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Article Excerpt
On 14 March 2004 the New York Times ran an article entitled "Life Is Hard and Short in Haiti's Bleak Villages" (Weiner 2004). In the lead paragraph is the statement that "diplomats call Haiti 'a failed state,' a nation done in by dictators and disasters." This notion of Haiti as a failed state, unable to properly govern itself, done in by itself and acts of nature, is a common frame that can be found on the pages of U.S. newspapers. When one examines the history of Haiti, one finds a nation caught in the crossfire of geopolitics, its fate resting mostly on the fickle interests of the United States, Canada, and France. Yet the press shows little regard for the role outsiders have played in helping to create the so-called failed state (Lawless 1992; Klak 1994; Sack 1997; Farmer 2006).
A growing collection of geopolitical studies has critically examined place images in newspapers and magazines (K. Dodds 1993; Sharp 1993; Klak 1994; Myers, Klak, and Koehl 1996; Larsen forthcoming). Although both Thomas Klak and Soren Larsen chose Caribbean locations for their studies, Haiti has never been the subject of a critical geopolitical study of media that concentrates solely on representations of it in the daily media (Yin 2003). In this article I present the results of both qualitative and quantitative content analyses of more than 700 articles on Haiti in six major U.S. newspapers. My research revealed that the coverage in 2004 rarely acknowledged the connections of the past and the broader relationship of Haiti to the rest of the world. I do not mean to privilege an academic account over a journalistic one in this article, but I do seek to show some of the flaws in daily newspaper coverage, while highlighting some of the language used to describe Haiti. Unlike most academic publications, newspapers have a broad audience and tend to write about topics with greater frequency, thus generating a large impact on knowledge. This alone makes critical media analysis imperative if we are to understand the public's daily consumption of information.
THEORETICAL BACKGROUND
I adopt Alison Blunt's definition of representation as "the ways in which meanings are conveyed and depicted" (1999, 234). Geographical study of representation concerns itself with place, in terms of how place meanings are conveyed or contested. Blunt wrote, "if geography means 'writing the world' then representation--in this case 'writing' in its broadest sense--is one of geography's central concerns" (p. 234). Representations of place, as portrayed in such media as maps, landscape paintings, government proclamations, films, and literature, have been of interest to geographers since at least the 1960s and 1970s (Cosgrove and Daniels 1988; Harley 1988, 1992; Zonn 1990; Barnes and Duncan 1992; Duncan and Ley 1993; Avraham 2000).
Critical geopolitics has emerged from modern representation studies in geography and seeks to question the language of conventional geopolitics or the modes of discourse that shape political practices and to "uncover the politics involved in writing the geography of global space" (Sharp 1999, 184; O'Tuathail 1996). In the past, critical geopolitics concerned itself with three areas: power, knowledge, and space; the spatial Other; and the deconstruction of texts (O'Tuathail 1996; Johnston and others 2000). Newspapers are essential texts of this geopolitical discussion. "Although the linkages between the press and geopolitical discourse have scarcely been examined, print coverage of geopolitical events or processes is often the medium by which national political discourses are disseminated" (Myers, Klak, and Koehl 1996, 22). Critical geopolitics takes the predominant story that appears quite natural or commonsense and seeks to deconstruct that story (Sharp 1999, 188). This area of inquiry in the field of geography is significant because much of what the contemporary U.S. public knows about other parts of the world comes not from scholarly literature but from the media. Reporters can also be considered geographers because they tell the story of places to the citizens of the world (Sharp 1993).
Geographical research incorporates an established methodology and employs scholarly literature, social and economic statistics, and fieldwork in order to gain a balanced understanding of place. Journalists, unlike social scientists, do not operate "within explicit theory and method," although they do abide by a journalistic code of ethics (Lett 1986, 33).
