Media Framing of Human Trafficking - Case Study Example

REPRESENTATION AND ADVOCACY OF MEDIA By Name Course Instructor Institution City/State Date Media Framing of Human Trafficking Introduction The competing representations of human trafficking within the media have brought about an uncertainty regarding how the audience as well as the public at large perceive human trafficking. This essay seeks to demonstrate how media has turned out to be part of the soiled system with the naturalised practices of social actors, perpetuating unawareness with regard to the problem of human trafficking towards the general public. Basically, news coverage of human trafficking has recently expanded. With the view to the reciprocal and dynamic relationship between policy-making, public perceptions, and news media, it is crucial to document the information content as conveyed to the public. This case study focuses on Nicholas Kristof’s an article “She Has a Pimp's Name Etched on her”, which talks about a young girl called Taz who was coerced into prostitution. In the article, the author narrates the details of how girls were being victimised into horror-invoking detail and utilise the article to advocate for improved anti-trafficking laws enforcement. As it will be evidenced in the essay, framing theory has become valuable in analysing the interaction between consumer as well as media. Furthermore, framing involves developing a perspective on purpose or by mistake with the intention of shaping how the audience interprets a certain problem, issue or event. The media has incessantly covered attempts by government to halt the trafficking problems through various practices such as legislation. Furthermore, the human trafficking coverage by media has mostly been framed as a crime, covered regularly rather than thematically. The majority of media have presented trafficking as an issue associated with organised crime, migration, as well as prostitution. For that reason, the media normally portray just a few aspects related to human trafficking and miss out on the major issues linked to trafficking like globalisation, inadequate opportunities and poverty. Case Study - The Story of Taz and other Girls Pimps are akin to ranchers who brand their cattle since they also brand girls and women they control in different parts of America. In Kristof’s opinion editorial, she talks about a young girl aged 16 years known as Taz who live in the New York City. Taz told Kristof’s that together with other three girls she had a tattoo bearing her pimp’s name. Initially, Taz had refused the tattoo; therefore, her pimp grabbed her hand and used a safety pin to carve his name on her back. Clearly, this type of branding is weird but very common. Many news outlets have recently covered various stories related to forceful tattooing on women, especially prostitutes. Many men are taking advantage of marginalised groups to tattoo their names on women as a symbol of owning them. Many victims of sex trafficking have names of their pimps inscribed in their body to demonstrate that they are owned liked a property and are for sale. The majority of prostitutes have been portrayed in the media as criminals, but this notion has started changing since the media has started realising that the majority of women selling themselves on the streets are victims of sex trafficking. This has consequently led to the passing of various laws associated with human trafficking. Pimps are nowadays the main targets of police and prosecutors. But still, the progress to reduce human trafficking has been derailed by classified advertising Web sites such as Backpage.com which are dominant in the sex trafficking industry. Many people are calling for Backpage owner, Village Voice Media to terminate its links to human and sex trafficking. Taz mentioned to Kristof that the majority of her ‘dates’ came from the Backpage (Kristof, 2012). Taz told Kristof that she eloped from home while aged 14 years and ultimately ended up in his aggressive pimp who marketed her on the Backpage. Many people still believe that prostitutes are in that line of business willingly, but many of them are like Taz are forced to do so by their pimps. Taz mentioned to Kristof that her pimp had other girls who were given daily quota that they should earn and failure to achieve the quota would result in thorough beatings. When a sex slave is caught trying to run away, she would be choked or drowned. At one time, Taz tried to call the police, but her pimp hit her over the head using a glass bottle. Taz became a defiant prostitute who hated the police. After she was saved from her pimp, Kristof writes that she has become an ambitious and smart girl with stunning potential. Analysis Kristof’s article which was published in The New York Times has not defined sex/human trafficking for the readers and has not questioned the official claims concerning the problem magnitude. Although lacking the definitional rigour could be attributed to the belief that the readers understand what sex/human trafficking is all about, the article has not tried to quantify the problem or to question popular claims regarding its scope. The newspaper’s article clearly supports the existing anti-trafficking policies and exhibits how comprehensively the press has embraced the dominant discourse to the level that there subsists reciprocal effect between official constructions and media representations of the human trafficking issue. This includes a media reporting feedback effect on government practices towards making and enforcing policies. Such findings are crucial since they enable the public to understand human trafficking through the media and also to know how the government is prioritising different aspects related to the problem and committing resources to nongovernmental organisations and government agencies to combat human trafficking. That is to say, the media