1. INTRODUCCIÓN

This article has the objective to explain the link there is between public opinion and human rights, con- sidering the influence of media about interest as a boosting tool. These phenomena will be described using political communication as the causal because of the impact it causes into society to build an image upon an event, whether this image is partially true or false.

For Fulya Sen (2014), communication represents an essential and very important human need as well as a basic human right. The right to communication should be considered in the framework of the freedom of expression and the pluralist democracy.

It is well known by the Mexican citizens and it has been revealed to audiences worldwide how human rights are violated as an every-day practice by the Mexican Government. Such organizations as it is the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights in its report ‘Double injustice. Ayotzinapa case’ has indicated that the acts of torture and other human rights violations represent, precisely, a double injustice. On one hand, the guarantees of personal integrity and due process of the detainees are violated and, on the other, they affect the right to the truth for the victims and society.

Because as the representative of this organ in Mexico mentioned, Jan Jarab, “those who suffer torture do not necessarily tell the truth but rather what the torturer wants”, renewed action on the part of the authorities in charge of procurement of justice should be taken, in order to avoid an institutional practice of commi- tting acts of torture, as well as their tolerance and concealment. Also, the role of political communication by influencing political opinion should have a larger weight on the power of the Government to encourage public policies to help reach agreements with society. However, this mechanism should also be free from manipulation and corruption, with the right of freedom of speech as the main motive of truth.

2.- THEORICAL FRAMEWORK

Human Rights

One of the ways in which the establishment of a culture of peace in society can be achieved is through community mediation. This mechanism serves to achieve peaceful solutions and in response to differences that arise within communities. Its inclusion as a public policy -that is, as a Government action- makes a number of contributions to society. In order to achieve this, these policies must achieve a cultural change and, consequently, strengthen the acts of Government and society that allow for unrestricted respect for human rights, while also seeking to consolidate a democratic State governed by the rule of law.

In an era like the one we live in today -with unlimited access to sources of information, connected all the time with each other, with many investigations, laws and regularizations- it is difficult to find people who are not familiar with the concept of human rights. It is quite normal to hear about them, to make comments about them and to believe that we know for sure what they mean and how they are applied. In reality, this term corresponds to modern times since historically speaking human rights have had a long journey through different times to become what we now know and that somehow we try to recognize any individual and give them the respect they deserve.

The creation of the concept human rights is influenced by four “generations” forged throughout history. The first generation, where the civil and political rights were created by the French Revolution raised the issue of non-interference by the State in the lives of citizens; however, over time it became clear that these rights were not sufficient and that they needed to be supplemented, which leads to the second generation.

They arose when a written paper was no longer sufficient, but rather the practice of these rights that included the improvement of economic and cultural aspects was required. Thanks to Bobbio (quoted by Pérez Luño, 2005:25) it is clear to us that the Mexican Constitution of 1917 and the German Constitution of 1919 influenced the momentum of this generation of rights. In both countries, rights were already demanded in relation to employment, housing, fair wages, health services and rest, among others.

The emergence of the third generation of human rights took place in the 1970s, and it housed a whole range of different prerogatives, such as the right to development, the environment and peace. This generation, as can be seen, is focused on peoples and communities; it was born in response to the need for coope- ration among nations.

The last and fourth generation of human rights speak of equality between individuals and also require the State to make no distinction between men and women and to have access to all rights in an equitable and egalitarian manner. In addition, the aim is to ensure that there is no discrimination of any kind, including nationality, political orientation, gender, etc.

In light of the foregoing, to speak of community mediation as a public policy and more precisely, as an instrument for the protection of human rights, is of importance for the consolidation of a democratic system. The State, as a body organized jointly with citizens and civil society organizations, is obliged to implement actions that result in greater protection of the rights of every individual as a member of the State.

