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Human Rights Watch is one of the world's leading independent organizations dedicated to defending and protecting human rights. By focusing international attention where human rights are violated, we give voice to the oppressed and hold oppressors accountable for their crimes. Our rigorous, objective investigations and strategic, targeted advocacy build intense pressure for action and raise the cost of human rights abuse. For 30 years, Human Rights Watch has worked tenaciously to lay the legal and moral groundwork for deep-rooted change and has fought to bring greater justice and security to people around the world.

Welcome to the Hub -- the world's first participatory media site for human rights. Through the Hub, individuals, organizations, networks and groups around the world are able to bring their human rights stories and campaigns to global attention and to mobilize action to protect and promote human rights. Watch and forward the 60-second Hub video. What You Can Do On the Hub The Hub is an interactive community for human rights, where you can upload videos, audio or photos, or simply watch, comment on and share what's on the site. You can use each media item on the site to encourage individuals to learn more and to get involved by providing direct links to resources, advocacy groups, campaigns and actions that they can take to make a difference. Additionally, you can connect with groups or create one of your own to feature your work on the Hub. Every week you can watch the three most urgent videos contributed to the Hub, and hand-picked by our editors. Who can join the Hub? Anyone with a valid email address can join the Hub. Users of the Hub include human rights workers, students, academics, filmmakers, journalists, activists, teachers and concerned citizens worldwide.

At PixelPress our intent is to encourage documentary photographers, writers, filmmakers, artists, human rights workers and students to explore the world in ways that take advantage of the new possibilities provided by digital media. We seek a new paradigm of journalism, one that encourages an active dialogue between the author and reader and, also, the subject. Our online magazine features projects that use a variety of linear and non-linear strategies, attempting to articulate visions of human possibility even while confirming human frailty. For us the digital revolution is a revolution in consciousness, not in commerce. We work with organizations such as Crimes of War, Human Rights Watch, World Health Organization and UNICEF to create Web sites that deal directly with contemporary issues in complex and innovative ways that circumvent media sensationalism and simplification. We also try to factor in ways that the viewer can help remedy social problems, rather than remain a spectator. Recently we completed a site focusing on how to end polio worldwide; another trying to aid an orphanage in Rwanda; one trying to reclaim the Brazilian forest; and a site featuring the images of photographers from the Vietnam War. And we also create books with photographers such as Machiel Botman, Kent Klich and Sebastião Salgado on social themes, as well as traveling exhibitions using both digital and conventional processes.

Thomas Keenan - Mobilizing Shame - The South Atlantic Quarterly 103:2/3 The South Atlantic Quarterly 103.2/3 (2004) 435-449 Mobilizing Shame Thomas Keenan What difference would it make for human rights discourse to take the photo opportunity seriously? Not the photo ops on behalf of human rights, but the ones coming from the other side, the other sides. What would it mean to come to terms with the fact that there are things which happen in front of cameras that are not simply true or false, not simply representations and references, but rather opportunities, events, performances, things that are done and done for the camera, which come into being in a space beyond truth and falsity that is created in view of mediation and transmission? In what follows, I wish to respond to these questions by focusing on what, within human rights activism and discourse, has come to be known as "the mobilization of shame." Shame and Enlightenment It is now an unstated but I think pervasive axiom of the human rights movement that those agents whose behavior it wishes to affect -- governments, armies, businesses, and militias -- are exposed in some significant way to the force of public opinion, and that they are (psychically or emotionally) structured like individuals in a strong social or cultural context that renders them vulnerable to feelings of dishonor, embarrassment, disgrace, or ignominy. Shame is thought of as a primordial force that articulates or links... Project MUSE® - Download/Export Citation * MLA * APA * Chicago * Endnote Keenan, Thomas, 1959-. "Mobilizing Shame." The South Atlantic Quarterly 103.2 (2004): 435-449. Project MUSE. [Library name], [City], [State abbreviation]. 22 Apr. 2009 . Always review your references for accuracy and make any necessary corrections before using. Pay special attention to personal names, capitalization, and dates. Consult your library or click here for more information on citing sources. Keenan, T