constructions as evidenced in Kristof’s article could enormously influence resource allocation, public policy, as well as enforcement practices. Without a doubt, human trafficking has gained a high prominence in media, especially the newspapers. Framing is the process of how policymakers and politicians relay their messages with the aim of attracting media attention and putting a suitable face on the events, how messages are constructed by journalists under professional values and organisational guidelines, as well as how the message is interpreted by the audience members. For that reason, framing in news media is influenced not just by editors and journalists but also individuals offering the news media the needed information, like interest groups and policy makers. The journalists together with their sources normally decide about the type of information they would communicate to the targeted audience as well as which information interpretations to include. With the view to Kristof’s article, unlike straight news reporting where a single “authority” may be the sole source, Kristof writes the story of Taz in response to numerous actions taken by the official government to reduce human trafficking in America. Clearly, the article serves to support the official trafficking frames, since the author relied heavily on the government sources. Kristof’s story focuses exclusively on sex trafficking, especially on minors. The newspaper’s article portrayals of sex slaves are closely aligned with assumptions that the government officials and politicians make. Kristof has employed a ‘hierarchy of victimhood’ whereby he portrays Taz as less deserving of being considered as a victim since she was reluctant to report her situation to the police and somehow liked his pimp. The author mentions that Taz eloped from her home at the age of 14 years; therefore, he creates an insinuation that Taz was willing to be smuggled. The media has continually portrayed sex trafficking victims as vulnerable and very weak since they are being trafficked by an indistinguishable, treacherous criminal. The victimhood constructions have overlooked the agency of women who decide to move from their country for work. Combining such constructs with the fact that the main principal victimisers are men leads to an agenda which fundamentally overlook the male victims and female perpetrators of trafficking. The media framings which concentrates on the use of force as well as the worst victimisation cases do not depict the experiences complexity of people who have decided to migrate in search of greener pastures and obscure the migration possible opportunities by indicating the people are at an advantage remaining in their homes rather than risking abuse every time they leave. Furthermore, the way victims are portrayed in the media could potentially obstruct efforts by law enforcement to identify individuals that have been trafficked, given that the majority of the victims like Taz originally left their homes voluntarily but later found themselves at the hands of pimps. Human trafficking, as pointed out by Wallinger (2010) takes many forms like forced marriage, contract slavery, debt bondage, chattel slavery, and all that. The majority of media representations present trafficking as an issue associated with prostitution, organised crime and immigration. For that reason, the media normally portray only a few aspects of human trafficking and neglect major issues related to trafficking like lack of opportunity, globalisation, and poverty. As Kristof (2012) article, the news coverage and media plays a crucial part in raising awareness as well as making the public understand the nature and the extent of human trafficking.  When the media does not adequately cover the human trafficking issue, the public would less likely form opinions regarding the issue. Lack of sufficient information regarding the issue can lead to the reduction of the resources needed to combat human trafficking. As a result, the victims of trafficking like Taz would have less hope of overcoming the domineering system that led them to the path of exploitation.  Wallinger (2010) believes that more informative and greater reporting in different media outlets would facilitate the combating of the problem as well as the protection of the victims. Media’s representation of human trafficking offers the public a distorted view regarding the problem. Given that human trafficking normally happens in the underground world, it is exceedingly challenging for the journalists to report adequately. Kristof was lucky to get first-hand accounts from Taz, which consequently, enabled him to cover the story entirely factually and objectively. Framing theory is an important tool for examining the interaction between media and consumer. Framing, as mentioned earlier, involves perspective deliberately or unintentionally constructed to shape the audience interpretation with regard to the issue or event (Borer, 2015). The media framing theory, according to Borer (2015), demonstrates that media has the power to influence the public ideas as well as beliefs with regard to issues through the information presented. Borer (2015) established that media have been unsuccessful to discuss about the factors that would enable the government agencies to easily gain access to the trafficking victims like Taz. Besides that, the media has not conceptualised the social factors which make people to become human trafficking victims. As pointed out earlier, the public learns through media about sporting events, wars, political elections, natural disasters, and so forth. In view of this, it is clear that the media has the power to influence what is learned by the public (Wallinger, 2010). Normally, the media utilise certain images, phrases, or words to offer a shorthand understanding of a certain issue, which creates a standpoint through which future actions