This weekend has been a particularly awful weekend as far as international conflict goes. As we probably all know, on Thursday the 17th, a commercial airliner was shot down over Ukraine. In addition, fighting again has erupted in the Gaza Strip. According to The Independent at least 222 Palestinians and 1 Israeli had been killed, and nearly 77 percent of the deceased are civilians.
The hostel I was staying in this weekend had the news on Friday and Saturday morning, so I heard all about it. There were stories about the victims in the airliner shooting, and stories about a family that just missed the flight, and thus had their lives saved.
To be honest, I wasn't moved to any of the emotions I would have liked to be moved to. Sure, when I took some time to really think about what had happened, I was struck. When I saw the Palestinian protests in London, the gravity of what was happening definitely hit me. But I wish I had been emotionally moved quicker, because between the two incidents, over 500 people had died. I was able to pretty easily distract myself by reading my book. Is that okay?
I think that constant exposure to negative media (which is really just a product of constant exposure to a negative world) has desensitized me a bit. Maybe it's desensitized us all.
What are we supposed to do with this? Obviously, we need to know about what is happening in the Gaza Strip and how Flight MH17 was shot down. We can't address these tragedies as a society if the media doesn't communicate the gravity of them to us. But tragedy has kind of become white noise because it's constantly being communicated, and isn't it harder to react to a tragedy when it's just part of a constant stream of tragedies?
I think of the movie Hotel Rwanda, when Paul Rusesabagina (Don Cheadle) asks a reporter if people will help Rwanda when they see his footage of the murders. The reporter responds by saying something along the lines of "People will be eating dinner, see this on their TVs and say 'Oh, that's really terrible,' and then they'll go back to eating their dinner."
So, what's the answer to this? I think it's up to me to be a more attentive news watcher, processing the gravity of the tragedies as much as possible, thinking critically about the implications of these tragedies, and actually thinking about if we can do anything about the tragedy. It's unfortunately easier said than done, but it's better than just letting tragedy fade into the background.
I think there is also an alternative side to this argument. News stations, particularly lower-budget local news, are often criticized for showing too much violent news coverage because it paints a more negative picture of society than is accurate. I agree that a constant barrage of violent coverage can cause us to become desensitize to the affects it has on culture, victims, etc. but I also think it can cause a more cynical outlook on the state of our society. Perhaps that's even where the lack of sensitivity comes from; if we are overly aware of terrorist activity, we are more likely to think of it as "common place" and, therefore, have less affection for the victims of such acts.
ReplyDeleteHonestly, I think about this every time we hear a story similar to the Ukraine one. It kind of freaks me out that when I watch a movie, I'll tear up at the drop of a hat, but a lot of the time I can watch the news completely stone-faced. Even when a story does hit us hard, we end up talking about it for a few days, maybe a few weeks. After that it comes up a couple times a year, tops. The fact is, there are too many bad things happening in the world for us to focus on one event for too long. That's kind of horrifying, but data tells us that bad news sells.
ReplyDeleteTo Brittany's point, the news has made us cynics. But I think we can acknowledge that to an extent, we make the news (or at least help set the agenda), so I agree that it's up to us as individuals to change the way we react to this kind of story. I don't think the coverage itself is going to change any time soon.
I think that we have become desensitized but to certain types of news. I think that we see and hear about war torn areas and planes crashing that we just think oh it's just another day. I think that stories like the 3 women that were rescued last year after being held captive for over 10 years emotionally captured our nation to say the least, I know that I watched the coverage of the rescue all day. I think it really comes down to what we can relate to: fighting in the Middle East or kidnappings resolved. Obviously most of us ordinary citizens cannot emotionally relate to killings in Israel because it only goes as far as what we see on TV.
ReplyDeleteI think you're right in that, at this point, it's up to us to maintain our sensitivity to news, especially tragedy. The overabundance of it forces us to simplify our reactions for a multitude of reasons- we can't get truly upset about every sad story we see or we wouldn't be able to consume news without having serious damage to our emotional and mental states. I think discernment and acknowledgement are our two best bets for reacting appropriately. Again, as it would basically ruin our psyches, I don't think we can guilt ourselves for not reacting with personal emotion to tragic reports. However, we can read or hear about them and spend the time to think about the implications and consequences of these events, and see and appreciate their seriousness and effects. As Erin said, the coverage isn't likely to change anytime soon, so it's up to the reader to read, understand, and connect with tragic events in the media in a humane and appropriate manner.
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