The discipline of public policies arises to fill a knowledge gap, to know how government decisions are made and to know whether they are based on rational data, analysis and calculations, which increase the effectiveness of the decided action, or whether they are based on other criteria (Aguilar Villanueva, 2010:19).

The political and technical components of public policy are well articulated, with no tensions, when the actions decided by the government have sufficient social acceptance and produce results. Other times, the two components of public policy do not correspond, they confront each other and one tries to prevail over the other, which happens when political considerations lead to promising valuable, beautiful social situations that are not feasible or are senselessly expensive, or when public policy makers do not care much about the political consequences, perhaps disastrous, that their technically sound decisions provoke (Aguilar Villanueva, 2010). In this way, it is clear that citizens need to be involved in the creation of public policies that are ultimately aimed at satisfying their needs, including the protection of human rights.

With the reform of article 17 of the Constitution, in 2008, a reference point for community mediation was presented and, therefore, another way of protecting human rights. In accordance with the constitutional reform in the area of security and justice -and with all the work carried out in forums, meetings of legis- lators with experts in mediation, academics and society in general-, there is a guideline for the design and implementation of public policies aimed at including a culture of peace in our daily actions. This is intended to reduce confrontation between members of society.

It can be said that human rights are related to public policies because, since they are clearly regulated by our Constitution, it is up to the State to carry out governmental actions, specifically public policies that allow it to guarantee their respect. It is also stressed that they ensure the well-being of citizens and that there is harmony and respect for our rights. For this reason, it is important to consolidate community mediation as another tool that seeks to achieve a culture of peace in which respect for the rights that we all have as citizens prevails.

Through community mediation, problems that are considered to have no legal relevance can be contai

ned and the conflict prevented from reaching other levels; that is to say, community mediation creates an institutionalized space for conflict resolution through the intervention of professionals trained to prevent disputes from turning into violent actions, the result of court battles, and, therefore, from disrupting social order. Community mediation plays an important role because its implementation can prevent the break- down of the social order within the community and thus consolidate peace, understood as part of human rights. This procedure includes an interactive process related to the transmission of information between political actors, media and the public which is defined by the concept of political communication according to Norris (2000).

Political Communication

Political communication is composed of two big concepts difficult to tackle, politics and communication. There are four major definitions of political communication managed by some theorists (Grestlé, 2005):

• Instrumental and reductionist conception, which is essentially based on the fact that political communication is constituted by the set of techniques and procedures available to political actors to seduce and manage public opinion. However, this definition dissociates policy communication since it emphasizes its technocratic character, considering communication as a tool to manage image and politics as the image itself

• Ecumenical vision, which defines political communication as an interactive process related to the transmission of information among political actors, the media and the public (Norris, 2000). Al- though this raises a circulation of communication without obstacles, it has the drawback of referring to the notion of exchange that implies a more symmetrical than complementary communication, that is, everything happens as if equality prevailed in the realization of communicative exchanges.

• Competitive conception (Blumer & Gurevich, 1995), which refers to the competence to influence and control through mainstream media, public perceptions of major political events and what is at stake. A struggle for the control of collective representations, emphasizing the role of the cognitive and symbolic of political processes and insisting on the media

• Finally, the deliberative conception unites the technological fascination with communication and politics. This means that it is in the discussion, in the public and collective debate, where the conditions for democracy will be found, including all citizens. That is, this vision is linked to the definition of deliberative democracy (Grestlé, 2005).

These definitions of political communication have two aspects: one emphasizes communication and the other emphasizes politics. It will depend on the theorists and researchers the use of the inclination that is made of the political communication. It is evident that the political implies the social and the communi- cation is, also of evident form, a social bond. Both the problems and solutions of a collective or political group are socially carried out by transmitting to the masses directly and indirectly through the use of the same citizenship or the media.

Specifically, Dader (2008) proposes the following definition, which in some way groups the concepts explored up to now: “Political communication is the production, diffusion and exchange of symbols and cognitive representations about politics, with the consequent generation of perceptions and reactions about that policy “(p. 3).

