Page 348 - Battleground The Media Volume 1 and 2

Paparazz and Photograph c Eth cs |

high-TECh wEaPons anD ThE war on TError
Over the years, media coverage of war has increasingly downplayed the death,
pain, suffering and grief caused by war. During the first Gulf war, collateral dam-
age became a common term for civilian casualties, and its cold, antiseptic sound
helps distance the public from war’s human costs. During the first Gulf War,
Time magazine identified dead or wounded civilians “who should have picked
a safer neighborhood.” After 9/11 when the United States was criticized for kill-
ing civilians in Afghanistan, well-known New York Times commentator, Thomas
Friedman, claimed that the people being bombed did not mind dying when he
wrote, “It turns out many of those Afghan ‘civilians’ were praying for another
dose of B-52’s to liberate tem from the Taliban, casualties of not” (New York
Times, November 23, 2001). Presently, in the midst of a continuing war, very few
images of death or even wounded U.S. soldiers are published in the pages of the
press or show on television. Instead, as the U.S. president called to expand the
war on terror with the invasion of Iraq, television stories featured the power of
the weaponry to be used; especially the high-tech bombs and aircraft, and those
images became the visual icons of war. Imaging and emphasizing the drama,
excitement and power of modern warfare represents conflict from a narrow per-
spective and allows the government, military, and the public to avoid debate
about the deadly effects of war to noncombatants, as well as to those who fight.
Because photographs of suffering on their own cannot explain the causes of
pain or suggest courses of action to alleviate suffering, such images should be
presented with ethical parameters. Because death and suffering are often hid-
den aspects of our culture, images showing such taboo topics are often used
as ratings-boosting fare. Only context that evokes empathy is able to prevent
shocking images from becoming little more that titillating spectacles presented
to an increasingly desensitized, voyeuristic public. With regard to the victims of
war, both showing and not showing the death presents media dilemmas. Elimi-
nating the images of war’s human cost, allows the public as well as those who call
for military actions, to forget the consequences of war, and the responsibility of
human destruction in its wake. Yet a context and treatment that objectifies or
justifies suffering and the death of civilians is equally irresponsible.

humaniTarian work anD ThE nEws ConTExT
Humanitarian aide workers are well aware of the complexities of visual rep-
resentation of crisis, and understand the need for coverage, but coverage that
promotes civic engagement instead of compassion fatigue. They understand that
horrific images must be contextualized with narratives of inclusion, personal sto-
ries able to evoke public empathy for the victims they are trying to help. Viewers
must be able to recognize their shared humanity, not view the victims of crisis as
outside the bounds of our own sense of community. It must be understood that
people in crisis have done nothing to deserve such horrific conditions. Above
all, visual imagery must not exploit suffering for commercial purposes, but seek
to maintain the dignity of those depicted.