compassion fatigue and the famine formula the horn of africa, 2011
TRANSCRIPT
Compassion Fatigue:
• Analysts of journalism argue that the media has caused widespread compassion fatigue in society by saturating newspapers and news shows with often decontextualized images and stories of suffering
• This has caused the public to become cynical, or become resistant to helping people who are suffering.
The Image as Message
• Image as metonym – part stands in for the whole
• Single image seen to explain the whole event
• This is especially the case with “atrocity pictures”
• Simple, iconic images of famine – distilling down the story
• Personifications that help to explain events, with victims, heroes, and villains
• Images can have a didactic function, serve to focus the audience’s attention
• But this attention is not sustained, is short-term
• What effect do these images have on audiences?
• Simple images lend to simple conclusions about the causes of famine
• Contribute to causes of famine being attributed to nature
• “Simple emergency”• Natural disaster
• But what if famine is a “complex emergency”?
• The natural versus the human-made
• Complex causes such as war, economic breakdown
• Examples of other “complex emergencies” linked to famine
• 1941–44 Leningrad (Today’s St. Petersburg) famine
• Caused by a 900-day blockade by German troops during WWII
• About one million Leningrad residents starved, froze, or were bombed to death in the winter of 1941–42, when supply routes to the city were cut off and temperatures dropped to −40 degrees
• News –values• “If it bleeds, it leads”• Scott Bob, Somalia 1992• “My editor wants us to
get the sounds of death”
• Framing the emergency in particular ways
Media Structures
• Famines happen to Others
• Stereotyped images• Stock phrases• Common abstractions• Reinforcing established
ways of interpreting news
• Drawing on reserves of stories already told
The Famine Formula
• 1. People must be starving to death
• 2. Causes and solutions must be simplified
• 3. Famine story told as morality play between good and evil
• 4. There must be images
The 4-Stage Chronological Pattern
• 1. The famine is imminent• 2. Progression of starvation• 3. Precipitating event leads
to moral call-to-action• 4. If no other major
international or national event takes its place in popular imaginary, then becomes cultural and moral bellwether (frontrunner, leader)
Heroes
• Generally Western• Intervene to provide
humanitarian aid• Eg. Medecins Sans
Frontieres• Doctors, nurses, aid
workers• Given extensive voice in
coverage
Villains
• Those who prevent humanitarian aid from being distributed
• Eg. “Warlords”• Villains become more a
part of the story as it unfolds
The “Archetypical Famine”
• Ethiopia, 1984• Several years of drought• Domestic priorities • Mengistu Haile Mariam
leader of government• 46% of national budget spent
on arms• Decade earlier, overthrow of
Emperor Haile Selassie• Estimated that between
400,000 and one million people died
The Media Influence
• Brian Stewart CBC Ethiopia 1984
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tFPr-zAXNuc
• Brian Stewart on Birhan Woldu, 2004
• www.cbc.ca/news/background/ethiopia
• Michel Buerk BBC report on the famine in Ethiopia 1984
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mj2jf0US8zI
• “Maybe one of the most important and influential pieces of news ever broadcasted.”
• Buerk's autobiography says it made the Australian PM weep in public and started a massive international aid operation
Popular Culture Responds to the Crisis
• Also inspired Bob Geldof (with Midge Ure from Ultravox) to write “Do They Know It’s Christmas”, released 7 December 1984
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w5cX_ncZLls
• The fastest selling single ever
• Raised ₤8 million
• Inspired USA for Africa’s “We are the World.”
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M9BNoNFKCBI
Live Aid
• 13 July 1985• 2 simultaneous concerts • Wembley Stadium,
London, UK – approximately 72,000 people
• JFK Stadium, Philadelphia, US – approximately 100,000 people
The Communication Link
• Large scale satellite links and live TV broadcasts mean watched by a global audience in 150 nations of an estimated 1.9 million people
• At one stage, claim that 95% of all TVs were tuned in
• Imagine making this happen in the time before Twitter, cell phones, etc.
Show Me the Money
• Geldof had hoped to raise ₤1 million (around $2.4 million US)
• Actually raised ₤150 million
• Acts include (UK) U2, Queen, The Who, Paul McCartney and (US) Madonna, Bob Dylan, CSNY, Ozzy Osborne
Live 8
• Make Poverty History Snap UK Ad
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nFx9cINLQoc
• US AD• http://www.youtube.co
m/watch?v=3mJU58A9SNc&feature=related
Famine Today
• Horn of Africa – including Ethiopia, Somalia, and Sudan – 2011
• Said to be the most widespread in 25 years
• http://www.one.org/c/international/hottopic/4060/
• 2011 The F Word: Famine is the Real Obscenity (US)
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dzcRSr6PW_o
• one.org• http://www.one.org/int
ernational/