As Roth (2015) mentions, political leaders usually take the coverage given by traditional media to an issue (when there is a free press) as a substitute for public opinion. However, there are two relatively recent and notable changes in this traditional understanding of shaming human rights. First, the rise of social me- dia means that there are more people influencing public opinion than traditional journalists, more ways in

which people can learn about human rights issues as well as through the dominant media, and more ways in which policy makers can discern the views of a relevant public than by consuming news through news- papers and broadcasts. Second, some human rights violators have become much more sophisticated about the use of the media, both traditional and social, to influence world opinion.

This role played by the media has led, as Dader (2008) points out, to a conversion of societies towards the mediocracy, that is, media-centered democracy, as the main link between political communication and the mass media communication.

Nowadays, there is an extensive literature on the interaction between media and politics, which, although largely focused on electoral processes, also addresses issues such as infotainment or personalization, which target issues other than politics of elections. However, the vast majority of these works describe specific experiences without looking too much at the general trends that can already be identified in the behavior of the media. On the other hand, the focus of these approaches is worked from the perspective of cultural studies, or from the communication sciences, and not with a vision that integrates from the object of study to political science.

For Wolton (1989), political communication is an indispensable process for the contemporary political space, it allows the confrontation of political discourses: ideology and action for politicians, information for journalists, communication for public opinion and polls. These three discourses are in constant tension, each one of them keeps a part of the democratic political legitimacy and tries to interpret the political reality of the moment, excluding the other.

As established by Mendé & Smith (1999) “The mass media mobilizes before the event; the politicians before the action; public opinion before the hierarchy of issues and concerns that do not obey either the pace of political action or the mass media. This demonstrates the differences in time scale and concern that exist in each of the actors… the fundamental role of political communication is to avoid the seclusion of the political debate itself, integrating the issues of all kinds that acquire political interest and facilitating the permanent process of selection, hierarchy and elimination, providing sufficient elasticity to the political system. It serves to address the main contradiction of the democratic political system: to alternate a system of opening up to new problems with a system of closures destined to avoid that everything is in permanent debate.” (p. 202).

Political communication offers the preamble for public opinion, since this is where it arises. It takes place starting the subject of interest, later media oversees disseminating the information and finally the people interested generate a criterion upon which they debate with others. As to the government, it serves as an incentive to act and produce strategies such as public policies like community mediation in order to give a solution to the problem established.

Public opinion

According to Jürgen Habermas (1994), public opinion was born at the end of the 17th and the beginning of the 18th century at the cafes and bars of Paris and London where people met to debate different issues of common interest. These places became centers of discussion and argumentation; the cities were centers of literary advertising and began to have significant political and literary weight. The discovery of America, wars, literary novelties or courtly news were the most-talked-about topics at these bars and cafes.

It is from the bourgeois revolutions and the alliance between the people and the bourgeoisie that the popular classes will begin to feel themselves as an active political subject. It is beginning to be observed that the opinions of private individuals could evolve into public opinion through a rational-critical debate of a public made of citizens, which was open to all and free from domination (Pareja and Echeverria, 2014)

The institutions of mass communication, mentions Habermas (1994), gradually replaced in importance the bars and cafes. The commercialization of mass communication altered the critical nature of the social sphere. What once was a forum for rational and critical debate became another field of cultural consump- tion.

The French are considered the inventors and disseminators of the public opinion, Noelle-Neumann ensures that the first user of the combination of opinion and public as a united expression was Rousseau. He saw public opinion as a way of carrying out the common will, which was given through egalitarian and reasoned debate.

Botero Montoya (2006) indicates that Necker (Minister of finance of the French Crown) was in favor of the total publicity of state activities and stated that “only the crazy, the pure theorists or the apprentices fail to take into account public opinion”.

Moving on to the 1900s, the change in public opinion studies was becoming increasingly clear within the social sciences as it turned into a major object of study for sociologists, psychologists and political scientists.

