Hate Radio Research Articles

DIY pornography and the deepfake coup

ABSTRACT This article investigates a transforming zeitgeist around DIY pornography, which is defined as diverse online pornographies and erotica that are made and distributed by amateurs or independent producers. DIY pornography embraces, according to Attwood, ‘an ethos that extends across new and alternative sexual cultures, subcultural sexualities, kink communities, and the amateur pornographies that are part of a broader contemporary and participatory culture’. Since there has been an upsurge of deepfake porn and other hate media on digital platforms, how can we understand these porn cultures and how are they appropriating the ethos of DIY porn?

Milo Rau in Africa

Piet Defraeye explores Milo Rau’s work in Central Africa, focusing on 2011’s Hate Radio and 2015’s The Congo Tribunal. Defraeye suggests that while Rau’s interest in Central Africa is not based on any personal connection, it began before the founding of his company, the International Institute of Political Murder (iipm), and has been something of a through line for the director. In analyzing both projects, Defraeye traces their development and provides the historical and cultural context of the events presented. In the case of Hate Radio, this involves looking at performances of the piece around Europe and on-site in a radio studio in Kigali and explaining the role of radio in the Rwandan genocide of 1994. With The Congo Tribunal, Defraeye identifies several of the many global ramifications of what is often referred to as the African World War and summarizes the three cases that made up the three-day imagined trial in Bukavu, Congo, which, along with the follow-up presentation in Berlin and a wide range of ancillary materials, was the centerpiece of the project. Defraeye contextualizes The Congo Tribunal within both Rau’s oeuvre and the larger ecosystem of Central African activism, identifying Rau’s utopian goals as well as the criticisms leveled against him.

Reconstructing Rwanda

In 1994 Rwanda, some journalists used their power for evil when government-run media houses perpetrated genocide through what scholars termed “hate media.” Since then, however, Rwanda’s media landscape has changed dramatically and the country has seen tremendous social and economic progress. Building on the tenets of social responsibility and framing theories and on literature regarding journalistic role functions, this study utilized qualitative interviews with Rwandan journalists to discover how they view their roles today and whether they have contributed to the reconstruction and recovery of the country by practicing constructive journalism. In keeping with the social responsibility theory of the press, constructive journalism calls for the news media to be an active participant in enhancing societal well-being. Results revealed that while journalists in Rwanda aim to fulfill traditional roles like informing and educating the public, they value a unique role to promote unity and reconciliation. They carry out this role by regularly practicing constructive journalism techniques, such as solutions journalism and restorative narrative, which involve reporting on stories that foster hope, healing, and resilience, and they strongly believe that this style of reporting has contributed to the country’s post-genocide reconstruction.

What is to be done?

Milo Rau, originally from Bern, Switzerland, worked as a writer for Neue Zurcher Zeitung and, from 2003, as a director and writer with, among others, the Maxim Gorki Theater in Berlin, Staatsschauspiel Dresden, Hebbel am Ufer in Berlin, Theaterhaus Gessnerallee in Zurich, Teatrul Odeon in Bucharest, and Beursschouwburg in Brussels. In 2007, he founded the theatre and film production company International Institute of Political Murder. His theatrical re-enactments and films have been invited to national and international festivals, including in 2012/13 the Berliner Theatertreffen, Noorderzon Performing Arts Festival in Groningen, Wiener Festwochen, and the Radikal Jung Festival where he was awarded the critics’ prize in directing for Hate Radio. His productions, campaigns, and films include Montana, The Last Hours of Elena and Nicolae Ceausescu, Hate Radio, City of Change, Breivik’s Statement, The Moscow Trials , and Die Zurcher Prozesse ( The Zurich Trials ). The Last Hours of Elena and Nicolae Ceausescu and Hate Radio were presented at Festival d’Avignon in 2009 and 2013 respectively, and The Last Hours of Elena and Nicolae Ceausescu was nominated for the Prix de Soleure in 2011.

