| dc.description.abstract | Human rights record is often monitored through mass media content.
However, in repressed societies, mass media is often policed, resulting in
sanitised depictions of life. Such mass media appears inadequate as a
source of primary information for human rights monitors. This paper
poses the question whether there are alternative sources, informal sources,
even in society’s periphery, that can indicate where human rights monitors
can shine their torches. It is argued that popular art, as independently-
generated culturally-specific entertainment, provides the sought-after fresh
independent lens. This paper analyses the depictions of human rights
abuses attributed to one powerful state organ in Kenya, the police. Since
the police wield coercive power and are the face of a state’s monopoly of
force, systemic abuses by police fit well into the category of information
that is invisible in the sanitised depictions of controlled mass media. This
analysis focuses on public perceptions of the police in Kenya, as portrayed
in protest music, popular comedies, broadcast advertisements, and pa-
rodied interviews. | en_US |
