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Masterthesis Bootsmanfrans 6 ! Department of Media Studies Faculty of Humanities, University of Amsterdam MA New Media and Digital Culture MA - Thesis New Media Course code: HMED/159414040 1 September 2016 Which life do you mourn and which do you forfeit? An analysis of grief and distant suffering in online news coverage iconography and textuality Handed in at the Department of Media Studies at the University of Amsterdam, Faculty of Humanities, to complete the requirements for the title of Master of Arts (MA) Frans Bootsman !1 Index Abstract 3 1 Introduction 4 2 Theoretical framework 5 2.1 Judith Butler and the grievability of life 5 2.2 Framing and media bias in news value theory 8 2.3 Cosmopolitanism in the distant suffering of Lilie Chouliaraki 11 2.4 Luc Boltanski’s politics of pity 15 2.5 Roger Silverstone’s moral maximalism and proper distance 18 3 Methodology and Corpus 20 4 Summary of the 2015 Paris attacks 22 4.1 Summary of the 2015 Beirut bombings 22 5 Iconography in the online news coverage of the Paris attacks and Beirut bombings 24 5.1 Videos and footage in the online news coverage of the Paris attacks and Beirut bombings 32 5.2 Iconography of the Paris attacks and Beirut bombings on Google Images 35 5.3 The linguistic differences in the Paris attacks and Beirut bombings headlines 39 6 Selective outrage or empathy gap? 41 7 Slavoj "i#ek’s social critique after the Paris attacks and Beirut bombings 44 8 A deconstructivist critique of news coverage of terrorist attacks 46 9 Conclusion 49 10 Bibliography 51 11 Notes 54 !2 Abstract This study examines the way in which the iconography and textuality in the online news coverage took shape during the Paris attacks and the Beirut bombings. These two media events happened in successive days, but didn’t receive the same amount of media coverage and online attention. In order to clarify why this is the case, this paper will look at the underlying psychology and media research behind this phenomenon. The concepts of selective grief and distant suffering will be juxtaposed with the perception of online media as a cosmopolitan entity, since this framing has often been attributed to new media platforms. Investigating how and who we decide to mourn certain lives, yet forfeit others, and what the underlying reason for this could be, should contribute towards a new understanding of grief and suffering, by which we can start to think about new ways to move towards a more egalitarian sense of mourning and a renewed sense of what we consider as specific facets of Internet culture regarding these distinct themes. Keywords Selective grief / Distant suffering / Cosmopolitanism / Media bias / Politics of pity !3 1 Introduction On November 13th of 2015, the Western world was thrown into despair and shock by the multiple brutal terrorist attacks in the centre of Paris, killing 132 people and leaving 433 injured.i Once the initial shock had subsided and people tried to continue with their normal routine, individuals and media outlets started to criticize the Western establishment by saying that their sympathy for victims of terrorism and outrage towards fundamentalist terrorism has been extremely biased.ii These outlets often referred to the double suicide attack in Beirut, which was also carried out by IS two days before the Paris attacks and led to the death of 43 with 240 being injured.iii For instance. why did Facebook implement the Temporary Profile option and the Safety Check during the Paris attacks, but didn’t do the same during the Beirut bombings? And why wasn’t the Beirut incident as heavily reported on as the Paris attacks? These questions regarding grievability and distant suffering in online media coverage and, to some extent, social media platforms, will be the focus-point of this research paper. This paper will analyse how the grief of current weeks fits within the already existing literature about online bereavement and distress in the media. Related to the field of selective grief, this paper will discuss the news value framework and its inherent forms of bias, which can be seen as a catalyst to why some people seem to care more about one group of people in the news than another. I will be juxtaposing this with the concept of cosmopolitanism: a concept which has been very prevalent in the last couple of decades and has attributed a fair amount to online media as a global society. I will be analysing the topics of distant suffering and grievability with a case study on the online iconography in relation to the Paris attacks and Beirut bombings, especially regarding the way in which the media outlets framed the events on their respective online mediums. This topic and its themes are especially interesting because it is one of the first times a media-covered event such as Paris attacks received quite a lot of backlash regarding selective