associated with that issue could be judged. Framing theory could be very valuable in determining the predominant values as well actualizing them in policy. With the view to Kristof’s article, it is clear that when a crime is the major frame, the information sources are normally from government officials or law enforcement agencies. There are internal as well as external factors which have an effect on media framing. They include social values and norms, organisational constraint and pressure, journalists’ political or ideological orientations, interest groups’ pressures, as well as journalist routine. In Bekur, Kiros (2015) established that trafficking was featured less. Media coverage of sex and human trafficking stories, according to Kiros (2015), was merely minimal while those that were covered failed to take the headlines since they were dominantly on the inside pages. Clearly, choosing frame is normally influenced not just by prejudice but also ideology. But the media representations on sex and human trafficking demonstrate bias so far as gender-related issues are concerned. Although media plays a crucial role in constructing trafficking meanings, Pajnik (2010) posit that they have barely participated in the institutional framing study of human trafficking. Pajnik (2010) while examining the processes that make meaning around trafficking through utilisation of Slovene press established that the anti-trafficking paradigm was shaped in the ‘frames’ of victimisation, nationalisation, regularisation, and criminalisation. Pajnik (2010) further observed that the Slovene press covered human trafficking merely and did not exceed the shallow level. The media has incessantly covered the efforts by governments to bring the trafficking menace to an end through legislation practices. According to Sobel (2014), the media barely suggest remedies that would help solve the human trafficking problem but instead place much emphasis on the opinions from official sources. The media, without a definition that is commonly accepted, can decide how to characterise human trafficking: how the problem would be defined, how the causes would be diagnosed and would suggest remedies. Such components comprise the elements of frames. In Taz story, Kristof has made the aspects of pimps more accessible; for that reason, it would likely be utilised in the individual’s judgment-making process. The frames in Taz story offer the audiences with a straightforward way of processing information through schema, mental filters in order to fathom the message. Sobel (2016) asserts that media coverage normally depends on official sources and normally refers to criminal activities as the basis of human trafficking. Following the launching of large-scale anti-trafficking initiative, news media in states such as Thailand, the U.S. and India have started increasing their coverage to facilitate the voicing the victims’ predicament. Davis (2017) established that the artwork that survivors create with regard to human trafficking and displaying them to the public through media or anti-trafficking organisations exhibits allow for the healing processes. The media using the survivors’ artworks to create awareness should understand that the survivors can heal faster when they are allowed to share their experiences with the public. Whereas Kristof has used an interview to promote awareness, artwork exhibition has also been used portray the effects of human trafficking by explicitly drawing upon the painful experiences of the survivors. However, some media houses as evidenced by MTV documentary that featured trafficked children led to stigmatisation and stereotyping of the victims by sensationalising the issue (Davis, 2017). Some media representations encourage the audience to see the survivors of human trafficking as stereotyped victims. Rather than moral outrage and sympathy that moves the audience to action, the public start indulging in dark pleasures. Some viewers would get pleasured by images of weak trafficked people, who are experiencing humiliation, emotional distress, and mild embarrassment. As pointed out by Davis (2017), increased public stigma regarding survivors of trafficking results in decline in quality of life through reduced well-being, unemployment, low self-esteem, and also poorer health outcomes. The media plays an important part in the democratic process by serving as a voice for victims of trafficking as well as offering the public diverse arguments and ideas. Besides that, the media could generate understanding with regard to trafficking issues by routinely making decisions on the subject of how to logically structure their stories to make them intelligible and be able to access audiences. According to Gulati (2010), media framing theories as well as coverage of foreign policy demonstrate different viewpoints with regard to human trafficking, which regularly are voiced by means of establishment sources. Journalists do not only choose what to cover but also decide about how they will logically structure their stories so as to become accessible to the public. They make choices regarding how much background they should include in the story, the interpretations and facts they should include or exclude, and the sources to quote and utilise. Journalists also make choices regarding how much significance as well as prominence to offer in the story to the certain ideas and information to include. In Taz narrative, the author chose to demonstrate how girls suffer while in the hands of the pimps. The author intended to profoundly influence how sex trafficking is discussed within the public sphere as well as the actions espoused by the law enforcers and policymakers. Clearly, how the story was framed have an effect on how the problem is defined, determining the causes and consequences of the problem and, and the suitable solutions to alleviate the problem. Given that media coverage