The role of mediated narratives and images of distant suffering in cultivating moral response has provoked lively debate within and outside academia. In particular, since the mid-1990s, in the light of "uncivil wars" and the "crisis of humanitarianism", studies have sought to address the apparent gap between the mediation of humanitarianism -the intense visibility of humanitarian disasters and distant suffering in the globally mediated space -and the lack of commensurate response -action to alleviate that suffering, specifically by western publics. The paper examines existing research in this area, identifying two central strands, namely philosophically-oriented accounts and empirical studies of text, audience and production. The discussion evaluates their contributions, limitations and lacunas.Based on this critical review, we suggest a research framework that simultaneously builds on and departs from existing work and can help to expand and strengthen a programme of research on the mediation of humanitarianism. This framework highlights the importance of: (1) studying mediated humanitarianism as a multi-sited dialectical process; (2) moving away from prescriptive normativity to studying how the mediation of humanitarianism is experienced, affected and negotiated; and (3) "undoing" despair as the motivation and consequent impulse of critique of the mediation of humanitarianism.

Whilst many hypotheses have been formulated on why audiences remain passive in response to distant suffering, very little empirical research has been carried out to verify these hypotheses. This article discusses audience denial in response to information about human rights abuses 1 , paying attention to both content and strategies used in accounts of denial, i.e. what these accounts say and by which means they effectively neutralize appeals for action. Three repertoires are identified as specific targets for neutralization: (1) The message itself ('the medium is the message'); (2) Campaigners and, in particular, Amnesty International (AI) ('shoot the messenger'); (3) The action recommended in the appeal ('babies and bathwater'). These repertoires are analysed in terms of the discursive techniques -e.g. argumentation, rhetorical and semantic moves and speech acts -used to neutralize the moral claims made by Amnesty International's appeals. The article suggests that audience denial is an operation of power and production of knowledge in so far as it plays a role in sustaining and colluding with more systemic and official operations of passivity and denial. The normative implication of audiences' justifications for their passivity is illustrated in their banal, everyday contribution to a morality of unresponsiveness. The discussion aims to contribute to current debates on the 'Politics of Pity', social responsibility and distant suffering. It also contributes to psychological work on pro-social behaviour and, in particular, to research on audiences' responses to humanitarian appeals and mediation in general.

This study investigates everyday moral reasoning in relation to donations and prosocial behaviour in a humanitarian context. The discursive analysis focuses on the principles of deservingness which members of the public use to decide who to help and under what conditions. The study discusses three repertoires of deservingness -'seeing a difference', 'waiting in queues', and 'something for nothing' -to illustrate participants' dilemmatic reasoning and to examine how the position of 'being deserving' is negotiated in humanitarian crises. Discursive analyses of these dilemmatic repertoires of deservingness identify the cultural and ideological resources behind these constructions and show how humanitarianism intersects and clashes with other ideologies and value systems. The data suggest that a neoliberal ideology, which endorses self-gratification, materialistic and individualistic ethics, and cultural assimilation of helper and receiver play important roles in decisions about humanitarian helping. The study argues for the need for psychological research to engage more actively with the dilemmas involved in the moral reasoning related to humanitarianism and to contextualize decisions about giving and helping within the sociocultural and ideological landscape in which the helper operates.

Studies of users' views of family therapy have rarely explored the means by which children construct their experiences. Family interviews after a first session of therapy included thirteen children aged 8 to 15 years. An analysis of the transcripts demonstrated that, like adults, children draw on forms of explanation generated by acknowledged experts. They used discourses of counselling, therapy, consumerism and education to construct and assess their experiences. The ages of the children affected the construction and evaluation of therapy and the positions taken up in relation to adults. Older children demonstrated more independence from parents. Like adults, the children adopted a variety of stakes, their sophistication increasing with age, suggesting a developmental path towards full membership of adult discursive communities. Recognition that children are active in construing therapy should enhance therapists' insights and facilitate positive therapeutic relationships.

Empathy, vulnerability and identification play an important role in the wish to protect children who are perceived to be helpless, blameless and therefore the ideal victim. This article offers an empirically based discussion of responses to humanitarian communications depicting children. Although most participants recognized that a communication involving a child has immediate impact, overall they displayed a reflexive and critical awareness of their own propensity to automatically empathize in response, with many expressing irritation for being manipulated. The study suggests that focusing exclusively on a de-contextualized and dyadic ‘audience-victim’ relationship offers only partial insight into audiences’ responses and reactions. Instead, it is argued that the usefulness of the use of children in humanitarian communication can be properly gauged only in the context of media saturation, audiences being sophisticated and media-savvy about appeals and communications, and a general attitude of distrust and dissatisfaction with the marketization of NGOs.