Radio in Africa: publics, cultures, communities

Introduction: The Soundscapes of Radio in Africa - Liz Gunner and Dina Ligaga Introduction: The Soundscapes of Radio in Africa - Part I Radio, Popular Democracy & New Publics - Dumisani Moyo Talk Radio & Politics in Ghana: Exploring Civic & (Un)Civil Discourse in the Public Sphere - Wisdom J. Tettey From Diffusion to Dialogic Space: FM Radio Stations in Kenya - Christopher Joseph Odhiambo Contesting Mainstream Media Power: Mediating the Zimbabwe Crisis through Clandestine Radio - Dumisani Moyo Equivocal Resonances: Islamic Revival & Female Radio 'Preachers' in Urban Mali - Part II The Cultures of Radio: Languages of the Everyday - Dorothea E. Schulz What is the Relationship between Hate Radio & Violence? Rethinking Rwanda's 'Radio Machete' - Scott Straus Why Radio is Africa's Medium of Choice in the Global Age - Winston Mano Bantustan Identity, Censorship & Subversion on Northern Sotho Radio under Apartheid, 1960s-80s - Sekibakiba Peter Lekgoathi South African Radio in a Saucepan - David B. Coplan Radio Theatre: The Moral Play in the Historical Context of State Control & Censorship of Broadcasting in Kenya - Dina Ligaga IsiZulu Radio Drama & the Modern Subject - Restless Identities in South Africa in the 1970s - Part III Radio & Community: Voices of Change - Liz Gunner Radio Okapi - 100 per cent Congolese - Stephanie Wolters Talk Radio, Democracy & the Public Sphere: 567MW in Cape Town - Tanja E. Bosch Radio & Religion: A Case of Difference & Diversity - Maria Frahm-Arp Voices from Without: The African National Congress, its Radio, its Allies & Exile, 1960-84 - Stephen R. Davis Airing the Politics of Nation: Radio in Angola, Past & Present - Marissa J. Moorman Radio in Zones of Conflict - Abnormal Measures for Abnormal Circumstances - David Smith Multiple Publics, Multiple Languages: Radio & the Contestations of Broadcasting Language Policy in Uganda - Monica B. Chibita

How Can an Information Campaign Win Support for Peacekeeping?

As peacekeeping operations become more ethically complex in countries such as Somalia and the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), the need for assertive “information operations” is becoming more necessary to gain public support. Yet peacekeeping information operations remain underutilized, scantly understood, and poorly funded. In the past two decades, well planned and strategically targeted information campaigns have helped stabilize volatile political situations. This paper argues that, in countries where the UN needs to reach out to poor and illiterate populations amid sectarian violence, the UN should model information operations after that of the UN Transitional Authority in Cambodia (UNTAC). This campaign lasted from 1992 to 1993 and had a mandate to directly administer state institutions, including organizing the first free and fair elections in the country. UNTAC’s Information Division broadcasted a popular radio program, Radio UNTAC, and espoused intervention in political “hate media.” It also imparted Cambodia with an independent press and contributed to a high voter turn-out, despite threats of violence.

After the hate media

During the past 15 years Central Africa, and specifically Burundi, Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of Congo, have been through devastating wars in which the media became actors. In 1993, some Burundese newspapers were described as ‘hate media’ and one year later Radio télévision mille collines (RTLM) in Rwanda became the first of those described as ‘death media’, preparing minds for genocide and helping in its implementation. In the Democratic Republic of Congo, in1998, certain newspapers took to inciting ethnic hatred and violence towards some Congolese citizens. By 2006, when this research was completed, these three countries were undergoing fragile peace processes and trying to rebuild themsleves. The media certainly have a major role to play in helping to soothe the hatred and move people from different communities back into dialogue. But how should the media sector be reorganized in countries where the media have contributed to killings? What is the best way to find a balance between freedom and control in a context where the microphone and the pen have been weapons of murder? This is one of the main issues that must be addressed by the communications regulatory bodies which have been established to support press freedom and to organize and monitor the media landscape.

Media, genocide and international response: another look at Rwanda

This analytical article asks the question: to what degree did the media contribute to the Rwandan genocide and what might have been done about it? In examining the historical development of mass media in Rwanda, this paper argues that while hate media clearly contributed to the dynamics that led to genocide, its role should not be overstated. While it is commonly believed that hate media was a major cause of the genocide, instead it was a part of a larger social process. The use of violent discourse was at least as important as, for example, the availability of weapons in carrying out the genocide. Put another way, violent discourse was necessary but not sufficient by itself to cause the genocide of 1994. In arguing this thesis, Rwandan history is examined to demonstrate the processes of communication in the formation of destructive attitudes and behaviour. Next, analysis of the methods and content of propaganda campaigns is discussed. Finally, an overview of the requirements and organizations for third parties to conduct international communication interventions is presented in the last section.