on the trafficking issue concentrates on consequences such as violence as well as emotional trauma, they must as well offer solutions to this issue. The media must assist the public to fathom the enormity of the human trafficking issue bearing in mind that it poses a serious threat to the society. According to Martinelli (2012), the internet is a new factor that has to some extent disrupted the setting of agenda. She established that the Internet fragments the news significance. Media coverage of human trafficking issue would help create awareness and reduce public’s misunderstanding that prostitutes are in the business voluntarily. Some of the prostitutes like Taz were forced to engage in prostitution by their pimps. Kristof’s opinion article is not only strong but also emotionally gripping, but his only voice cannot give the public the needed salient cues to understand that this prominent matter. More stories like that of Taz could help the victims of trafficking and would help demonstrate the pimps’ destructive motives and nature. Many websites, individuals, and non-profits groups have initiated awareness programs to help end sex trafficking and other types of human trafficking across the globe. Despite having such programs, sex trafficking has increased and has remained a non-existent issue for the majority of the people. The illicit trade perception, as well as the mobilisation to manage this issue, is yet to change, but the gap in perception is still the same despite the increasing daily evidence of the issue. It is imperative to understand that Taz story was framed or constructed in a particular way, it is not Taz’s interview that constructed the meaning, but instead ‘interpretive packages’, which are the overall discourse. As mentioned by Sobel (2016), frames bring to light the pieces of information regarding a certain topic, hence, increase the salience of that information and consequently organises the world for audiences. The Media representations of sex trafficking have demonstrated that although the coverage of the trafficking issue has increased, the focus has mainly been on arrests of pimps and the legislators’ efforts to curtail trafficking. The media texts have framed sex trafficking as a pitiless form of contemporary slavery and the most money-making illegal businesses done by huge criminal organisations across the globe. By framing sex and human trafficking as an unlawful activity, the media representations have therefore embraced a problem–solution approach that trafficking should be stopped at all costs. Sex trafficking has also been framed in the nationalisation frame, whereby the media representations demonstrate that human trafficking is a global issue that affects countries together with their security regimes. As a result, this generates a type of statecraft discourse, where the governments start combating trafficking for the benefit of the nation as well as the citizens. Governments, according to Pajnik (2010), are legitimised in this frame since their role includes controlling crime, international as well as ensuring the country is secure from different forms of harm including sex trafficking. Conclusion In conclusion, this essay has demonstrated that human trafficking is a serious issue which takes place internally (from urban areas to remote areas) or externally (from developed economies to developing economies). On average, the media normally depict sex trafficking in terms of sexual slavery as well as prostitution. Essentially, the media shape as well as organise the audience knowledge towards human trafficking; therefore, they normally generate reverberation in discourse and providing meaning to certain images. As mentioned in the essay, how the story is framed by the media have an effect on how the problem is defined, determining the causes and consequences of the problem and, and the suitable solutions to alleviate the problem. The case study has demonstrated how sex trafficking is portrayed in the media and why the media representations are closely aligned with assumptions that the government officials and politicians make. References Borer, M., 2015. Human Trafficking in the Media: Who, What, Where, and Why? Thesis. Orono, Maine: University of Maine -. Davis, T., 2017. IMAGES OF HEALING AND LEARNING Art Therapy Exhibitions: Exploitation or Advocacy? AMA Journal of Ethics, vol. 19, no. 1, pp.98-106. Gulati, G.J., 2010. Media Representation of Human Trafficking in the United States, Great Britain, and Canada. SSRN Electronic Journal , pp.1-35. Kiros, H., 2015. Framing of Human Trafficking in State Newspapers The Case of Bekur Newspaper. Global Media Review, vol. 1, no. 1, pp.1-28. Kristof, N., 2012. She Has a Pimp’s Name Etched on Her. [Online] Available at: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/24/opinion/kristof-she-has-a-pimps-name-etched-on-her.html [Accessed 25 May 2017]. Martinelli, D., 2012. U.S. Media’s Failure to Set the Agenda for Covering Sex Trafficking. The Elon Journal of Undergraduate Research in Communications, vol. 3, no. 2, pp.103-12. Pajnik, M., 2010. Media Framing of Trafficking. International Feminist Journal of Politics, vol. 12, no. 1, pp.45–64. Sobel, M.R., 2014. Chronicling a crisis: media framing of human trafficking in India, Thailand, and the USA. Asian Journal of Communication, vol. 24, no. 4, pp.315–32. Sobel, M.R., 2016. Confronting sex trafficking: Gender depictions in newspaper coverage from the Former Soviet Republics and the Baltic states. European Journal of Communication, vol. 31, no. 2, pp.152– 168. Sobel, M., 2016. Sex Trafficking in Thai Media: A Content Analysis of Issue Framing. International Journal of Communication, vol. 10, pp.6126–47. Wallinger, C.S., 2010. Media Representation and Human Trafficking: How Anti-Trafficking Discourse Affects Trafficked Persons. In Caroline S. Wallinger. Lincoln, 2010. University of Nebraska. Read More

