'Your stomach makes you feel that you don't want to know anything about it': Desensitization, defence mechanisms and rhetoric in response to human rights abuses

Media witnessing: exploring the audience of distant suffering

“…In one of the few studies in the field, Höijer describes the complexity of audience engagement with media reports of war as an interplay between compassion, most often directed to particular images of suffering, and indifference (Höijer, 2004: 528). Focusing on audience responses to NGO campaigns and news stories of human rights violations, Seu has illustrated the different ways people discursively distance themselves from the suffering of others and justify their unresponsiveness to human rights appeals (Seu, 2003;. In a more recent study, Scott explored the different mediated encounters with distant suffering beyond the genre of television news and has concluded that indifference and solitary enjoyment is the outcome of most of these encounters Scott, 2014: 3).…”

“…These questions, however, have been largely unexplored within the field of audience studies. In the few notable examples audience engagement with distant suffering has been mostly addressed either in terms of compassion, varied in its expressions (Höijer, 2004), in terms of (in)action with regard to humanitarian appeals (Seu, 2003) or as indifference (Scott, 2014).…”

Narrative Structure and Emotional Mobilization in Humanitarian Representations: The Case of the Congo Reform Movement, 1903–1912

“…Its core assumptions-solidarity, a fundamental sympathy 3 for victims, and an antipathy for oppressors and exploiters-represent those rare moments of grace when we are at our best" (Rieff 2002: 121). Empathy likewise guides more psychologically attuned research programs into the reasons for acting or not acting in response to representations of suffering (Staub 1992;Scarry 1998;Cohen 2001;Cohen and Seu 2002;Seu 2003;Laplante 2007). Cohen summarizes the literature well when he writes that the "emotional constellation of .…”

“Witnessing” or “Mediating” Distant Suffering? Ethical Questions across Moments of Text, Production, and Reception

“…While it is recognized that there is 'no decent way to sort through the multiple claims on our time or philanthropy' in the face of the world's atrocities (Midgeley 1998: 45-46), scholars nevertheless positively value audience activities of information-seeking (Kinnick et al 1996), empathizing and analyzing (Donnar 2009), donating money (Tester 2001), or even the mere act of viewing rather than turning away (Cohen 2001;Seu 2003). Luc Boltanski rescues the value of speech and protest as legitimate actions toward media narratives of suffering, contrary to perceptions that talk 'costs nothing' or have no consequence.…”

“…However, compassion fatigue is operationalized and measured in different ways. There are those who empirically study patterns of avoidance towards televised suffering (Kinnick et al 1996); some research rhetorical responses of apathy or pity toward specific texts of suffering (Höijer 2004); while others theorize about both (Cohen 2001;Seu 2003). …”