Toward Journalism on Human Trafficking That is Trauma-Informed, Hope-Based, and Solutions-Oriented

ABSTRACT

Developments in related practices termed solutions journalism or constructive journalism and scholarship on those journalistic practices hold significant promise for improving journalism on human trafficking but have yet to be engaged robustly by either journalists or scholars of journalism on human trafficking (HT). This commentary article reviews recent scholarship on constructive journalism considering patterns in media framing of human trafficking that have been established over the last two decades through studies of HT journalism. It highlights several open-access resources designed to catalyze better journalism on human trafficking that could be utilized fruitfully to improve journalism education and expand research on human trafficking journalism.

KEYWORDS:

• Media frames
• agenda-setting
• solutions journalism
• constructive journalism

The power of journalists and other media producers to shape public opinion, social movements, and policy on societal issues is well-established by scholarship from political communication and media studies (Benford & Snow, 2000; McCombs & Shaw, 1972; Wanta, 1997). How media reports are framed, i.e., with certain aspects of an issue foregrounded and others not, shape media users’ perceptions of the issue. More specifically, media frames define problems, diagnose causal relations, produce and validate opinions (or moral judgments) on problems, and suggest remedies or solutions (Entman, 1993). Therefore, patterns in media framings of human trafficking (HT) are consequential for countering it more effectively.

Developments in a set of related practices termed solutions journalism or constructive journalism and scholarship on those journalistic practices hold significant promise for improving journalism on human trafficking but have yet to be engaged robustly by either journalists or scholars of journalism on HT (referred to hereafter as HT journalism). The two aims of this commentary article are to: 1) review recent scholarship on constructive journalism considering patterns in media framing of HT that have been established over the last two decades through studies of HT journalism, and 2) highlight several open-access resources designed to catalyze better journalism on HT that could be utilized fruitfully for both improving journalism education and expanding research on HT journalism.

Mike Dottridge (2002) appears to have published the first article in an English-language academic journal assessing extant journalism on any form of human trafficking, specifically the trafficking of children from Central and West Africa. His analysis is worth examining closely for this article. Dottridge observed:

In numerous cases Western journalists reminded their audiences that the region where children were being enslaved was precisely the same “Slave Coast” visited by ships involved historically in the Trans-Atlantic slave trade. They seemed to be suggesting that West Africans are irredeemably attached to slavery as a way of recruiting cheap labor, although the sentiments were rarely voiced in such racist terms. Most reporters focused on the sectors where cruelty and exploitation were most visible – the horrendous experiences of children in transit and after arriving at their destinations. Very few visited the children’s villages or towns of origin to report on the factors propelling children away. (p. 39)

After describing the investigations of human trafficking conducted by nongovernmental organizations in several Central and West African countries in the late 1990s, Dottridge noted a single journalist-led investigation and report:

In 1998, a newspaper in Côte d’Ivoire denounced the trafficking of children from Burkina Faso and Mali into Côte d’Ivoire, and claimed that boys were being sold to work on farms for as little as US$30, producing a range of commercial crops (IVOIR’SOIR, 1998, 18, cited in Dottridge, 2002, p. 40).

He described the significant impact that news reports had on national policy in two countries this way: “The newspaper publicity led the governments of Côte d’Ivoire and Mali to set up a commission of inquiry and, in September 2000, to sign an agreement to curb the traffic” (p. 41).

While Dottridge is not a media scholar, his anecdotal observations of both the narrow and shallow problem focus of journalism on HT in the West and Central African regions during the late 1990s, and the constructive impact of broader framing and deeper journalistic investigation, were confirmed and extended by subsequent systematic studies of journalism on HT. Pajnik’s (2010) analysis of news articles published in Slovene 2003–2005 found that “trafficking appears within ‘frames’ [labeled] ‘criminalization’, ‘nationalization’, ‘victimization’ and ‘regularization’; together, this help to shape a specific anti-trafficking paradigm, one that depicts trafficking as a criminal issue and calls for stricter policing, saving victims and tightening borders” (p. 45). Scholars examining English news reports in various media published in multiple countries and regions of the world in the 1990s, 2000s, and 2010s had broadly consistent findings. In aggregate, they characterized the framing of HT in media reports as a crime problem, with a greater proportion of reports focused on child sex trafficking than any other type of HT (followed by the trafficking of women for sex), and with little to no attention to root causes or remedies (Austin & Farrell, 2017; Farrell & Fahey, 2009; Friedman & Johnston, 2018; Gulati, 2011; Johnston et al., 2014, 2015; Sobel, 2014; Sobel et al., 2017; Walllinger, 2010).

