A lot has been said about the way the media construct images of beauty, of masculinity and of minorities. For example, television and magazines consistantly present images of femininity that are either unattainable for the average woman in terms of impossible beauty standards or in terms of the superwoman who is both perfect wife/mother.
But lately I have been hearing and reading critiques of the way media choose to present images of disasters. These types of images present a helpless victim/saviour hero dynamic which simplifies the complexity of crisis . This simplification of disasters results in a public that is both misinformed on important issues and perpetuates the stereotype of peoples of the developing world as victims.
For a thought-provoking discusssion of the way that the media are portraying the famine in Somalia, listen to Q "What's wrong with this picture?" . You can also read one of my previous Decmber 2010 blog posts on a related issue, Band Aid and the famine in Ethiopia "There's a world outside your window"
