Quoted: But this legacy has some scholars wondering whether the connection between airwaves and mass graves has been overstated. Scott Straus, a political scientist at the University of Wisconsin, has raised doubts about the potential culpability of the media in large-scale violence. In a 2007 paper drawing on the content of RTLM programming, interviews with perpetrators, and an analysis of RTLM?s broadcast range compared to where violence occurred, Straus concluded that the station had, at worst, a “second-order impact” on the genocide that could not be equated with the influence of other factors, among them face-to-face mobilization by local leaders.
Office of Strategic Communication