Johnston et al. (2014) took a deeper look at these patterns by analyzing how news reports in the U.S. defined the problem of sex trafficking throughout 2009 and whether any reports identified any remedy. They found that news coverage of trafficking was overwhelmingly framed as a crime issue and proposed no remedies. In Friedman and Johnston’s (2018) introduction to a special issue of the Journal of Human Trafficking on media and human trafficking, their review of extant scholarship confirmed and elaborated the patterns described above but also highlighted a few notable exceptions as exemplars of what they argue should become the norm in media representations of HT. Moreover, an article in that special issue by Sanders (2018), a survivor-leader, contrasts her experience with two reporters: one whose interviewing and reporting re-traumatized her and did nothing to contribute to ending human trafficking, and another who exemplified the potential for journalism on HT to be not only trauma-informed but also constructive. Her conclusion is a powerful call for change:

we [survivors] are more than the stories of our trafficking experiences. Journalists have a choice to tell the stories that make the greatest impact – the biggest impact will come from the truths that lead to prevention and recovery, and survivors are a vital source of those truths. (p. 88)

Sanders’ experience-based call for trauma-informed and constructive journalism on HT resonates with a growing body of work by journalists and scholars of journalism alike on the importance – and ethical imperative – of changing journalistic practices around complex issues such as HT. Hopkinson and Dahmen (2021) advocate for journalists to employ:

forms of journalistic practice – some old, some reinvigorated, some new – that hold true to journalism’s professional values while implementing productive, socially responsible reporting approaches to informing the public. By productive, we mean practices that push the conversation forward, that engage and empower audiences, and that seek to create meaningful impact. By socially responsible, we mean journalism that considers society’s best interests by covering the news beyond problem-based narrative, by reporting with depth and embracing complexity, and by emphasizing connection and collaboration with the community. To be clear, these journalistic practices are not positive news or fluff reporting intended to create feel-good pieces. They are rigorous reporting practices that can be applied in covering socially significant and unrelenting issues: climate change, immigration, homelessness, racial injustice, gun violence, human trafficking, economic disparity, and the like. (pp. 1–2)

In a study of how solutions journalism practices were implemented in local contexts, Usery (2022) found that “solutions journalism gives agency to those in underrepresented communities. It allows for storytelling that develops them as characters rather than victims or criminals. In turn, this agency promotes liberation in underrepresented communities, which can spur tangible change” (p. 14). This finding holds promise for survivors of HT, as their perspectives have been routinely excluded or marginalized in journalism on HT (Johnston et al., 2014).

The kinds of evidence on which Hopkinson and Dahmen base their normative argument for productive, socially responsible journalism are complemented by accounts of the nonprofit Solutions Journalism Network (SJN), founded in 2013, the mission of which is to “transform journalism so that all people have access to news that helps them envision and build a more equitable and sustainable world” (Solutions Journalism Network, n.d.-a). As of April, 2023, the SJN’s website states, “More than 500 news organizations and 20,000 journalists worldwide have worked with us and inspired one another to integrate solutions journalism into their reporting” (Solutions Journalism Network, n.d.-a). The SJN curates a database of “rigorous reporting on responses to social problems: 14900 stories produced by 6,000 journalists and 1,900 news outlets, from 190 countries,” which its staff vets, and characterizes the database as “growing every day” (Solutions Journalism Network, n.d.-b). As of April 2023, a search of the Solutions Story Tracker database for stories on “ending slavery and human trafficking” resulted in 42 reports published in English between 2013–2022 in multiple countries on multiple forms of HT – all of which included a way that slavery or HT was being countered.

Corresponding with scholarly critiques of the predominant patterns in journalism on HT and the push for constructive, solutions-oriented journalism across complex social issues, there is a growing set of open-access resources for journalists covering HT to gain knowledge and skills in employing interviewing and reporting practices that are trauma-informed, hope-based, and solutions-oriented. The earliest of these appears to have been the Trafficking in Women Manual for Journalists, published in English and Serbian by the nonprofit ASTRA (Anti Sex Trafficking Action, 2003). A second edition, retitled the Human Trafficking Manual for Journalists followed in 2008 with contributions from journalists alongside ASTRA staff (Radović et al., 2008). The purpose of the manual was explained like this:

Adequate media reporting on this problem is very important for deconstructing prejudice and stereotypes, popular awareness raising, preventing future recruitment and improving the quality of assistance and reintegration process of persons who have managed to come out of the trafficking chain. We considered this to be in our common interest. Therefore, we hope you will find this Manual useful for your work. (p. 6)

The Irina Project at the University of North Carolina – Chapel Hill “monitors media representations of sex trafficking and advocates through research and engagement the accurate and responsible coverage of this complex issue” (Friedman & Johnston, n.d..).

