Human Suffering in Contemporary Media - Essay Example

I believe that contemporary media reporting of human suffering impacts upon our sense of self in relation to others as is argued by Hoijer (2004). Hoijer (2004) has argued that “a global discourse of compassion has extended and developed at the point of intersection between politics, humanitarian organizations, the media and the audience/citizens” (p.513). And it has been observed that it is the contemporary media that is playing the most significant role in the development of this “global compassion” (Hoijer, 2004, p.513). This is so according to Hoijer (2004) because, “the media expose pictures of distant victims of civil wars, genocide, massacres and other violence against civil populations, and play a basic role in giving publicity to human suffering” (p.513). But the question is how this media exposure of “distant suffering” impacts people’s minds and it is in this context that Hoijer (2004) had set out searching an answer to “how do people react to the emotional engagement that media offers by focusing on innocent victims of political conflicts, war and other violence?” (p.513). Answer that he (Hoijer, 2004) has arrived at, describes the development of a “global discourse of compassion”, having positive humanitarian consequences as well as inherent complexities and paradoxes (p.27). According to Hoijer (2004), the first stage of the process of development of “global compassion” is the “images of distant suffering” getting assimilated into “ordinary citizens’ perceptions of conflicts and crises in the world” (p.514). An example for this is cited by Hoijer (2004) when he pointed to the television visuals of people “queuing for bread in Sarajevo” getting shelled and killed, which led to the UN imposing sanctions against Serbia (p.514). The power of visual media in evoking such strong responses lie in the assumption that visual images are “truthful depictions of reality” (Hoijer, 2004, p.514). Hoijer (2004) has further argued that such strong responses are also resulting from a paradigm shift in reporting, a change that made it more focused on people and their sufferings, “a journalism that cares as well as knows” (p.515). But Hoijer (2004) has also accepted that many depictions of distant suffering on visual media have a hidden motive of commercial benefits (p.518). This has to be read in connection with the observation made by Kellner (2004) that “both Islamic Jihadists and two Bush administrations have deployed spectacles of terror to promote their political agendas” (p.1). According to Kellner (2004), to overcome the impact of this, alternative media like internet have to be depended by the spectator so that they can remain immune to the “spectacle of terror” (p.1). Here, Kellner (2004) is rejecting only the mainstream media discourses when it comes to generating a discourse of compassion and positive action, but still he (2004) as Hoijer (2004) has accepted the impact and role of media as a whole by reinforcing the role of internet and such alternative media. Campbell (2004) has partially refuted this position by starting with the argument that the continuous exposure to suffering spectacle creates a “compassion fatigue” that hinders action (p.61). Compassion fatigue is a term coined by Moeller (1999) to warn that the mainstream media reduce our ability to decipher the world around in its realities. Here, Moeller (1999) is also referring to the way media present reality before us. It is further argued by Campbell (2004) that a photographic image can prompt action only when it is too direct which again is a very rare incident (p.65). How the famous photograph published by New York Times on an African child lying dying and a vulture looking on, invited public attention not to the fate of the child but to the photographer himself, is cited here by Campbell (2004: 68). Towards the end of his article, Campbell (2004) is but seen coming around by concluding that a photographic image of distant suffering is a complex idea and cannot be generalized either to support the politics of pity or to support compassion fatigue. And Campbell (2004) has elaborately explained this complexity by listing the three dimensions of a photographic image of distant suffering which influence the response of the spectator to it: The economy of indifference to others (especially others who are culturally, racially and spatially foreign), the economy of “taste and decency” whereby the media itself regulates the representation of death and atrocity, and the economy of display, wherein the meaning of images is produced by the intertextual relationship of captions, titles, surrounding arguments and sites for presentation (p.70). Ending his discourse on a positive note, Campbell (2004) has concluded that “nonetheless, images do bring a particular kind of power to the portrayal of death and violence. Seeing the body and what has been done to it is important” (p.71). And it is also reminded that “narratives that are un-illustrated can struggle to convey the horror evident in many circumstances” (Campbell, 2004, p.71). Here, it can be seen that Campbell is also approving of the power of the photographic image as is discussed by Hoijer (2004) in evoking people’s responses though he disagrees sometimes with the merit of those responses, as also Hoijer (2004) does. It can be seen that Hoijer (2004) has been aware of the fact that “compassion is dependent on ideal victim images,” a concept that Campbell (2004) had also pointed out when he talked about the rarely occurring “direct” nature of certain images (p.521). And by following the categorization of the forms of compassion by Boltanski (1999), it is observed that the two out of the three categories, namely, “mode of