The mechanisms of recognition and the mobilisation of people in media coverage of the humanitarian donation

The objective of this thesis is to demonstrate that recognition plays an essential role in the media coverage of humanitarian donations. Based on an analysis of the portrayal of humanitarian donations in the media, the first part underlines the diversity of the recognition processes that can be implemented, and shows how, through a mirroring mechanism, they stimulate empathy behaviours, leading people to make donations. An analysis of the type of language used for these productions also shows how arguments are based on topoi, the application of which, by favoring donor recognition, can lead to acts of generosity. The study also highlights the fact that incentives to donate can only concern humanitarian organizations that potential donors recognize as ethical.
the second part, an analysis of the newscasts broadcast in the wake of the 2010 disaster in Haiti shows how the presentation of these newscasts, designed to draw the viewer's attention to this unheard-of catastrophe, actually generated processes of recognition that lead people to donate. Telethons, another form of media production, are also studied, highlighting the fact that the way in which charitable television programs are staged alternates between the topic of sentiment, with the use of recognition mechanisms that favour charitable donations, and the topic of denunciation, where the hosts place viewers in one of two categories: those who are guilty of not yet having made a donation, and those who receive recognition for the donations they have made. This analysis also shows how the staging of these two types of productions focusing on the same humanitarian cause shapes a public that includes viewers who, encouraged to participate in a general surge of solidarity, have more of an incentive to make a donation out of a desire for recognition.