Several open-source resources for journalists strongly articulate the importance of a solutions orientation in journalism on HT. For instance, the Human Trafficking Toolkit (Gastélum Félix et al., 2017) aims to “expand the conversation around human trafficking,” arguing that

successful media coverage of human trafficking can highlight the efforts being made against human trafficking, the partnerships in place working to stop the crime and the success stories of survivors, social workers, law enforcers and many other people doing tremendous work. Stories that inspire people to focus on solutions rather than problems are a powerful way to reach the public. (p. 87)

This toolkit, published by The Arab Initiative to Build National Capacities to Combat Human Trafficking in the Arab Countries with support from the UNODC Office for the Gulf Cooperation Council Region, urges journalists to include practical advice on how readers or viewers can help prevent and counter HT, point to protection resources for victims, and highlight current prevention efforts and available resources.

The Media and Trafficking in Human Beings Guidelines by Aidan White and the Ethical Journalism Network (2017) make an even more specific argument for solutions-oriented journalism, explaining,

Media and journalism should play a positive role in persuading the world that trafficking can be diminished if not eradicated. Political leaders and the public at large need to read, hear and see the full story. It is an essential first step in generating the political will needed to overcome the fundamental causes of human trafficking. (p. 6)

This resource provides efficient guidance for journalists on how to craft constructive stories about HT.

The latter two resources articulate the relationship between hope and solutions-oriented journalism on HT. According to Gastélum Félix et al. (2017), “without information about solutions, audiences are left with a sense of hopelessness. The media has the potential to educate people about human trafficking and to empower them to take actions to prevent it and to protect those who have been victimized” (p. 87). White and the Ethical Journalism Network (2017) exhort journalists to

Build hope. It’s easy for the public to think of people who are victims of trafficking or in forced labor as powerless individuals who are permanently damaged. That isn’t always true. Journalism that highlights human resilience and tells how people can rebuild their lives from the tragedy of modern slavery and forced labor tells a different story. (p. 17)

However, neither of these resources provides specific guidance to journalists on building hope other than focusing on solutions.

Foot et al. (2022) attempt to redress that gap via the Toolkit for Hope-Based and Solutions-Oriented Journalism on Human Trafficking, developed collaboratively by a multisector group of scholars, survivors, community-based advocates, and public information officers, together with journalists and producers of other types of media. The premise of this toolkit is:

Journalism in a democracy aims to contribute constructively to society by providing audiences with information necessary to make informed decisions about their lives, communities, and government. Reporting that focuses narrowly on the problem of HT can cause harm, because the problem is only part of the story that needs to be told. Journalists can maximize positive impact by reporting more holistically on the many efforts to combat HT being advanced within and across multiple sectors, including by survivors themselves. Stories have the ability to heighten public awareness in identifying potential survivors and not criminalizing victims. Responsible reporting can influence policy development and provide a means to hold exploiters and beneficiaries of trafficking accountable. (e.g., businesses profiting from exploitation or buyers of a trafficked person).

This toolkit envisions journalism on HT as coproduced between journalists, survivors, their advocates, and public information officers in their intermediary role between survivors and journalists. Ways to go beyond being trauma-informed to also convey hope as the foundation for solutions-oriented journalism on HT are articulated in three coordinated guides explicitly addressed to each type of reader.

All the resources described above provide solid rationales for evidence-based, practical guidance toward trauma-informed, hope-based, and solutions-oriented journalism on HT. An emerging body of scholarship explores how various types of audiences respond to particular forms of constructive journalism. For example, experiments conducted by Dahmen et al. (2019) found that narrative engagement can play an important role in involving audiences in visual solutions reporting, with data showing that solutions visual reporting is more engaging on average. Additional findings included that when audiences are more engaged in the visual solutions reporting, participants report more positive outcomes for interest, self-efficacy, and behavior intentions. In another experiment-based study, Hermann and Prins (2022) found that including constructive elements of hope and inspiration and solution-based information in the news can improve emotional responses among Millennials.

Conclusion

The need for constructive journalism on HT is clear, and people in every sector can help advance trauma-informed, hope-based, and solutions-oriented media on HT. Scholars, journalists, and anti-trafficking practitioners can employ and help disseminate open-access resources like those described above and contribute to the Solutions Journalism Network’s database of constructive news reports addressing slavery and human trafficking. More research is needed to illuminate how constructive HT journalism can be crafted more effectively.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.