Media and Politics 2017

Quiz

3.3. Compassion & Solidarity

1. What is compassion and "compassion fatigue"?

Compassion is empathy with the suffering of fellow human beings. It is the ability to put yourself in their shoes and feel their pain. The “Compassion fatigue”-hypothesis refers to the possibility that being a spectator to constant events of overwhelming suffering reduces the capability for compassion.

2. How do news values put some disasters and other events of suffering on top of the mainstream news agenda, while others are kept off the radar, according to Hoskins & O’Loughlin?

• The most important factor is probably that the event has to perceived as relevant and fit easily into well known frames.

• Involvement of persons with a common nationality or ethnicity – including celebrities.

• Vital geopolitical or other interests in the area. • Access to information • Easy to construct a story using familiar frames that

makes it recognizable. • Demand for sensation means that it should happen

suddenly and not last too long.

3. Tell about the difference between an “ordinary” and an “ideal” spectator?

An “ordinary” spectator watches or “gazes at” suffering more out of curiosity or being drawn to a spectacle. The “ideal” spectator represents the spectator as a public citizen, with reactions which are “appropriate” according to norms of compassion and taking action to help the suffering.

4. What is a “benefactor” and a “persecutor” - and their relation to three different modes of spectatorship?

Both are agents; people with capacity to act. The persecutor acts to cause harm and the benefactor acts to relieve the harm caused. The modes are:

• Denunciation: Feel powerless, little focus on the victim, but anger against alleged persecutor.

• Sentiment: Not focused on a persecutor, but gratitude towards benefactors who try to help.

• Aesthetic: Focus on neither benefactors nor persecutors (“gazing”)

5. What are the three types of news about disasters and suffering identified by Chouliaraki?

• Adventure news: Short “bites” showing disasters from a distance, without individual destinies or attempts of storytelling. Tend not to engage spectators. Closely associated with “compassion fatigue”.

• Ecstatic news: Covering spectacular disasters as they happen, often unexplainable or getting close to the suffering individual. Shock or awe engage curious spectators, wondering whether people from their own communities are harmed and whether they can be helped.

• Emergency news: Try to explain cause of suffering and possible solutions to end it. Focus on suffering individuals, creating empathy for the unlucky as human beings worthy of our compassion. Identification of cause and possible solutions to end the suffering may trigger action to help.

6. Explain “the CNN effect” and its particular relation to Western intervention

It represents a belief that after the end of the “cold war”, the media were relieved from pressures of national security and ideology and new media technology provided 24/7 coverage of events, such as wars and other types of major crises. Due to this new situation, the media could affect foreign policy, frequently beyond traditional considerations of “national interest”. For instance, press Western governments into humanitarian interventions.

7. Why would realists be sceptical to the “CNN effect”?

A normative form of scepticism would be that foreign policy should be calculated rationally by experts, to maximize national interest. Hence; a foreign policy based on emotions and humanitarian considerations in the media and mass opinion would be dangerous. An empirical form of scepticism would be that states still tend to pursue national interests in their foreign policy. At best; “humanitarian interventions” will be a cover for national interests.

8. What are the differences between “new wars” and “traditional” interstate- or civil wars?

Traditional wars occurred between states, with a clear start and ending, or as civil wars between different groups competing for state power, contained within the borders of a given state. New wars cross state borders, frequently involving diasporas, and are more unclear regarding goals, start and ending.

9. Mention some of the dilemmas Western media workers face when engaging in “cosmopolitan witnessing” at home or abroad?

• “The white man’s burden”/”the white saviour complex” as Western intervention in ex-colonies

• Symbiotic: The tempation of sensational news vs. providing PR fighters

• Diffused war: Engagement may result in unintended consequences when reaching unintended audiences and also affect public diplomacy.

10. Why is science fiction referred to as “global imaginaries” in Saunders’ article? Also give some examples.

By being (apparently) far removed from the present in time and space, they invite us to imagine international relations from new perspectives. By letting us identify with “the other”, rather than “us”, or vividly revealing alternative (otherwise “unimaginable”) solutions to present day problems or what might happen if we do not engage. Examples might be Avatar, Star Wars, District 9, The Day after Tomorrow.