What Is the Relationship between Hate Radio and Violence? Rethinking Rwanda's “Radio Machete”

The importance of hate radio pervades commentary on the Rwandan genocide, and Rwanda has become a paradigmatic case of media sparking extreme violence. However, there exists little social scientific analysis of radio's impact on the onset of genocide and the mobilization of genocide participants. Through an analysis of exposure, timing, and content as well as interviews with perpetrators, the article refutes the conventional wisdom that broadcasts from the notorious radio station RTLM were a primary determinant of genocide. Instead, the article finds evidence of conditional media e fects, which take on significance only when situated in a broader context of violence.

Turning interahamwe: individual and community choices in the Rwandan genocide

The first person to be found guilty of genocide by the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) was Jean-Paul Akayesu, the bourgmestre 1 of Taba Commune in Gitarama.2 The prefecture of Git...

Ordinariness and Orders: Explaining Popular Participation in the Rwandan Genocide

The most troubling and perplexing aspect of the Rwandan Genocide is why so many joined the killings so quickly. This participation seems even less comprehensible given the violence’s terrifying intimacy: ordinary killers often turned on their Tutsi neighbors and family members, using machetes and other everyday tools. Searching for answers, journalists and even some scholars have clutched at comforting metaphors and mono-causal explanations: a ‘‘blood orgy,’’ tribalism, ethnic hatred, hate radio, a ‘‘culture of obedience,’’ structural violence, and ‘‘conspiracy to murder.’’ With bracing clarity and scrupulous fairness, Scott Straus painstakingly demolishes these simplistic notions and sets a new standard for empirical research on mass violence in The Order of Genocide. Using data from interviews with 210 convicted, confessed perpetrators and with a range of actors in five communities, Straus constructs a sophisticated explanation of how genocidal violence happened at the local level. First, he finds that most perpetrators in rural Rwanda were ordinary farmers (though rural elites and young thugs played a crucial role in driving the violence). Second, most of those ordinary perpetrators committed genocide for fairly banal reasons: ‘‘the Rwandans’ motivations were considerably more ordinary and routine than the extraordinary crimes they helped commit’’ (96). Third, he calculates that between 175,000 and 210,000 civilians participated in genocidal violence—an enormous number, to be sure, but far fewer than the half-million who now stand accused in Rwanda’s community courts (gacaca). Finally, he identifies three key factors behind the widespread participation: (1) anger, fear, and uncertainty caused by the renewed civil war; (2) opportunism linked to local power struggles; and (3) social pressure and coercion derived from intra-group dynamics, state authority, communal labor obligations, and social surveillance. The latter point is perhaps Straus’s most controversial finding. Challenging popular conceptions of the Rwandan Genocide, he writes that ‘‘intra-ethnic coercion and pressure [among Hutu] appear to have been greater determinants of genocidal participation than interethnic enmity [between Hutu and Tutsi]’’ (148). This explanation is consistent with many of the testimonies I have heard in gacaca trials, but more systematic analyses of those testimonies and more micro-level studies are needed. A constant refrain that Straus hears from confessed perpetrators is that they were following orders and that disobedience would have led to punishment or even death. This sounds like egregious self-absolution from admitted killers, but Straus makes us take it—and them—seriously. Nonetheless, it would have been helpful to parse perpetrators’ motivations more closely to distinguish better among group conformity

Radio Jamming: The Disarmament of Radio Propaganda

To more concretely define what the UN's policy towards international peacekeeping should be in the twenty-first century, novel methods of addressing inter-and intrastate conflict need examining. Consequently, this article argues that UN peacekeeping operations must begin to include technological capabilities – namely UN jamming of hate radio – when certain prerequisites are met. Using the Rwandan genocide and the radio station that largely inspired the conflict, RTLMC, as a case study, this article illustrates hate radio's power in both inter- and intrastate conflict and devises a system wherein UN peacekeeping efforts can effectively silence this menace to international security.

