Lack of Agenda Setting by the Media in Human Trafficking

Some of the primary causes of the multitude of ills

Such as poverty, war, and discrimination, are not effectively addressed even as communities and governments continue to cope with them. People are routinely denied their basic human rights by the state, their neighborhoods, and their own houses. One of the heinous crimes that has recently risen to the top of the list of human rights breaches is the practice of buying and selling individuals for financial gain, or “human trafficking” (Martinelli, 2012). Slavery in the modern day manifests itself in a variety of ways, including forced labor, bonded labor, and human trafficking. Despite the fact that this company is not new, the lack of paperwork keeps it out of the spotlight; the media are often citing an organized crime syndicate that is difficult to penetrate and establish. According to Martinelli (2012), human trafficking business is becoming legitimate as it turns licensed labor recruiters. Therefore, this paper will explore the United States human trafficking policy, and media failure to cover human trafficking effectively. This understanding is essential in establishing the need and new methods towards preventing human trafficking.

Literature Review

Human Trafficking Policy in the U.S.

Globalization, poverty, corrupt governments and growth of commercial sex industry, as business leaders seek to exploit such opportunities for profits contribute to the modern-day slavery in the United States (Meriläinen & Vos, 2015). In the recent decades, there has been an increasing concern about trafficking from various actors. However, the majority of the public remain unaware of the problem, suggesting lack of adequate information. These represent media’s failure to inform the public. However, several studies are focusing on the media failure than unraveling the underlining causes and offering solutions.

Meriläinen & Vos (2015), examined U.S governments efforts to solve the problem

By which led to the introduction of Trafficking Victims Protection Act in October 2000. Despite the law intended to tackle sex trafficking and involuntary servitude for labor and service, it also offers to pledge of support to other countries affected towards preventing and helping victims of trafficking start a new life. However, there is a disconnection between the policymakers, law enforcement agencies, and NGOs towards prioritizing the goals of the law as individuals tend to lean on their interests thus hindering the implementation of the act. The research also eludes to limited media involvement, hence public exclusion in the formulation of laws.

Snow (2017) eludes that anti-trafficking movement continues to experience numerous challenges

Due to lack of state and local government involvement as well as insufficient focus on rehabilitating the victims. The government focus should be on media involvement in policy making and connection with law enforcement agencies. According to Snow (2017), one side argues that law fall short on provisions criminalizing trafficking activities hence should focus on specialized training of the police force on the handling of the trafficking activities. The other camp argument is for the law to be more victim-centered and a model that would protect victims.

Sex Trading Industry

The history of human trafficking in the United States dates back to 1900s, when Americans shipped Chinese workers for purposes of slavery, but subsequently sold Chinese women due to their sexual appeal. This situation led to full acceptance of prostitution from the 19th century as a sexual outlet for laborers and military men in metropolitan and colonial areas (Martinelli, 2012). The subsequent result is trafficking more women to fill brothels. Analysis by Martinelli (2012) provides an insight into the pattern of media’s failure to report the problem to the public. First, women choose to venture into prostitution as career hence little attention. Secondly, women are perceived as men property and do not have absolute rights in social matters majorly in developing countries. Therefore, women continue to suffer victimization and discrimination in the hands of their male counterparts. The recent focus of the media to unravel this menace in the society is a concerted effort of a few individuals who show the need to share their experiences.

Media and Agenda Setting Theory

Most of the U.S. citizen is depending on the press for information concerning national issues. American Citizens who are looking up for the television, internet blogs, newspapers and magazines to access information on wars, political elections, natural disaster, and sporting events. These events occur in areas they cannot directly access, thereby directly influencing the viewers in answering the questions on how, why and when (Meriläinen & Vos, 2015). Media freedom in deciding what information comes first directly correlates to what is essential to the public as witnessed during the election periods. Therefore, when the media fails to put much focus on human trafficking the general public does not perceive the crime to be serious and frequently committed.

According to Meriläinen and Vos (2015)

Media is known to be fair and balanced existing in a culture of objectivity. However, they face some problematic factors influencing the principles to which they are built hence often affecting the decisions individual news companies make. Probably, this might be the reason why volatile issues receive little attention from the mainstream media outlets. To many people, media remains the sole source of information. As denoted in media dependency theory, if individuals depend on media every day for news they become media dependent since media has access to different types of information. Based on this principle, individuals from the United States is unlikely to learn about genocide in Rwanda unless it is presented in the newspaper or watch a special on television. Unfortunately, most of these issues do not gain enough attention to reach these levels.