10x10™ ('ten by ten') is an interactive exploration of the words and pictures that define the time. The result is an often moving, sometimes shocking, occasionally frivolous, but always fitting snapshot of our world. Every hour, 10x10 collects the 100 words and pictures that matter most on a global scale, and presents them as a single image, taken to encapsulate that moment in time. Over the course of days, months, and years, 10x10 leaves a trail of these hourly statements which, stitched together side by side, form a continuous patchwork tapestry of human life. 10x10 is ever-changing, ever-growing, quietly observing the ways in which we live. It records our wars and crises, our triumphs and tragedies, our mistakes and milestones. When we make history, or at least the headlines, 10x10 takes note and remembers. Each hour is presented as a picture postcard window, composed of 100 different frames, each of which holds the image of a single moment in time. Clicking on a single frame allows us to peer a bit deeper into the story that lies behind the image. In this way, we can dart in and out of the news, understanding both the individual stories and the ways in which they relate to each other. 10x10 runs with no human intervention, autonomously observing what a handful of leading international news sources are saying and showing. 10x10 makes no comment on news media bias, or lack thereof. It has no politics, nor any secret agenda; it simply shows what it finds. With no human editors and no regulation, 10x10 is open and free, raw and fresh, and consequently a unique way of following world events. In 10x10, we respond instinctively to patterns in the grid, visual indicators of relevance. When we see a frequently repeated image, we know it's important. When we see a picture of a movie star next to a picture of dead bodies, we understand the extremes that exist in our world. Scanning a grid of pictures can be more intuitive than reading headlines, for it lets the new

Amnesty International is an organization of more than two million people united across the globe campaigning for the human rights for all. Outraged by human rights abuses but inspired by hope for a better world -- we work to improve human rights through campaigning and international solidarity.

A New Website for a Changing World SocialDocumentary.net is a new website that features documentary photography from around the world-images and words that explore the human condition. Easily Create Documentary Websites About Critical Issues Facing Our World Today Professional and amateur photographers, journalists, NGOs, students-anyone with a story to tell and a collection of good photographs-can easily and affordably begin creating websites on SocialDocumentary.net. Global warming, international justice, post-conflict reconstruction, HIV/AIDS, or life in Afghanistan or suburban America are just a few of the themes that you can find on SocialDocumentary.net. The goal of this website is to make our lives richer and more informed about issues affecting us and our world today. Powerful photographs can also lead to meaningful change in the lives of ordinary people. SocialDocumentary. net provides tools for photographer to inform viewers how to take action-either by supporting NGOs doing work on the issues, or by engaging in direct political action. Not all documentary photographers are concerned with action. Many photographers featured on SocialDocumentary.net are concerned with subtleties of the human experience and exploring personal themes. Photographs on SocialDocumentary.net-whether of struggling farmers in Africa or of suburban teenagers in Philadelphia-offer a fresh way to look at the world and a greater understanding of humanity. The secondary goal is to create an online image bank of quality photographs documenting all aspects of the world created by an international collection of photographers. This will enable students, college professors, journalists, and anyone else to easily see any part of the world in quality digital imagery and gain valuable information about the subjects they are viewing. We encourage all photographers, everywhere, to use this site as a tool in their own image-making and documentary exploration. We also encourage n

VII Photo Panel: Why Photography Still Matters Long, long ago, when picture magazines arrived in millions of homes once a week, and people still read newspapers, a news photo could have an immediate impact on public opinion. Images of fire hoses turned on men and women wanting to exercise their right to vote mobilized thousands of voter registration volunteers. An image of a naked girl running down a road to flee a napalm bombing curdled public opinion about an already unpopular war. But in today's fractured media, with so few publications showing serious photography, can a photo really make a difference? The answer, according to participants in the panel discussion held last night at the VII Photo agency office, is yes. Each panelist-a Congressional aide, a human rights activist and a photojournalist-gave examples of the surprising and sometimes unexpected ways that photos of human rights issues have moved individuals to take action.

