The past century saw some of the worst atrocities committed against humankind, by humankind. The growth of nationalism and the nation-state; the experience, twice in one century, of total war, and the global repercussions of a Cold War lasting five decades have taken their toll on the human race and have given legitimacy for some of these barbaric acts.
Genocide, however, is one of those phenomena that is too much to bear. The overwhelming literature on the experience of the Holocaust, intricately descriptive as it is, charts the victimisation, dehumanisation, torture and death of millions of innocents - men, women and children. The representation of recent genocides by the mass media begs our attention, but is often too brutal a reminder that others have much tougher lives than us. The West tends to shy away from peoples in desperate situations until they can ignore it no longer, when it is often tragically too late for many.
This study is aimed at the testing of two hypotheses. The first is "The ideological preparation of the in-group for genocide begins long before the implementation of the event." The second is "The mass media is used extensively to promote dehumanisation and incite genocide against the out-group."
Barbara Curran
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