Scholars elude that when covering social justice issues in media there tend to be a massive focus on traditional and bureaucratic sources over others. It is noted that reporters tend to be reluctant and at times avoid any issues liked by people in power often citing public reaction when such information is published (Meriläinen & Vos, 2015). Therefore, it suggests that media is likely to be provided by the report from the government and corporate. However, the media approach to such information must conform to the institution demand providing the source with enough time to manipulate the data for their good. The result of such manipulation is that the public is treated to other people’s interest.

Media Presentation of Human Trafficking

Gardner et al. (2015) in their study about public-media perception in regards to the presentation of human trafficking and smuggling, they found that the majority of the public could not tell the difference. The public cites media and lawmakers using these two terms interchangeably. According to Gardner et al. (2015), smuggling occurs when those involve having an agreement in most cases at a fee to help one another cross an international border unnoticed and without required documents while trafficking entails the use of force, fraud for the sole purpose of exploitation.

These stories manifest through mainstream and informal media outlets; however, they fail to communicate the severity or the complexity of the problem. Though the recent media interest in such stories over the decade is noticeable, most accounts are tied to only prostitution and human smuggling. In 2004, a survey into the U.S. media coverage of human trafficking revealed (Gardner et al. 2015). That news outlets provided little coverage on human traffic compared to other crimes like drug smuggling. Moreover, when such events were covered by the media, the information was scattered, and not solution focused becoming of no relevance to the American people.

Even the press continues to marginalize victims of human trafficking in their news publication. More often than not, news journalist has to convince an editorial panel about the newsworthiness for it to be published. For example, Martinelli (2012) argues that unplanned events like a boat carrying people being smuggled into the U.S sink off the coast of Florida. It is likely to be published since it is an unfortunate event. However, if everyone onboard survives, the regrettable happening will lose worthiness and is unlikely to get any attention from the editorial staff. Therefore, the public does not get to know about the victims.

Research studies suggest a general public concern of media’s failure to cover the problem of human trafficking as the majority does not have knowledge and impact of the problem to the society. However, this situation might not represent the perception of the media and government concerning media representation of the issue.

Gardner et al. (2015), examined representation both by the media and legislation.

The research found that there is limited representation by legislative provisions affecting women and children, who are assumed to be the most affected by trafficking activities. Secondly, there is a continued victimization against women, who participate in sex willingly or unwillingly, hence reducing their autonomy. In most instances, women, notably, those from developing countries, are perceived to lack the agency to fight for reasonable solutions to end the structural problem in society. Moreover, they are presented with limited opportunities, hence cannot even work towards social equalities.

Methodology

The purpose of this paper is to analyze how the media has failed to set an agenda to cover human trafficking, by focusing on the work of two news mainstreams organizations in the United States, namely, New York Times and CNN. These actors were chosen due to their international reputation in news and events coverage. Though not actively involved in the investigation of human trafficking, the two organizations are known for current coverage of crimes against humanity. The research questions these data addresses are:

1) What is the definition of human trafficking by the two actors in their presentation?

2) In what context is trafficking discussed by the two organizations?

Since agenda-setting theory focuses on the frequency and trend of information dissemination, the number of video clips on the CNN website can provide insight if media is as powerful as researchers elude. Scholars elude that television news imminently impacts the viewers compared to written articles (Martinelli, 2012). Suggesting that there should be more focus on producing video clips. Additionally, Martinelli chose to analyze the New York Times website for articles written about human trafficking Newspaper and article reader treat first-page stories as most important of the agency to the society. Human trafficking stories can be published on trafficked web pages to receive extensive publicity. To obtain the data, Martinelli (2012) searches for ”human trafficking” in the webpage bar of the two organizations, narrowing down to ”sex trafficking” before comparing with search results from ”drug trafficking.”

Results

The findings on the two organizations present how human trafficking is framed and discussed and submitted by to the public giving an insight into the attempts to create awareness and challenges.

Marginalization through Misrepresentation

New York Times: The organization has continuously reported on the issue of human trafficking from the many documents published on their webpage but not extensively compared to other crimes like drug trafficking. Moreover, the most critical finding of the survey is that human trafficking is never presented as an independent agenda. More often than not, it is discussed in connection with other crimes, such as prostitution, kidnapping, labor violation, and other social problems (Martinelli, 2012). Women and children contribute the most significant number due to the exploitation of sexual slavery and labor. Additionally, the analysis reveals that there is an increasing human trafficking due to an emerging global organ trade.

