HUMANITARIAN COMMUNICATION Topic 9 – IMAGERY OF SUFFERING

Themes for today

‘Development pornography’, compassion fatigue and using images responsibly

Conflicting pressures on the choice of image and subject – by NGOs and reporters

Questions of taste, decency and journalistic conventions.

DEVELOPMENT PORNOGRAPHY

What does it mean?

Poverty or Famine Porn

any type of media, be it written, photographed or filmed, which exploits the poor’s condition in order to generate the necessary sympathy for selling newspapers or increasing charitable donations or support for a given cause. Poverty porn is typically associated with black, poverty-stricken Africans, but can be found elsewhere. The subjects are overwhelming children, with the material usually characterized by images or descriptions of suffering, malnourished or otherwise helpless persons. The stereotype of poverty porn is the African child with a swollen belly, staring blankly into the camera, waiting for salvation.

Double standards

Recurring stereotype of victims – but using standards and conventions we would abhor

- anonymous victims – no voice

- undignified

Appropriate Images of development ?

Using images responsibly

Codes of conduct after Ethiopia coverage , ‘Images of Africa’ report

-- Red Cross Code 1992

Article 10 “In our information, publicity and advertising activities, we shall recognize disaster victims as dignified human beings, not hopeless objects. “

2002

2011

Save the Children advert

Responsible photos

How should we depict famine and suffering in twenty first century?

Moving beyond the stereotypes and cliches

Thinking about images

Conflicting Priorities

Do codes really work? – fundraising imperative conflicts with responsible treatment of images and recurring negative stereotypes

Compassion fatigue - tired images

Journalistic detachment and impartiality in the face of suffering and horror

Kevin Carter in Sudan

Little Irma – symbol of Sarajevo

Emoting over individual losses

Little Irma - a single Bosnian victim

Understanding numbers and scale – how can we comprehend multiple suffering?

Getting the message across

Paradoxes of suffering

In the same month October 2010

33 Chilean miners worldwide coverage 37 miners killed in a gas explosion in

China 29 miners killed in accident in New

Zealand

AND 34 Average number of accidental deaths

in Chilean mining industry 57 miners killed in accidents in USA that

year

Taste and decency?

Convention of appropriate images –distance

? Danger of sanitising violence – journalist’s objection – Bell/Bowen

Al Jazeera alternative agenda and codes- and beyond – Boko Haram