outrage, which means that analysing the divide between local suffering and distant suffering in the new media sphere, which is often heralded as a connection to the entire world’s population, could lead to a notable extension of the theoretical field. In the light of all this information, my research question will be as follows: How do the differences in online news reporting regarding the 2015 Paris attacks and Beirut bombings relate to the psychology and spatiality of the distant spectator and the cosmopolitan perception of online news media? !4 2 Theoretical framework The following text in this chapter will outline the theoretical framework regarding the conceptual frames of selective grief, distant suffering, media bias, cosmopolitanism, politics of pity, moral maximalism and proper distance. The authors and their concepts have been rigorously chosen, not only because of their relevance to the case study of the iconography of the Paris attacks and the Beirut bombings, but also because they provide a clear overview of the different modes of thought in relation to grief and suffering. Furthermore, most the authors in this chapter refer to each other’s work and either conceptualize their own concepts in line with previously made statements of other authors, or try to debunk these in the same manner. The idea of cosmopolitanism is a recurring theme in the texts of authors such as Luc Boltanski and Lilie Chouliaraki. They argue that the idea of cosmopolitanism is often attributed to the media and seen as a ‘bridging-the- gap’ type factor between communities, even though this is not reflected in day-to-day coverage of tragedies around the world. Therefore, the concept of cosmopolitanism will be touched upon in this chapter in order to present some valuable background to the theories in relation to distant suffering and politics of pity as posed by Boltanski and Chouliaraki. Other important concepts in this chapter are Roger Silverstone’s maximalism and proper distance, media bias in new value theory and Boltanski’s politics of pity in suffering. Together, these authors and their concepts will convey a thorough understanding of the different viewpoints on grief and suffering plus a valuable framework in order to examine the case study as presented in chapter five. 2.1 Judith Butler and the grievability of life When discussing the way in which selective grief takes shape in today’s societies, the name of Judith Butler clearly stands out as one of the most prominent theorists in regard to this field of interest. According to this philosopher with a passion for psychoanalysis and gender studies, one of the most important factors in the grievability of life is the capacity to apprehend a life. This epistemological capacity is mostly dependent on life being produced according to norms that qualify it as life (Butler 2009, 3). The differentiation between the lives we can and cannot apprehend is made by ‘frames’, which organize visual experiences and generate specific ontologies of various subjects within the frame. Butler goes on to distinguish between the terms apprehending and recognising: the former is a stronger term derived from Hegel, whilst the latter is less precise since it can acknowledge !5 a subject without being fully aware of its entirety. These two terms also intermingle with each other. For instance, what we are able to apprehend, surely has to do with what we can recognize to some degree. On the other hand, it is also possible to apprehend something which one has not seen or recognized before. Therefore, “apprehension can become the basis for a critique of norms of recognition (5).” In this strain of thought, one could state that recognition is based on the relation or practice between subjects. Recognisability shapes the condition in which the act of recognition can take place. Therefore, recognisability precedes recognition (5-7). A related question to ask oneself regarding the previous material is how recognisability is to be understood and how recognition is to be framed. To answer these questions, Butler refers to the on-going debate regarding the fetus: by which stage do we count something as life? The fact that these debates exist, and continue to exist, does not imply that life and death are direct consequences of discourse. Rather, it implies that there is no life and no death without a relation to some frame (7). The phrase “to be framed” in English is quite a complex one. In relation to the pending case study, the frame that seeks to contain, convey and determine what is seen is most interesting for this paper. Butler feels that type of framing relies on the condition of reproducibility in order to succeed. This reproducibility entails that the frame is constantly separated from the content when it tries to give a definitive organization of the content it tries to frame.
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