Heroes or criminals? The legitimacy of humanitarian organisations rescuing lives in the Central Mediterranean Sea after 2017

Article


Catena Mancuso, M. and Signorelli, V. 2021. Heroes or criminals? The legitimacy of humanitarian organisations rescuing lives in the Central Mediterranean Sea after 2017. Journal of Italian Cinema and Media Studies. 10 (1), pp. 37-58. https://doi.org/10.1386/jicms_00101_1
AuthorsCatena Mancuso, M. and Signorelli, V.
Abstract

Since late 2016, NGOs operating in the Mediterranean have been at the centre of a campaign of delegitimisation and criminalisation culminating with former Italian Interior Minister Matteo Salvini's 2018 NGO ban, which de facto erased the presence of humanitarian search and rescue operations and left the national coastguards to deal with an unprecedented migration crisis. Drawing upon discourse analysis of Italian and international news media articles and informed by semi-structured interviews with NGO representatives, this study investigates the implications of such media-driven public hostility. The results are threefold: first, the climate of suspicion surrounding NGOs has damaged them profoundly and led to a dramatic increase in deaths. Consequently, second, NGO's ability to present themselves publicly as legitimate has been heavily limited. Last, it is fundamental to investigate the range of legitimation strategies all organisations can use when victims of a media-led scandal or a smear campaign are legitimised by political institutions.

JournalJournal of Italian Cinema and Media Studies
Journal citation10 (1), pp. 37-58
ISSN2047-7368
Year2021
PublisherIntellect Press
Accepted author manuscript
License
File Access Level
Repository staff only
Digital Object Identifier (DOI)https://doi.org/10.1386/jicms_00101_1
Publication dates
Online01 Jan 2022
Publication process dates
Accepted29 Mar 2021
Deposited16 Apr 2021
Copyright holder© 2021 The Authors
Additional information

The definitive, peer reviewed and edited version of this article is published in Journal of Italian Cinema and Media Studies, 10 (1), pp. 37-58, 2021, https://doi.org/10.1386/jicms_00101_1

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