SOCIAL REPRESENTATIONS AND ACKNOWLEDGEMENT OF HUMAN RIGHTS IN THE CITY OF MONTERREY, MEXICO

This article focuses on the social representations of Human Rights in Mexican news media, in the city of Monterrey, Mexico. It analyses how Monterrey citizens learn about human rights, and what role could different sources play in their construction of social representations. Furthermore, it researches the acknowledgement and knowledge of the subject by these citizens. The analysis is built on N239 surveys collected from Monterrey news readers, supplemented by data from twenty-four participants in four focus groups. The conclusions confirm that news media is the main source of information on Human Rights, but that there is a weak founded social representation regarding human rights. Attitudes are often fatalistic, and participants have limited knowledge of how to act upon human rights.