VII Photo Panel: Why Photography Still Matters Long, long ago, when picture magazines arrived in millions of homes once a week, and people still read newspapers, a news photo could have an immediate impact on public opinion. Images of fire hoses turned on men and women wanting to exercise their right to vote mobilized thousands of voter registration volunteers. An image of a naked girl running down a road to flee a napalm bombing curdled public opinion about an already unpopular war. But in today's fractured media, with so few publications showing serious photography, can a photo really make a difference? The answer, according to participants in the panel discussion held last night at the VII Photo agency office, is yes. Each panelist-a Congressional aide, a human rights activist and a photojournalist-gave examples of the surprising and sometimes unexpected ways that photos of human rights issues have moved individuals to take action.

what's pdfX12|photo documentary folioX12? pdfX12 is an online, monthly free  photo journal that presents and features a series of photos  by various photojournalists living and working in various communities around the world.  These photos tell poignant stories about people who are facing harsh social, economic, environmental and political conditions. Photojournalists presented here are those, with their own resources and energy, who have chosen to dedicate their life's work to documenting certain human issues in order to bring about greater attention to harsh human conditions that many people would brush aside. It is thus very important that the voices of these photojournalists, who are living and working in communities that they are documenting, are heard through this type of online venue, which everyone can access. 

E xpatriate Englishman Eadweard Muybridge (1830-1904), a brilliant and eccentric photographer, gained worldwide fame photographing animal and human movement imperceptible to the human eye. Hired by railroad baron Leland Stanford in 1872, Muybridge used photography to prove that there was a moment in a horse's gallop when all four hooves were off the ground at once. He spent much of his later career at the University of Pennsylvania, producing thousands of images that capture progressive movements within fractions of a second.

Photographer Gilles Peress talks about the role of photography in the struggle for human rights. Series: Conversations with History [Public Affairs] [Humanities] [Show ID: 7134]

TO BUY THE DVD of the War Photographer go here: http://firstrunfeatures.com/shopsite_... IN THIS SCENE: James philosophizes on photography's importance and responsibility to humanity. "Why photograph war? Is it possible to put an end to human behavior which has existed throughout history by means of photography? The proportions of that notion seem ridiculously out of balance yet that very idea has motivated me." - James Nachtwey ABOUT THIS FILM: War Photographer is the 2001 Academy Award Nominee for Best Documentary Feature that follows preeminent war photographer James Nachtwey for two years as he bravely documents the harrowing realities of Kosovo, Rawanda, Indonesia, and the West Bank.

THEORY: "Through a Glass, Darkly: Photography and Cultural Memory" Through a Glass, Darkly: Photography and Cultural Memory By: Alan Trachtenberg, Social Research, Saturday, March 22, 2008 "I don't know why a Replicant would collect photos - maybe they were like Rachel - they needed memories." In the role of the bounty hunter Rick Deckard in Ridley Scott's 1982 cult classic, Blade Runner, Harrison Ford utters these words with a bitter edge. Assigned to "terminate" the beautiful Rachel, an "android" especially menacing because she's almost (almost!) indistinguishable from a "real" person, Deckard lusts after her and wants to be sure she's human, not machine-made, before bedding her. Based on Phillip K. Dick's brilliant science fiction novel of 1968, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? the film adds the bit of sentiment about collecting photographs to the otherwise unmitigated darkness of Phillip Dick's vision of a near future. The year is 2021, and by means of mechanical replication--the electric sheep of Dick's title--warm-blooded animal life has been all but totally replaced by replicants, copies or duplications of almost forgotten originals. Memories of real sheep and toads and living human flesh are struggling against the irresistible tide of a programmed second-order reality unburdened by personal or cultural memory.

