Digital Media Influence on Media Freedom in Central America

• In Event: Censorship

Abstract

On the global stage, ‘climate action’ and ‘media freedom’ have become ‘hot topics’ in recent years. In Central America, violent attacks against environmental activists and journalists who report on environmental issues are increasing. The aim of this research is to understand this disparity, examining what factors influence media coverage of environmental protest, who covers these events, and why. Comparative case methodology is applied, using confidential, one-on-one virtual interviews with journalists from both traditional and digital-based media platforms in Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, and Nicaragua. The interviews reveal that while traditional media may publish single events faster, digital-based investigative journalists persist in covering stories about environmental protest movements including water contamination and local corruption with mining corporations despite cyber and physical safety risks. Results show that expanding internet access in the region increases journalists’ abilities to disseminate information through social media, therefore increasing coverage of environmental protest. This indicates that during a time when media freedom and environmental activism are under attack in Central America, digital-based investigative journalists persist in forcing a watchdog agenda for public consumption through social media which in turn forces open greater media freedom in the region. Journalism, in this sense, is not just reporting the news, but also defending shared human and environmental rights.

Author

• Gabriella M. Pruitt de Santos, University of Massachusetts, Lowell