O papel da comunicação estratégica na representação pública e mediática de organizações ativistas por direitos humanos em Portugal

Abstract

Despite the successive crises of different natures, the decline of democracies and the setbacks of fundamental freedoms, human rights continue to be an anchor for aspirations about global justice. This context has stimulated different types of organizations to use social activism and political rhetoric to defend a wide variety of rights, often divisive and controversial, and which require civic and political engagement as well as imagination. It is known that some social actors face increased challenges in their ability to access mass media, communication technologies and networks of influence. Thereafter, this research has the main objective of understanding how strategic communication, particularly the area of public relations, can contribute to a greater and better public and mediatic representation of Portuguese activist organizations that defend human rights included in the 2030 agenda of the United Nations. An ethnographic study was carried out for six months, between January and June 2021, with two Portuguese activist organizations - UMAR and GAT - to better understand the culture and communication routines of these organizations in the context of their relations with different publics. Twelve experts - CEO's and Directors - from communication and public relations agencies were also interviewed to ascertain their perspectives on the different contributions of this area in the context of human rights activism and the search for social change. Finally, a thematic categorical analysis was carried out - qualitative and quantitative - of all the news (1080) about the organizations under study that were published in the Portuguese media in the year 2021. Each method used in the various stages of the research evidenced different but complementary aspects of the social reality under study, which is complex and multidimensional. One of the main conclusions of this work is that activist public relations is an unexplored area in Portugal, either in terms of academic research or in terms of the various possible practical applications. It was also found that the activist organizations studied seek to influence the political and mediatic agenda using some of the available democratic tools and, intuitively, public relations practices. However, these communication efforts are not framed in an emerging and flexible strategy that manages to articulate the specific dimensions that characterize these interest groups. The existence of a mediatic representation crisis of activists in Portugal was confirmed. The media face the challenge of how to portray exactly the actions of social movements and activists face the challenge of being able to faithfully convey their messages in a journalistic culture that privileges conventional and institutional narratives. The issues framing acquires, in this context, an increased relevance. It was also concluded that conflict and tension are always present, directly, or indirectly, in activist communication. Therefore, the elaboration of relevant arguments, from credible sources, adapted to the type of cognitive and emotional engagement of the different publics with the “stories”, is essential to get the messages to wider publics and interfere in the perceptions of reality. In this sense, obtaining public and media legitimacy is related to the capacity of activist organizations to diagnose and adapt to environmental fluctuations and to make strategic choices accordingly. Considering the results obtained, the need to create the SDG18 (Communication for All) is defended to engage human rights activists and other social actors in the 2030 Agenda. An agenda is proposed for future work within the scope of socio-cultural and critical perspectives in public relations, aimed at analyzing the influence of the activity in the maintenance or disruption of certain social structures.

Date of Award	21 Apr 2023
Original language	Portuguese
Awarding Institution	Universidade Católica Portuguesa
Sponsors	Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia
Supervisor	Nelson Ribeiro (Supervisor)