{"id":1129,"date":"2016-11-08T10:59:09","date_gmt":"2016-11-08T16:59:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/trot\/?p=1129"},"modified":"2016-11-08T10:59:09","modified_gmt":"2016-11-08T16:59:09","slug":"consuming-the-pain-of-the-other-through-media-images","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/trot\/2016\/11\/08\/consuming-the-pain-of-the-other-through-media-images\/","title":{"rendered":"Consuming the Pain of the “Other” Through Media Images"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Photo<\/a>
Photo by Jon S, Flickr CC<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The ways that non-Western victims of violence and poverty are portrayed in the news is problematic. For example, on the 6<\/span>th<\/span> of October this year, The New York Times<\/em> had an above-the-fold image of migrants on its front page. The image was of several dead and dying African migrants on a boat and, troubling as this may be, the image was not an anomaly. Consider the images we have recently seen from Syria — from the drowned child on the beach to the dazed child covered in dust pulled out of a bombed building. Social scientists explains how the choice to use these kinds of images\u00a0is neither <\/span>an objective<\/a>\u00a0<\/span>nor an accidental process.<\/span><\/p>\n

News images are rarely meant to teach us something new, rather, they are meant to reaffirm what we already know while tugging at our heartstrings. Nowhere is this more evident than during instances of instability and violence in the Global South. Even in death and suffering, non-Western victims are denied their privacy; their pain is meant to be consumed by the audience while reaffirming real and symbolic differences.<\/span><\/h5>\n