Throughout history, many generations of authors have tried to give a concept to public opinion, but there is no generally accepted definition. Public opinion is currently considered one of the most important and decisive concepts in the social sciences, alluding to a social phenomenon.

Efforts to define the term have led to expressions of frustration such as “public opinion is no the name of anything, but a classification of a set of things” (Davison, 1968).

Pareja and Echeverría (2014) mention that public opinion can be understood as a concept that articulates a social phenomenon in which there is a series of ideas, thoughts and beliefs around diverse themes of collective character.

Public opinion is then understood as the freedom to express and opinion on general or public affairs of the State (“common good”, “public necessity”, “general interest”…) and, in connection with this, on the content and form of State government that is, on the content and form of governmental decisions relating to such general affairs. (Aguilar Villanueva, 2017).

Another of the definitions that help to understand public opinion in a simpler way is the following:

Public opinion is the result of individual opinion on topics or subjects of common interest and that originate, first, in human communicative forms, in individual processes and then, in collective processes to varying degrees, depending on the nature of the information shared by individuals, and at the same time influenced by the particular interests of the social groups that are affected (Reyes Montes, O’ Quínn Parrales, Morales y Gómez, & Rodríguez Manzanares, 2011).

Considering the definition above given it can be understood that the individual opinions of each citizen are born from the information they receive about a topic of common interest. Califano (2015) tells us that Harold Lasswell said that those who control the media will have an important advantage in presenting this knowledge throughout society. Public opinion is the key to their deliberative policy proposal, which is an alternative for overcoming the democratic deficits of contemporary politics.

A high-profile case of public opinion in Mexico occurred in 2001 when the then president, Vicente Fox, announced the construction of a new airport in the areas of Texcoco, San Salvador de Atenco and chimalhuacan.

This caused some discontent among the inhabitants and let to marches and demonstrations against the construction. The People’s Front in Defense of the Land (FPDT) was also created. This fact is remembered due to the violent events that happened and the countless human rights violations that took place.

Throughout the conflict, the collective resistance against the construction of the airport had two fronts of struggle: legal and social mobilization.

Kuri Pineda (2010) explains that once this news was made public in Mexico, numerous positions emerged within the Mexican public opinion on which of the two candidacies to build the new airport represented the best alternative in economic, ecological, urban and aeronautical terms.

This author also mentions that the airport conflict was an intense process of confrontation that marked the communities, in such way that the people still experience the division between those who decide to participate in the movement and those who were willing to sell their land.

In conclusion, this mega-project gave rise to various forms of citizen participation in a formal and in- formal, community, organizational, institutional and autonomous manner. A new relationship between the government and citizens was experienced (Moreno Sánchez, 2014).

3.- METHODOLOGY, SAMPLE PERIOD AND DATA USED

The purpose of this study is to understand all the parts of the Salvador Atenco`s case, and thus be able to understand better from the inside and how political communication, public opinion and human rights are related in this event.

Up to this point, we have seen that the process, which proceeds creating a public opinion, starts with the violation of any human right that is publicly exposed, it can be through television, radio, magazines or newspaper (Pareja and Echeverría, 2014). However, journalist aren’t the only people publishing about the matter nor are they doing it only by the “traditional method”; the subject jumps into Internet and it’s being posted and commented on by anyone in the world who may be able to watch it. This is where public opinion starts to happen (Habermas, 1994). This specific space, virtual or non-virtual, where people share their thoughts about a topic. Therefore, the research questions are the following:

• Did the government’s political communication regarding the ‘San Salvador Atenco’ case have a positive impact on public opinion?

• Did the attack on the human rights of the inhabitants of San Salvador Atenco received the necessary exposure from the media?

• Did the media generate in public opinion an idea of human rights violations in the case of San Salvador Atenco?

