The Humanitarian Alternatives review is issuing a call for papers for its 29th issue, which will be published in July 2025. This issue will focus on the following theme: “NGOs and communication: challenges and strategies in the age of fake news and “post-truth””. If you are a humanitarian practitioner or researcher, and would like to submit an article proposal on this particular theme, please send a summary of your subject and a draft plan (2 pages maximum, including a short biography) before 22 January 2025 to the following email address: contact@alternatives-humanitaires.org . You will receive a reply by 27 January 2025 at the latest.
The finished articles, written in English or French, should be submitted by 26 May 2025 and should be around 2,200 words (in English) or 2,400 words (in French), both including footnotes. Seven or eight articles will be published for the Focus section of this issue of Humanitarian Alternatives.
For each issue, we also consider articles relating to humanitarian work that explore subjects other than that which this issue focuses on. They could be published in the sections Perspectives, Transitions, Innovations, Ethics, Reportage or Tribune sections. So we are inviting you to put forward articles for these sections too.
NGOs and communication: challenges and strategies in the age of fake news and “post-truth”
The Focus section of this issue is directed by Valérie Gorin, Head of Learning at the Geneva Centre of Humanitarian Studies and member of the Humanitarian Alternatives editorial board, and by Dana Popescu-Jourdy, who heads the NGO Communication Sans Frontières and is a member of the Humanitarian Alternatives scientific council, alongside Boris Martin, Editor-in-Chief of Humanitarian Alternatives.
In relations between the media and humanitarian players – relations that have long been observed, analysed and criticised – a strategic interdependence stands out, as do challenges concerning the independence and veracity of information. Over the past fifty years – if we only consider the rise of borderless (“sans-frontières”) humanitarianism in France – relations between the media and humanitarian work have greatly evolved. In the 1970s, journalists were often committed supporters of humanitarian operations. Yet in the 1980s, humanitarian crises were mainly related through sensationalist reports – like during the Ethiopian famine in 1984-85. Later, in the 1990s, humanitarian organisations made their public relations more professional – in tune with the creation of the Directorate-General for European Civil Protection and Humanitarian Aid Operations (ECHO) in 1992[1]Rony Brauman et René Backmann, Les Médias et l’humanitaire, CFPJ, 1996; Susan Moeller, Compassion Fatigue: How the Media Sell Disease, Famine, War and Death, Routledge, 1999.. In the face of criticism of their dependence on the media and given their need to tackle crises that had harmed their image, humanitarian players rethought their communication strategies to reconcile effectiveness with ethics.[2]Jonathan Benthall, Disasters, Relief and the Media, Sean Kingston Publishing, 1993; Johannes Paulmann (ed.), Humanitarianism and Media: 1900 to the Present, Berghahn Books, 2019. Then, in the 2000s, the rise of the internet and social media transformed their backdrop, making it possible for humanitarian organisations to become media outlets themselves by directly publishing their journalistic messages and content to build up, rally and retain their communities online.
Through this evolution, humanitarian organisations have been able to reshape their relations with professional journalists. Yet this evolution has also brought about informational saturation and fiercer competition in attention-grabbing: discourses from humanitarian players cannot always reach a broad readership online.[3] Glenda Cooper, Reporting Media Disasters in a Social Media Age, Routledge, 2018. In monitoring evolutions in practices, research into humanitarian communication firstly focussed on the way in which NGOs’ public relations became more professional. But today, a growing body of research is enriching our understanding of ever-more-diverse players that contribute to humanitarian discourses[4]For example, New Media Networks, www.newmedianetworks.net, which offers its solution LivingEvidence to support solidarity projects through “accessible and participative” real-time information. and ever-more-diverse geopolitical contexts of information-production in our globalised world where CNN competes with Al Jazeera and CGTN (China Global Television Network) – characteristics of what has been called “humanitarian journalism”.[5]Martin Scott, Kate Wright and Melanie Bunce, The State of Humanitarian Journalism, University of East Anglia, October 2018; Kate Wright, “NGOs as News Organizations”, in Oxford Research … Continue reading
So, over the decades, the media and humanitarian players have learned to constantly navigate between cooperation and caution to guarantee responsible and ethical information. In short, these relations are based on a special link between an event as a media-based construction of information and the discourse of humanitarian players, developed in line with the communication strategies of organisations.