In the context of their representation, the organization focuses on reader attraction than reporting the real issue in question. Different articles saying on the same subject are likely to rely on the global perspective of stereotypes as a means of drawing the reader’s attention. Moreover, the news headline indicates that most of the stories are covered only in cases of unplanned events and not as planned investigations (Martinelli, 2012). Therefore, the newspaper is relatively not addressing the issue as its readers may like to get more opinion on the subject.

Figure 1 Types of sex trafficking stories on the NYT website (Martinelli, 2012).

CNN Videos: According to Martinelli (2012), analysis of the video clips found at CNN websites produces a total of 68 videos from the year 2005 with only 22 clips dedicated to sex trafficking alone and 39 clips covering human trafficking for the past seven years in the United States. The clips focus on victims’ personal stories and documentaries (Martinelli, 2012). However, in their representation, the organization represented the public in connection with other crimes in the industry like labor violation and rarely sex trafficking appearing in the headlines alone. To create awareness the group through a new program called Freedom Project, post a weekly video addressing human trafficking in the global society. However, before 2012, the problem would only appear in the news headline if there were significant and unlikely event occurrence.

Figure 2 Sex trafficking in the CNN website coverage of in the U.S. (Martinelli, 2012)

Discussion

Failure to Inform the Public

Martinelli (2012) suggests that media has the potential to provide secure and accessible information to the public in various forms like movies, newspapers, and print media. For instance, studies reveal that most Americans learn about human trafficking through media services like television and movie reports, suggesting that media influences government decisions and actions. However, it was only in the recent past that the press shifted their focus on human trafficking in the U.S. and the international scene. Despite this attention, the media continue to fail in letting the public and justice systems take this issue with the seriousness it deserves.

The public has a general perception that important news comes first, in television it should start the news headlines, while in printed formats like newspapers it should be on the first page. However, the media often fails to take such direction. In most occasions, when such stories are published in papers, they are not on the first page, hence unnoticed if the reader is not keen on issues like that, while on television they are featured towards the end of the news. Moreover, these stories are usually in connection with other stories, such as forced labor and drug abuse, but not just addressing sex trafficking resulting in a broad aspect and more information for readers to interpret and make a conclusion.

Impact of Misrepresentation

The framing of trafficked persons by the media has left a high perception in the general public and justice systems towards victims. Literature analysis reveals media often display distorted images of victims, a concept that has since been accepted by society as white female victimization. Moreover, it is a general belief among people that human trafficking involves illegal female immigrants. Therefore, it becomes a challenge to both justice actors like the government through the police and political leaders to use such distorted images to make a decision even though human trafficking victims face more and complex experiences often not captured in the perception (Gardner, Glickstein & Mason, 2015). A study reveals that when the justice system is confronted by a victim who does not resemble the constructed ideal human trafficking victim, the police officers, prosecutors, and judges are always reluctant to treat these individuals as victims.

Attempts by media to remain blemish before governments and political leaders, who can have a severe negative influence on their products, continue to affect coverage and presentation of information about human trafficking. As witnessed in countries, political leaders have asked their supporters to avoid particular media outlets from specific companies. Several stories of victims remain in the dark due to the involvement of some influential individuals in various states, while in developing democracies journalist are under the constant threat of covering specific stories. Even as thousands continue to suffer and journalists cover these stories, the decision for such stories to be passed to the public remains in the hands of a few individuals in the editorial room.

Conclusion

Human trafficking business has been in practice for centuries. However, the increasing influence of communication in globalization and raising issues of corruption continue to promote the booming of the market. Attempts by the media to create awareness of the emerging menace continue to fail due to various challenges like interest conflicts between the media and the actors. Ethics and gender roles come into question as some women claim to be professional sex workers, creating confusion in the justice system between victimization and volunteering, therefore, lack of media attention. Moreover, the media continue to present the issue together with other major societal problems, such as drug smuggling, that often receive more focus than human trafficking. Unless there is a connection between legislatures, actors, and the media, human trafficking remains a problem.

References

Gardner, B.G., Glickstein, B., & Mason, D.J. (2016). Using the power of media to influence health policy and politics. In D.J. Mason, D.B. Gardner, F.H. Outlaw, & E.T. O’Grady (Eds.) Policy & Politics in Nursing and Health Care (pp. 120-135). St. Louis, MO: Elsevier.

Martinelli, D. (2012). US media’s failure to set the agenda for covering sex trafficking. Elon Journal of Undergraduate Research in Communications, 3(2), 102-112.

Meriläinen, N., & Vos, M. (2015). Public discourse on human trafficking in international issue arenas. Societies, 5(1), 14-42.

Snow, J. (2017). A content analysis on the internet news media and the growth of human trafficking. Doctoral dissertation. Pittsburgh, PA: Point Park University.