denunciation and the mode of sentiment” are visibly present in the compassion felt by the audiences towards “distant suffering” (cited in Hoijer, 2004, p.522). In other words, the responses to distant suffering can be either positive or negative when viewed from a humanitarian angle, according to Hoijer, but he still called the whole process, “the discourse of global compassion” and thus adopted a position in favor of the positive responses that images of distant sufferings evoke (2004, p.27).But all the same, he (Hoijer, 2004) has agreed that the whole issue constitute a “complex globalizing process” that cannot be named and described in totality (p.27). Another criticism that can be raised against the suggested impact of photographic image is that it never shows the “real social circumstances” that on the other hand becomes revealed before naked eye (Barker, 2000:195). According to Carter (1996), the photographs and visuals assign a "symmetry to seeing" and cannot reveal the sounds or smells or texture of particular places or the activities of social arrangements operating spatially within history (123-24). But here it can be pointed out that even the vision of the naked eye alters depending on the personality, knowledge and attitudes of the spectator. And there can be many instances where the photographic image can depict the “real social circumstances” more candidly than revealed before an untrained naked eye (Barker, 2000:195). The conclusion that can be arrived at, from a comparison of Hoijer (2004), Barker (2000) and Carter (1996) is that, though photographic images cannot depict truth in its totality, still their role as strong tools of communication cannot be overlooked and hence Hoijer (2004) is justified in arguing that human suffering impacts upon our sense of self in relation to others. And Hoijer has not forgotten to consider the limitations of the responses to photographic images of distant suffering. He has said that, tied to the visual consumption of human suffering is the concept of “the ideal victim” (Hoijer, 2004) and this term refers to distinctions between “worthy” and “unworthy” victims (p.516-17). This dichotomized categorization of human suffering is promoted and reinforced by historical as well as cultural circumstances, along with media reporting of events, regarding deserving and undeserving human suffering, also (2004). According to Hoijer (2004), tensions arise here in so far as humanitarian organizations rely on media outlets to publicize humanitarian causes to inform public and raise support for particular causes and yet such reporting is value-laden (Hoijer, 2004). These conflict of interests are based on ‘worthy’ versus ‘unworthy’ victims, along with ‘worthy’ versus ‘unworthy’ forms of human suffering in which particular victims and specific forms of human suffering are prioritized over and above other victims as well as human sufferings (Hoijer, 2004:516-517 ). And it also has to be kept in mind that these factors are compounded for humanitarian organizations who rely on media outlets to raise funds to tackle humanitarian crises (Hoijer, 2004: 517-18). Also Hoijer (2004) has observed that, yet another possible response to visuals of distant suffering could be distancing by means of questioning the “truth claim” of the given visual, blaming the news item for “commercialism and sensationalism”, or by “dehumanizing” the whole matter by becoming “numb or immune to the pictures” (p.525). These are another set of the possible categories of responses, and it is clear that they go against a humanitarian response pattern. Branching out from the main argument, it is also noted by Hoijer (2004) that women feel more compassion than men (Hoijer, 2004, p.525). This aspect along with the age of the audience were considered to show that the responses elucidated by media reporting of humanitarian events vary based on age and gender but they also vary based on various political underpinnings like dominant categories of “ideal victims” (Hoijer, 2004: 520-22). Baker’s (2000) arguments on the same topic are found to correlate with, and theoretically support what Hoijer (2004) has said. Barker (2000) has noted that “in an age in which media image can be relayed around the globe in less time than it takes an eye witness to respond to the event itself, it seems pointless to still adhere to ideas that the media has an ‘ideological effect’ on reality” (p.193). Instead Barker (2000) has stressed on the acceptance of media images as something that is present here and now, something which is true and real. But there is also another aspect to this. As Boltanski (1999) has pointed out, a difference exists between “a politics of pity” and a “politics of justice” (p.2). But he (Boltanski, 1999) has accepted the proposition of “moral compassion at a distance (Hoijer, 2004: 528) at conceptual level, by noticing that moral responsibility, apart from the person who has caused suffering, also rests with the person who has seen the suffering and done nothing about it (p.2, 13). This argument is in agreement with the notion of a “global discourse of compassion” (Hoijer, 2004: 27). Yet another major problem that Boltanski (1999) has discussed is the specific requirement that arises when “the spectacle of the unfortunate being conveyed to the witness”, through the media (p.17). This requirement is that “the action taken by the witness must in turn be conveyed to the unfortunate” (p.17). And in this scenario, he has drawn attention to the fact that “the instruments which can convey a representation [of the suffering] and those which can convey an action are not the same” (17). And it is added that when the witness tries to act, he/she has to depend on a “chain of intermediaries” and often even “such