Radio Priest: Charles Coughlin, The Father of Hate Radio by Donald Warren

BOOK REVIEWS589 that anti-Semitism was a mortal sin for Catholics. Father Cox attacked Father Coughlin as "Hitler's Hatchet Man" in a fiery speech to a Pittsburgh Rotary Club. Father Coughlin quickly retaliated by writing a letter to Bishop Hugh Boyle purporting to show that Father Cox was "in the pay of the Jews" (p. 188). This was to little avail as Boyle was openly critical of the "misled Catholics" who came under Father Coughlin's influence. Philadelphia had neither a Rice nor a Cox, only the ultra-conservative Dennis Cardinal Dougherty, a great admirer ofMussolini and Franco. But on the issue of anti-Semitism the Cardinal spoke out loud and clear. In a much-applauded pastoral letter of 1938 Dougherty wrote that any Catholic "who discriminates on the basis of race, color, or nationality is not loyal to the Church, is a renegade to the faith and a scandal to fellow members of the Church" (p. 189). Fortunately, the Christian Front in Pennsylvania was a small, ineffective group of disgruntled agitators who were never as serious a threat to the social order as they and their detractors believed. After the wave of criticism created by the arrest of seventeen Christian Fronters in Brooklyn in 1940 the movement rapidly declined in numbers and in influence. It is difficult to do justice to this provocative book in so short a review, but Jenkins has given us a fascinating study of a quarter-century of right-wing extremism in the Keystone state. Charles J.Tull Indiana University South Bend (Emeritus) Radio Priest: Charles Coughlin, The Father ofHate Radio. By Donald Warren. (New York: The Free Press, Macmillan Publishing Co. 1996. Pp. Lx, 376. $27.50.) No voice was more readily identifiable on the radio in the United States in the 1930's with the possible exception of Franklin Delano Roosevelt's than Father Charles E. Coughlin's (1891-1979). It has been said that on a balmy Sunday afternoon one could walk down the streets of many an American city and never miss a word of his weekly radio broadcast. This study by Donald Warren, professor of sociology in Oakland University, has as its goal to relate "the story of hate radio, and its inventor, Charles Edward Coughlin." Coughlin, a Canadian by birth, graduated from the University of St. Michael's College in 191 1 . He joined the Congregation of St. Basil and was ordained to the priesthood in 1916. The young cleric was assigned to teach at Assumption College in Ontario and on weekends assisted at parishes in nearby Michigan. In 1923 he was incardinated into the Diocese of Detroit, where Bishop MichaelJ. Gallagher, his close friend and defender, asked him to build a new parish in suburban Royal Oak, and name it in honor of the newly canonized St. Thérèse of Lisieux,affectionately known as"the Little Flower." In an effort to raise funds for 590BOOK REVIEWS this endeavor he negotiated his first radio broadcast which aired on WJR in Detroit on October 17, 1926. Coughlin's program began as a series of sermons. After the crash of 1929, he spoke to the frustrations of the people, attacking Bolshevism and becoming an "authority" on communism and monetary issues. By 1930, the Columbia Broadcasting Sy-jtem picked up his program nationally. Short-wave carried his mellifluous voice to millions of listeners around the world on "The Golden Hour of the Little Flower." Initially Coughlin was an ardent supporter of Roosevelt, coining the slogan "Roosevelt or Ruin!" After Roosevelt became president, however, he did not look to Royal Oak for advice. Coughlin became disenchanted. In 1934 the priest founded the National Union for Social Justice, and in 1936 established the weekly newspaper SocialJustice. That same year he joined with the Protestant evangelist and anti-Semite Gerald L. K. Smith and with Dr. Francis Townsend of California to found the anti-Roosevelt Union Party. Coughlin's theatrics during the campaign, ripping off his Roman collar and calling the President "Franklin Double-Crossing Roosevelt" and a liar and a betrayer shocked Catholics and nonCatholics alike. Even the Vatican was disturbed with his activities and cautioned Bishop Gallagher, who was supportive of...

Radio Priest: Charles Coughlin, the Father of Hate Radio

Radio Priest: Charles Coughlin, the Father of Hate Radio

Radio Priest: Charles Coughlin, the Father of Hate Radio

Radio Priest: Charles Coughlin, the Father of Hate Radio