The Abu Ghraib prison scandal first exploded into public light in April 2004 when reports and photographs of torture were revealed in a daring New Yorker article written by Seymour Hersh. At a conference recently held at Stanford, entitled Thinking Humanity After Abu Ghraib, Hersh and a panel of experts came together to think through the legal, political, psychological, and ethical implications of the abuses at Abu Ghraib, and also to weigh the consequences of the US government's evolving approach to handling enemy combatants and suspects taken during the war on terror. You can now find all of the presentations on iTunes (which you can download for free). Here is the lineup:

Spotlighting Human Rights: Digital Photography and Video University of California: Berkeley

Authenticity, in the broad sense of the word, is fundamental to litigation. It acts as a dynamic -- as the conceptual glue holding together the pieces of a case. As part of its most basic function, therefore, a jury constantly assesses authenticity. Once falsehood is detected, or truth perceived as misrepresented, a party's case unravels. Indeed, tribunals could not serve their function without an ability to assess whether proffered assertions are what they "purport to be." Each type and piece of evidence must therefore be subject to a test for authenticity. The testimony of witnesses is a familiar example. Such evidence is examined for bias, for interest and for the human capacity to exaggerate or mislead, among other things. Cross-examination, including the comparison of testimony with records of various types, is the chief tool by which we probe witnesses, whose genuineness or authenticity is usually called "credibility."

In the vanguard of the Marines, the press corps had already stormed Somailia. Now we will see more of the famailiar pictures of grotesque human degradation, with foreign angels of mercy ministering to starving children, juxtaposed with images of trigger-happy teen-age looters. Such pictures prompted President Bush's military adventure-now they will justify it. The camera can't lie, we are told. But anyone who has watched a Western film crew in an African famine will know just how much effort it takes to compose the "right" image. Photogenic starving children are hard to find, even in Somalia. Somali doctors and nurses have expressed shock at the conduct of film crews in hospitals. They rush through crowded corridors, leaping over stretchers, dashing to film the agony before it passes. They hold bedside vigils to record the moment of death. When the Italian actress Sophia Loren visited Somalia, the paparazzi trampled on children as they scrambled to film her feeding a little girl-three times. This is disaster pornography.

Have you ever seen one of those photos where there's a starving child with distended belly, looking forlornly up at a camera, asking you to save them? On the TV news, in magazines, and occasionally on advertising for charities. Playing on our fears and sympathy, they try to push a giant button on our forehead labeled "GUILT." These images make me angry. They make me angry because that's just not what extreme poverty is really about. Yes, it's real - people really do live in such challenging circumstances, but when it's the only image we see, it sends all the wrong messages. It's poverty porn - gratuitous and explicit images that strip away people's identity and personality, making them out to be little more than meat. It makes out that people in extreme poverty aren't willing or able to do things for themselves. It makes out that people in extreme poverty are victims, that they need us to save them. And, without really even thinking about it, it reinforces the idea that people in extreme poverty are somehow less than us - less valuable, less capable, less intelligent … and less human.

In 2007, Dóchas members adopted a Code of Conduct on Images and Messages. The purpose of this Code is to provide a framework which organisations can refer to when designing and implementing their public communication strategy. The Dóchas Code offers a set of guiding principles that can assist organisations in their decision-making about which images and messages to choose in their communication while maintaining full respect for human dignity. By signing the Code, Development NGOs commit to a set of principles, ensuring that they will avoid stereotypical or sensational images. The adoption of the Code means that aid agencies will choose images and messages that represent the full complexity of the situations in which they work, and that they will seek the permission of the people portrayed in the photos they use.

" It's been very fashionable to focus on the weakness and the banality of America, but what I wanted to say is that it's also a very exciting and fascinating place. - Joel Sternfeld, 1987 Joel Sternfeld's projects can perhaps be divided into two general groups: site-specific landscapes somehow connected to human presence (though people are rarely present in them) and shot during distinct periods of time, and a more ranging, long-term examination of the United States accomplished largely by photographing Americans contextualized by their environments. "