The anthropologist James Lett attributed improper news coverage to journalists' need to reinforce the views already held by the general public (Lett 1986, 33). Klak noted that, in addition to reinforcing ideological convictions or views, the media also tend to report solely for entertainment value: "We could deem the difference between media images of foreign places and those from geographical research as simply two alternative versions of reality were it not for the news media's seductive authority" (1994, 319). The news media makes daily decisions that affect the construction of place. In the process of writing a story, they must first decide what is worth covering, how to gather information, whom to interview, how to shape a narrative from the information compiled, what points should be emphasized, and, finally, where to place the story (Lee and Solomon 1990, 16). This is not to say that geographers and other social scientists are without their biases. In his book on the geopolitics of the Caribbean, the geographer Thomas Anderson stated that "but, aside from Haiti, the Caribbean is not a backward region" (1984, 41; italics added).
Objectivity on the part of all parties, whether they be academics or journalists, is impossible; we can never be completely partial or impartial (Sack 1997). This realization, however, should not overwhelm us or discourage us from questioning place imagery, but it does need to enter into our analysis of how and why particular images gain salience and in effect come to stand for truth.
Although audience autonomy is still an area that requires more study, Robert Entman suggested that "the politically relevant bulk of the audience will tend to go along" with the information despite the opportunity for its members to question and draw their own meanings from the text (1991, 24). When newsmakers fail to challenge the dominant frame, an authoritative position dominates the news pages, and opposing information is often obscured rather than highlighted in dominant frames (p. 24).
Place images in the media have the potential to have tremendous impact on the people of that particular location and can perpetuate or even legitimize social inequalities. This is especially important for understanding the history of Haiti and its geopolitical relationships with surrounding nations. Eli Avraham described how representation predominantly affects three groups: the general public, the policy makers, and the inhabitants of that place (2000). Although Avraham's ideas are set in the context of cities, they can also be applied to the representation of Haiti.
Representation of place first affects the U.S. general public's attitude toward matters like tourism, migration, investments, and the establishment of businesses. Haiti's tourism industry was all but wiped out in the 1980s from the AIDS coverage that inaccurately portrayed the country as a breeding ground for the disease. When further research corrected these misconceptions, this information failed to receive the publicity given to the initial reports, and the tourist industry never fully recovered from the stigma (Bentivegna 1991; Farmer 1992).
The second group Avraham mentions are policymakers who make decisions about resource allocation, legislation, and rule making based on place image (Entman 1991; Walker 1997; Avraham 2000). When the media portray Haiti as a failed state, with little hope of improvement, foreign governments have little incentive to offer aid. This sentiment was expressed by Ted Galen Carpenter, a foreign policy analyst at the Cato Institute who was quoted in USA Today as saying, "This is a case where the United States has tried repeatedly to stabilize Haiti and to get that country to have a workable democratic government and a functioning economy--and it has repeatedly failed. There is no reason to be more optimistic this time" (Michaels, Nichols, and Keen 2004). This quotation also reinforces the notation of Haiti's inability to govern itself and the need for outside interference.
The final group affected by the representation of place comprises its inhabitants. They must face their own self-image and also try to cope with the prejudices of others (Avraham 2000). Haitians have seen their share of prejudices, whether from their neighbors in the Dominican Republic, with which Haiti shares the island of IIispaniola, or in trying to gain admittance into the United States One Haitian American writer, Edwidge Danticat, described described the shame she feels when revealing her native identity. "It was very hard.... 'Haitian' was like a curse. People were calling you 'Frenchy, go back to the banana boat', and a lot of kids would lie about where they came from. They would say anything but Haitian" (Pierre-Pierre 1999, 201).
PRESS COVERAGE OF HAITI
Newspaper articles in the United states, whether consciously or not, have a tendency to portray Haiti as completely isolated from the rest of the world. However, if one looks more closely, particularly at Haiti's relationship with the United states over the past 300 years, one finds that these two countries have historically been--and remain--intricately connected through geography, the Haitian diaspora, and the global economy. Although here I focus primarily on U.S. media coverage of Haiti, what I hope will also come forth are some of the historical interactions between the two countries, historical interactions that are also briefly highlighted to establish the context...
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