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"
Well of course the pictures for famine relief advertisements have to be dramatic, or else readers won't be touched or feel bad for the people in need. But personally, I hate it when they over-do it, most of the time I just turn the page without paying any more attention. It's WAY too obvious how these ads try to get our attention, so obvious, that the ads lose value in my eyes. I feel as if they are trying to push guilt down my throat.
ReplyDeleteThere's a limit for everything.
As i was listening to Q's '' What's wrong with this picture?'', I realized that, as a modern society, we are getting way too familiar with these pictures of disasters. It's like we forget that the people which are portayed on these images are really going through these horrible conditions. Personally, I am not against using pictures that show what is really going on. Shocking images have a good advertising power, but to a certain point. It has to be respectful towards the person and not arranged to be overexaggerated.
ReplyDeleteI would like to have the opportunity to watch TV news, to read an article in a newspaper or on Internet and to know that I am reading something that describes the reality, neither in a better or worst way, just the reality. I was already preoccupied about all the stereotypes and prejudices in the media, it's really outrageous to see that even disaster's pictures are arranged to frustrate people. And, it works. Most people are affected by these provoking pictures, because they feel so lucky about their life when they look at other realities. Even me, I know that I would be more affected by a horrible picture showing a hard reality, as the one presented in Q’s episode, than a picture of normal people. Now, I know that I will look differently at the pictures I see; I will have a more subjective eye on that. Journalists can’t show the reality to us, because in all pictures, we see the point of view of the photographs. Depending on what he wants us to see, he changes the angle, the perspective, the luminosity, even the people on the picture. Even if I understand why they do that, I think this is disappointing to understand that if you are not in the country where the event happens, you can’t really know what it is happening.
ReplyDeleteActually, I think that if we can get a more complete and realistic portrait of what it is happening in Third World, it could maybe encourage more people to do something. Personally sensational photos or adds don't get my attention since it became so familiar and I would even say banal. I'm pretty sure that a less dramatized and more human approache to the problem would probably do better to touch my sensibility and motivate me to help these people.
ReplyDeleteI would not say that this photo doesn't affect me, because it does. But what's wrong with this picture is that they use a very young kid and that he looks almost dead. It's kind of a classic for Médecins Sans Frontières or for Vision Mondiale because: Why would they ratter pick someone of our age when they can choose someone who's young and defenseless like this one. All they want is us to send them money, but in reality.. who's really getting it?
ReplyDeleteI think that there is two side for this idea. I agree that most of the pictures used in those advertisements do not reflect the entire thruth of the situation in which the people in need live in, but our generation are more willing to give money for a lonely and hungry kid than for a man that suffers because of the politic of is country. I guess the real problem here is not the tactics used to get money, but the reasons who push us to help others. But eh, at least it works.
ReplyDeleteI think that all the publicities are produced on the same goal: To make money. This picture of the little kid affects me because I think it's sad, but it doesn't make me wanna give money. All the ads are the same thing. People always see those pictures of the little boy in misery, but they don't really realize what's happening on those countries. I think that a video of the situation or something like that would be better to convince people to give money, because even if it's sad, we just don't really understand how the situation is horrible just by a picture like that.
ReplyDelete