4.- RESULTS

The case study is known as a research method that is characterized by the use of cases from unique social or educational entities in which it has to carry out a systematic and in-depth examination of them. It differs from sample research in that the case is pre-selected because it offers better and greater learning opportunities in the field (Stake 1995).

For Yin (1989), the case study consists of the detailed description and analysis of unique social units or educational entities. Whereas for Stake (1998) it is the study of the particularity and complexity of a singular case, to understand its activity in concrete circumstances.

It is a qualitative research method that can measure and record the behavior of the people involved within a studied phenomenon (Yin, 1989). It is mainly characterized by the investigation of several phenomena in which it seeks one or more answers to the questions that may arise as the investigation progresses. The case study is interested in the characteristics of a project design, as well as the results of a program or social intervention experience. Other characteristics of the case study, according to the author Pérez Serrano (1994) are:

• It is particularistic: this means that it is characterized by an idiographic approach, aimed at under- standing the singular reality.

• It is descriptive: a rich qualitative description is obtained as the final product of a case study.

• It is heuristic: because it discovers new meanings, broadens the experience or simply confirms what was already known with a strategy aimed at decision making.

• It is inductive: it is based on inductive reasoning to generate hypotheses and discover relationships and concepts from the detailed system where the case takes place.

Cases are unique social situations or entities that deserve to be investigated. Case studies may be composed of single or multiple case studies (depending on their units of analysis), but their purpose is to understand the particularity of the case (Serván and Muñoz, 1999). Yin (1989) distinguishes three different types of objectives:

• Exploratory: the results of which can be used as a basis for asking research questions

• Descriptive: tries to describe what happens in a particular case

• Explanatory: facilitates interpretation

Types of cases:

Values case: Each individual has a scale of values. Two people may meet affectively in a “here and now”, but as soon as they approach an issue from their respective core values they will find themselves in antagonistic positions

Incident case: The ultimate aim is to actively seek out additional information from the participants in order to clarify the individual processes of the decision.

Case of reasoned solution: It differs from the incident case in that there is no additional information here: the group has to be satisfied with the data of the case and concentrate its efforts on reconciling the various solutions in order to find a reasonable solution.

Case where imagination is applied: From imagination promote in the group a representation of the case

based on real situations.

Real search case: It can be used when there has previously been an ideological discussion or an aware- ness process about a particular problem shown in the news or the media, where some questions are made upon a selected case, which is the type we are doing for this study.

Thematic case: What is of interest is not the case itself but the substance of the case. Stake (1998) points out that due to their characteristics, a case study is difficult to structure with defined steps, but Montero and León s proposal (2002) develops a fivephase method.

• The selection and definition of the case.

• Preparation of a list of questions.

• Location of data sources.

• Analysis and interpretation.

• The preparation of the report.

Description of San Salvador Atenco´s Case

After a year of announcing the start of construction of a new airport in Mexico City, President Vicente Fox postponed the project indefinitely. The movement was defined from the beginning of 2001 as a way of manifesting itself in the construction of Mexico City’s international airport, this project was considered as an urban proposal that should be developed.

The main protagonists of the movement are communal land holders from a locality near Mexico City, belonging to the popular sectors where there is a transformation of the actor-subject: a) The actors of this movement identify and structure themselves based on a certain identity, demands and principles, with the particularities of the socio-cultural condition of the social category to which they belong; b) by their own demands or claims regarding their condition, and c) by the organizational and institutional characteristics of the environment in which they operate (Munck, 1995).

The municipality of Atenco is located in the central part of the Valley of Mexico and in the eastern part of the State of Mexico; it is separated from the former Federal District (current Mexico City) by the muni- cipalities of Nezahualcóyotl and Ecatepec. It is located 22 kilometers from Mexico City and belongs to the region of Texcoco. It is bordered to the north by the municipalities of Acolman and Tezoyuca, to the south by the municipality of Texcoco, to the east by Chiautla, Tezoyuca and Chiconcuac, and to the west by the municipality of Ecatepec.