But still, the progress to reduce human trafficking has been derailed by classified advertising Web sites such as Backpage.com which are dominant in the sex trafficking industry. Many people are calling for Backpage owner, Village Voice Media to terminate its links to human and sex trafficking. Taz mentioned to Kristof that the majority of her ‘dates’ came from the Backpage (Kristof, 2012). Taz told Kristof that she eloped from home while aged 14 years and ultimately ended up in his aggressive pimp who marketed her on the Backpage.

Many people still believe that prostitutes are in that line of business willingly, but many of them are like Taz are forced to do so by their pimps. Taz mentioned to Kristof that her pimp had other girls who were given daily quota that they should earn and failure to achieve the quota would result in thorough beatings. When a sex slave is caught trying to run away, she would be choked or drowned. At one time, Taz tried to call the police, but her pimp hit her over the head using a glass bottle.

Taz became a defiant prostitute who hated the police. After she was saved from her pimp, Kristof writes that she has become an ambitious and smart girl with stunning potential. Analysis Kristof’s article which was published in The New York Times has not defined sex/human trafficking for the readers and has not questioned the official claims concerning the problem magnitude. Although lacking the definitional rigour could be attributed to the belief that the readers understand what sex/human trafficking is all about, the article has not tried to quantify the problem or to question popular claims regarding its scope.

The newspaper’s article clearly supports the existing anti-trafficking policies and exhibits how comprehensively the press has embraced the dominant discourse to the level that there subsists reciprocal effect between official constructions and media representations of the human trafficking issue. This includes a media reporting feedback effect on government practices towards making and enforcing policies. Such findings are crucial since they enable the public to understand human trafficking through the media and also to know how the government is prioritising different aspects related to the problem and committing resources to nongovernmental organisations and government agencies to combat human trafficking.

That is to say, the media constructions as evidenced in Kristof’s article could enormously influence resource allocation, public policy, as well as enforcement practices. Without a doubt, human trafficking has gained a high prominence in media, especially the newspapers. Framing is the process of how policymakers and politicians relay their messages with the aim of attracting media attention and putting a suitable face on the events, how messages are constructed by journalists under professional values and organisational guidelines, as well as how the message is interpreted by the audience members.

For that reason, framing in news media is influenced not just by editors and journalists but also individuals offering the news media the needed information, like interest groups and policy makers. The journalists together with their sources normally decide about the type of information they would communicate to the targeted audience as well as which information interpretations to include. With the view to Kristof’s article, unlike straight news reporting where a single “authority” may be the sole source, Kristof writes the story of Taz in response to numerous actions taken by the official government to reduce human trafficking in America.

Clearly, the article serves to support the official trafficking frames, since the author relied heavily on the government sources. Kristof’s story focuses exclusively on sex trafficking, especially on minors. The newspaper’s article portrayals of sex slaves are closely aligned with assumptions that the government officials and politicians make.

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