Solidarity projects in themselves redefine communication in this way. Not only do solidarity projects highlight crises, causes and commitments, but they also highlight arguments that make action legitimate and they underline the principle of responsibility for different members of the public. Alongside traditional practices in institutional and fundraising communication, humanitarian players conduct specific campaigns in information-sharing, awareness-raising and advocacy. This makes them true laboratories of adaptation and innovation. They develop new skills as producers and distributors of informational content.
Yet the issue of new informational stances among humanitarian players on the internet goes beyond the field of communication tools and techniques. This informational dimension reveals changes in solidarity discourses, not only in relations between players but also in forms of commitment and, more broadly, in the political and civic expression of organisations that have gone beyond compassion-based narratives of classic pleas and have ventured towards “post-emotional” communication strategies that often relate to fun or ironic consumer practices.[6]Lilie Chouliaraki, The Ironic Spectator: Solidarity in the Age of Post-Humanitarianism, Wiley, 2013.
Today, on social media, humanitarian players adopt a dialectical relationship between information (expertise and legitimacy) and communication. They generally follow a two-step strategy: first, they build up legitimacy based on information-sharing; second, they direct users towards loyalty-building tools, which help them create and run true communities of donors.
On the one hand, NGOs are becoming representatives of “donor-players”, even “citizen-players”, offering a form of participative empowerment.[7]Marion Carrel, « Injonction participative ou empowerment ? Les enjeux de la participation en France », Les Politiques Sociales, no. 3–4(2), pp. 79-89. When well used, digital tools can showcase their positions on solidarity causes, political and humanitarian crises, and vulnerabilities and victims. And they can reveal crises forgotten by the general media. These showcased positions, full of information, often compete with a coexisting journalistic position, which usually focuses on crises that are more visible. They compete with this journalistic position as they are based on different criteria in terms of agenda and editorial policy and they are not restricted by the same financial constraints as the media are. By placing donors or activists at the heart of their communication and by building communities centred on their commitments, NGOs are using social media as participative tools – both for communicating and exchanging information. So digital technology is reshaping civic involvement and creating new ways of committing, educating and showcasing actions in solidarity.
On the other hand, transparency and emotion – traits of online communication – tend to fictionalise these narratives, fragment social bonds and create the illusion of a community that is actually just the sum of compassionate new-generation reflexes (the humanitarian clickbait syndrome). Even though commitment has been multiplied, it has become more volatile, built more upon ideals than causes – and often built in opposition to others. This trend is almost a paradox: while encouraging community-building, it aggravates divisions – like the algorithms of social media do.
And in this construction of information, one has to also consider the presence of fake news, which, in the humanitarian sector, raises specific issues. As sources of information for the media, especially in tough zones, humanitarian organisations can regularly face the spread of fake news, as was the case during the Covid-19 pandemic.[8]World Health Organization, “Rallying to combat COVID-19 rumours in the Democratic Republic of the Congo”, 4 March 2022, … Continue reading There were also rumours born during the Ebola crisis in 2013–14. And going back further, there were rumours about child trafficking in the wake of the Asian tsunami in 2004. Moreover, humanitarian organisations are, increasingly, the targets of disinformation campaigns that aim to undermine their actions and credibility. This erodes public trust. The most significant example of this was the disinformation campaign about the International Committee of the Red Cross at the start of the conflict in Ukraine.[9] International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), “Russia–Ukraine international armed conflict: Your questions answered about the ICRC’s work”, 26 June 2024, … Continue reading
In this issue of Humanitarian Alternatives, we would like to focus on the challenges of humanitarian communication, which has evolved over time to reach its present-day state. Our age is characterised by the rise of digital communication, fake news and post-truth attitudes,[10]Alain Cambier, Philosophie de la post-vérité, Hermann, 2019. where personal opinion, ideology, emotion and beliefs often have the upper hand over factual reality, where the boundary between true and false gets blurred, and where facts are often interpreted or manipulated to serve specific interests. Humanitarian organisations need to reinvent their communication and, beyond that, their image and credibility – while respecting the principles of ethics, transparency and trust.
With the hindsight that we now have with the past five decades of development of activist humanitarian action, spearheaded by NGOs alongside traditional players (the ICRC and the United Nations), what are the main stages in the history of relations between the media and humanitarian players? What strategies should organisations adopt in the face of new informational challenges? How should they understand their role on the internet and the impact of their communication on social media? What practices can they introduce to limit risks in the face of fake news and cyberattacks? And should they commit more to partnerships with the media or other players to encourage civic critical thinking through better teaching about the media and ethical information?
Translated from the French by Thomas Young
