the relationship between violence and the image, between seeing and acting, and between the aspirations and the limits of cosmopolitanism to new levels of understanding. Theoretically sophisticated and historically substantial, the eminently readable essays in this volume employ impeccable close readings and analysis, case studies, and empirical evidence to advance powerful conclusions regarding the role of the media and cultural texts in struggles for recognition of global suffering and, alternatively, for building cultures of human rights.'
Elizabeth Swanson Goldberg, associate professor, Babson College, Massachusetts