a medium” for feedback will be absent (p.17). Humanitarian organizations are one such medium. The spectator can act through them. But in view of the saying that “speaking is acting,” and in view of the modern communication networks available, Boltanski (1999) has also accepted the purposefulness of speaking done by the spectator against the suffering (p.17). Also it is stressed that in order to avoid a “selfish” response to the visuals of distant suffering through experiencing “fascination, horror, interest, excitement, [and] pleasure” from the spectacle, “a way of looking […] motivated by the intention to see the suffering ended” has to be adopted (Boltanski, 1999: 21). And the increased political willingness to consider international suffering, as discussed by Hoijer (2004) is an example of the adoption of this spectator position (p.20). Petley (2003) has also pointed to the paradox involved in the picturization of distant human suffering by the media by observing that: Contemporary media representations of warfare are marked by a glaring paradox: whilst modern media technology has the potential to permit us to see more details of warfare than ever before, and whilst fictional representations of warfare, and of violent acts in general, have become ever bloodier and more explicit, non-fictional ones (at least in the British and US mainstream media) have become increasingly restrained and sanitized (p.72). Citing the observation, “photographs cannot create a moral position, but they can reinforce one”, made by Susan Sontag (1973:17), Petley (2003) has questioned the discretion made by the British and the US media based on “taste and decency,” while showing horrible pictures of war and demanded that the visuals must be published without such censoring (p.83). Here, Petley (2003) is also rejecting the theory of “compassion fatigue” and trusting in the positive humanitarian responses that such visuals can at least reinforce (Campbell, 2004:61). Also why he (Petley, 2003) has taken this position is because such visuals even when hidden by some media will come out in public through yet another media, given the communication scenario of the present times (p.83). Chouliaraki (2008) has on the other hand stressed upon the way in which media tells the stories of distant suffering and has argued that how news is reported is what matters most in the evolution of a “cosmopolitan spectator.” (p.24). Cosmopolitanism represents the response and consecutive action of spectator to become global and in opposite to this, the spectator could remain “communitarian” thereby responding only to local suffering (Chouliaraki, 2008, p.24). Here, it can be observed that this argument also relates to the “worthy” and “unworthy” victims that Hoijer (2004) had been referring to (p.516-517). What makes a victim, a sufferer, worthy or unworthy of global compassion is not only the merit of suffering but also equally the way in which media depict her suffering. And thus the way media provides a representation changes the whole scenario of global compassion. But even in this context, the general development of global compassion towards children and other innocent sufferers and the mediating role that media commands between the public and the humanitarian groups can be seen as positive signs (Hoijer, 2004:21-24). From the above discussion, it can be inferred that what Hoijer (2004) has called the “global discourse of compassion” is a reality in the present media scenario, though having inner paradoxes that go against the very concept of compassion. But the evidences in favor of a global discourse of compassion- “increased political willingness to pay attention to internal national conflicts and civil wars”, the development of “global compassion” generally about the fate of children and the innocent caught within conflicts and disasters, the element of charity being evolved in television media telecasts, and the mediating role that media commands between the public and the humanitarian organizations- suggested by Hoijer (2004) are real and valid. This is so because even all the critics of the role of media in creating global compassion, as discussed above, agree that media is a powerful communication tool that impacts our sense of self in relation to others. And the presence of “good and bad characteristics living side by side” in the global discourse of compassion is duly acknowledged by all (Hoijer, 2004: 27). References Barker, J., (2000) “Shock: The value of emotion” in D. Berry, Ethics and Media Culture – Practices and Representations, Oxford: Focal Press Boltanski, L., (1999), Distant Suffering. Morality, Media and Politics, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Campbell, D., (2004) “Horrific Blindness: Images ofdeath in contemporary media” in Journal for Cultural Research, Vol. 8, No 1, pp. 55-73 Chouliaraki, L., (2008) “The mediation of suffering and the vision of a cosmopolitan public”, in Media, Culture and Society, Vol. 26, No. 4, pp. 513-531. Hoijer, B., (2004), “The discourse of global compassion: the audience and media reporting of human suffering” in Media, Culture and Society 26(4):513-531. Kellner, D., (2004) “9/11, Spectacles of Terror and Media Manipulation: A Critique of Jihadist and Bush Media Politics” paper presented at the annual meeting of the American Sociological Association, San Francisco: CA http://www.allacademic.com/meta/p111022_index.html Moeller, S. D., (1999) Compassion fatigue: how media sell disease, famine, war and death, New York: Routledge. Petley, J., (2003) “War Without Death: responses to distant suffering” in Journal of Crime, Conflict and the Media, Vol. 1, No. 1: 72-85 Sontag, S., (1973) On Photography, New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux. Read More