Most of the social movements that have emerged in Mexico’s history are a reflection of class conflict, but in this case it is a struggle of a joint community to express the class in which they live. Its form depends on the state of the political system and social organization.

All social movements have a raison d’être and are constituted in class relations. The case of Atenco helps us to visualize it as a regional, social movement that receives coverage and diffusion because its background is based on the struggle with the local space, as well as the defense of something that can be considered as delicate: the possession of land in the Metropolitan Area of Mexico City. Alain Touraine (2005) considers that social movements are above all cultural movements, very different from those whose socio-economic orientations had been anchored in industrial societies. Such is the case of Atenco.

The conflict may have been initiated for the purpose of maintaining a single element, but its characteristics imply differences according to the place and order of events; orientations or resources, social or cultural characteristics may also be helpful in defining the movement’s strategy. The actors of a movement do not form a social environment that can be defined by common choices, by a personal and collective social iden- tity. A social movement, on the other hand, is constantly trying to question the social definition of roles, the functioning of the political game, the social order.

At the beginning of the social conflict, 2001, there were no major education centers in the municipality, as in Texcoco, but in 2011 the Universidad Mexiquense del Bicentenario, known as the “Unidad Académica Universitaria Atenco” (Atenco University Academic Unit), located in the Santa Isabel Ixtapan community,

was already in operation and offers two degrees: Industrial Engineering and Information and Communica- tion Technologies Engineering.

In 2001, the President of the Republic was Vicente Fox, who presented the proposal to build the best urban work of the six-year term with the installation of the international airport of the largest metropolitan area in Latin America. It would be located in Mexican territory and specifically in the municipalities of Atenco and Texcoco. Undoubtedly Vicente Fox and the then secretary of communications and transporta- tion, architect Pedro Cerisola Weber were the main actors in the airport project. The decrees of expropria- tion of land in the Texcoco region gave them constitutional powers to build and operate an airport. The State has the power to ensure the free movement of goods and persons by air and their movement by air or land may not be limited to one territory or one physical space.

The Atenco problem took another direction in 2006 with the repression of the state government and the executive branch of government. The social movement has continued with less impact in Atenco, but not in other latitudes or in the MCMA, where it is recognized as a “social movement”, in which several social and political actors participate. This continues, but the issue is no longer limited to disagreements between the federal government and the communal land holders, who carry machetes as a defense and icon no longer of the land, but of citizen demands for justice, freedom, human rights, employment and security, among others. It should be remembered that each social movement is associated with the social data itself and with the historical cultural processes that are the fruit of a democracy and rationality at a given time.

Atenco has had to face and get used to a poorly organized and planned urban development in its different localities; this has required a greater supply of public services (drinking water, electricity, drainage, among others); the redefinition of the population in its territory; and the change of land use in the last decade from agricultural to urban, semi-industrial, or commercial. This municipality has become an extension of the great city, since its traditions, its forms of organization, its cultural expressions, its values and the ways of life of its inhabitants are intertwined. They receive the influence of the region and of a modernity where the different actors are structured from a certain identity, from certain principles, with the socio-cultural condition and the characteristics of an area that belongs to the State of Mexico, but receives the influence determining of the most important metropolis of the country and of Latin America.

5.- CONCLUSIONS

In this part, the article will give an answer to the established research questions above. The first questions inquired if the political communication offered by the government regarding the Atenco case had had a positive impact on public opinion. According to the described case, the answer is a negative one. As previously seen, public opinion is studied as a reflection of a series of collective thoughts, behaviors and customs that play the role of reference of the opinions held by individuals. Public opinion, from this perspective, is linked to the prevailing set of beliefs in a given community. Thus, if the State is not able to reach the whole audience through this communication channel that encompasses emotions, thoughts, experiences and values then the government just simply won’t have the capacity to create a link with the community and therefore, the public policies proposed by the government won’t have the participation of the citizens and they won’t be good enough to satisfy their necessities. The clear example of this is the fact that even when Fox decided to back out and public “apologies” were made, it was also Enrique Peña Nieto who said “There won’t be a negotiation. The law will be applied, and the rule of law will be enforced.” That had a larger and negative impact for the Government, due mainly to the images that had been infiltrated. Thus, the government’s political communication regarding this case did not have a positive impact on public opinion.

