This article analyzes the representation university students make of their own involvement and the involvement of the government with Human Rights (HR); it also analyzes the relationship between this representation and the psychosocial variables and compares some moral values transmitted by Rede Globo de Televisão (the most influential TV channel in Brazil) to the university students' representation. A study based on the psychosocial theory of the social representations was carried out with 93 university students from UFPB and UEPB in order to check the students' representation about HR. The results revealed that the representation of the involvement has four dimensions - the abstract-personal, the concrete-personal, the abstract-governmental and the concrete-governmental. It was found that the students' commitment with individual rights is stronger than with societal rights; the representation of the involvement with HR is mainly grounded on party affiliations and on the participation of these students in socio-political activities. There is also a similarity between the prevailing moral values of the TV programs under examination and the type of article of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights the students support more strongly.
morality; human rights; social participation