To the second question the answer would have to be an affirmative one. At the moment it was some pretty big news, but then again, so was Ayotzinapa or any femicide case. However, all these events have

in common the same characteristic: they gain popularity for some time and then become history. All of a sudden nobody remembers about it and it doesn’t mean the situation has been solved. In the case of Mexico, the citizens decide to forget and forgive. No movement has become strong enough to actually make a change on society, even when it received sufficient exposure from media. Regarding the ‘forget & forgive’ concept we mean that as no rightful action is taken from the government, impunity reigns. Leading to the attitude of thinking that not any achievement from the population towards the government makes a diffe- rence and they decide to not care anymore, so they eventually forget which later turns into forgiveness. At the time the Atenco case occurred, Fox was certainly the President of the Mexican Republic, but Enrique Peña Nieto was the then governor of the state where the events happened: State of México. After his speech previously mentioned, he didn’t seem to gain any popularity, thus after Fox and Calderon he became the current President of the Mexican Republic: people forget and forgive. Overall, the case did have enough exposure by the media at the time, but it seemed tackled by the effervescence effect that hunts every other event in our country.

The third question asks if the media generated in the public opinion an idea of human rights violations. And as established before, it did. Media captured the moments by photos, by testimonials, by recording it and it was able to transmit it; at this moment the process of developing a public opinion as such had taken place and people were critical about it, however it didn’t cause a bigger impact. Neither on the population to take up a different strategy to reach the Government, nor the State to also stop using the ‘old-way’ methods (violently) that only leads us backwards as a society.

At the end, if we were to analyze the three answers as a whole rather than separately, we would see how they are connected. It all starts with the violation of human rights which manages to be noticeable. After the media has captured attention on the audience, the Government makes an announcement regarding the topic, using political communication as a method and finally, this political communication creates and impact on the citizens to formulate a criteria based on the situation, this is called public opinion which normally agrees with the fact that human rights are being violated. Nevertheless, this cycle of three is not strong enough to stop the abuse, at least not in Mexico and that is why with these conclusions the necessity and importance of further case studies is highlighted, as well as encouraged.

The importance of studying this matter lies in identifying the role of public opinion as a spokesperson through political communication who can demand an answer to the violation of the human rights of citizens. A way to accomplish it could be by the press, since it acts as a counterweight tool and a mediator between the citizenship and the achievement of their rights. Political communication comes along with a public opinion made of social consciousness thanks to the capacity of the media in publicizing abuses of violations, spreading facts and facilitating the exercise of rights.

Also, the determination of different aspects that could cause the violations of human rights. For example, most experts argue that human rights violations should decrease with economic development, however it’s proven by Dreher, Gassebner & Siemers (2012) that they increase with economic growth. Mitchell y McCormick (1988) support this idea when they mention that the better the economic situation, measured by the quantity and quality of goods and services available, the less potential for conflict and therefore repression. Which is why further studies should include what external factor may influence the cycle of political communication and public opinion regarding the violation of human rights and that also may indicate the cause of why it hasn’t alone accomplished to lower the levels of this abuse.

Finally, it should be stressed that it is not enough to simply create and give the public a perspective on certain issues, in this case the violation of human rights, but to make an effort to educate citizens and to teach them to be active with the media. This includes a twofold task: on one hand, to have the capacity to reconstruct the culture offered by the media and on the other, to inform, train and transform education in human rights and peace, constituting and important instrument for building a new culture (Tuvilla, 1997).

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