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Distance and Suffering Copenhagen Business School Handelshøjskolen Solbjerg Plads 3 Dk-2000 Frederiksberg Danmark Distance and Suffering copenhagen business school handelshøjskolen solbjerg plads 3 dk-2000 frederiksberg danmark www.cbs.dk Distance and Suffering Humanitarian Discourse in the age of Mediatization Anne Vestergaard ISSN 0906-6934 PhD Series 12.2011 ISBN 978-87-593-8466-4 Doctoral School of Organisation and Management Studies PhD Series 12.2011 CBS PhD nr 12 Anne Vestergaard_A5 omslag.indd 1 08/06/11 12.24 Distance and Suffering DISTANCE AND SUFFERING HUMANITARIAN DISCOURSE IN THE AGE OF MEDIATIZATION Anne Vestergaard PhD Thesis Submitted August 2010 Copenhagen Business School Primary Supervisor Prof. Lilie Chouliaraki, London School of Economics Secondary Supervisor Prof. Mette Morsing, Copenhagen Business School Anne Vestergaard Distance and Suffering Humanitarian Discourse in the age of Mediatization 1st edition 2011 PhD Series 12.2011 © The Author ISBN: 978-87-593-8466-4 ISSN: 0906-6934 The Doctoral School of Organisation and Management Studies (OMS) is an interdisciplinary research environment at Copenhagen Business School for PhD students working on theoretical and empirical themes related to the organisation and management of private, public and voluntary organisations All rights reserved. No parts of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher. Anne Vestergaard Distance and Suffering Humanitarian Discourse in the age of Mediatization ACKNOWLEDGMENTS 1st edition 2011 PhD Series 12.2011 This thesis would not have been possible without the profound inspiration and encouragement of my supervisor, Lilie Chouliaraki, who has somehow managed to © The Author always treat me as her equal. I am deeply grateful for this. I am grateful also to my second supervisor, Mette Morsing, for supporting my work with confidence and contagious enthusiasm, when I most needed it. I owe great thanks to the discussants ISBN: 978-87-593-8466-4 ISSN: 0906-6934 at my final work-in-progress seminar, Steen Vallentin and Thomas Tufte. Their input has had a substantial impact upon the thesis introduction and final paper. Thanks must also go to student assistant Kamilla Lund, who spent endless summer hours painstakingly browsing through micro-films for me. I am indebted to the Danish Research Council for Culture and Communication and the National Research School in Media, Communications and Journalism for financing my PhD, and in the case of the latter, for providing an excellent infra-structure for doctoral research in The Doctoral School of Organisation and Management Studies (OMS) is an interdisciplinary Denmark. I must extend my gratitude also to Ørslev Kloster Refugium, whose walls research environment at Copenhagen Business School for PhD students working on theoretical and empirical themes related to the organisation and management of private, and people have on several visits embraced me and produced a magical combination public and voluntary organisations of productivity and peace of mind. My colleagues, academic as well as administrative, at the Department of Intercultural Management and the Center for Corporate Social Responsibility of Copenhagen Business School have made the everyday reality of writing this thesis gratifying and fun as well as providing stimulating discussions and intellectual sparring, among the many; Arthur Mühlen-Schulte, Luke Patey, Linda Harrison, Toyoko Sato, Dorte Salskov-Iversen, Annika Dilling, Lise Søstrøm, Majbritt Vendelbo, Bodil Dam, Anne Roepstorff.. I would like to thank in particular Kristine Munkgaard Pedersen for being a source of inspiration and aspiration, in academia as well as in life. A very special thanks goes to my dear colleague and friend, Julie Uldam, whose companionship has saved my sanity these past years and to whom I am indebted in uncountable ways. I hope to keep the account open. I am forever thankful to my brother, Jakob Vestergaard, who has been my mentor during the PhD - as well as in most other aspects of life for as long as I can remember. Above all, I am grateful to my spouse, Erik Granly Jensen. Thank you for being in it with me, for willingly setting everything aside for me and more than anything, for All rights reserved. giving sense to it all. No parts of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher. CONTENTS 1. INTRODUCTION 4 CONCEPTUAL FRAME 8 HUMANITARIANISM 10 LEGITIMACY IN THE HUMANITARIAN FIELD 12 Politicization of the humanitarian field 13 Institutionalization of the humanitarian field 14 Marketization of the humanitarian field 14 Legitimacy and the grounds for humanitarian assistance 15 DISCOURSE AS PRACTICE 18 The discursive landscape of humanitarian organizations 21 Mediatization as social change 22 DISCOURSE AS ACTION 23 Mediation as social practice 24 Mediation as connectivity 26 Mediation and cosmopolitanism 28 Mediation and proximity 29 METHODOLOGY 32 METHOD 38 Data 38 Analysis 40 CHALLENGES AND CONTRIBUTIONS 43 REFERENCES 46 2. PAPER 11: Humanitarian Branding and the Media. The Case of Amnesty International 54 3. PAPER 22: Identity and Appeal in the Humanitarian Brand 80 4. PAPER 3: Mediatized Humanitarianism. Trust and Legitimacy in the Age of Suspicion 97 5. PAPER 4: Humanitarian Appeal and the Paradox of Power 137 6. CONCLUSION 173 Summary in Danish 179 Summary in English 181 1 Journal of Language and Politics, vol. 7, 3, 2008 2 in Chouliaraki, L. & Morsing, M. (eds): Media, Organisations and Identity, Palgrave, 2010 INTRODUCTION Towards the end of May 2010, Danish Doctors without Borders (MSF) launched a campaign, which epitomizes the point and purpose of this thesis. The campaign was initiated with a newspaper ad, a relatively dense text with no imagery and a large heading, white letters on a black background: „IS AN EMERGENCY NOT WORTH SUPPORTING UNTIL IT HAS BEEN ON TV?‟ Under this heading, the full text reads: TV is able to do something quite extraordinary. It has an exceptional ability to get a message through. How often has one not followed world events directly from the couch? Or felt a little quiver, when the words „breaking news‟ slide across the screen? Even the smallest things are on everybody‟s lips, if they have been on TV. If the beech has come into leaf. If somebody has won a song competition. Once it has been on TV, people rarely have doubts. One could, however, question the prioritization of what, not least which news, make it to TV. Especially when it comes to the emergencies of the world. Not a wrong word about the good efforts that are put into national collects and fundraising shows, which for instance helped Haiti. Our patients have received a lot of help this way and we are very grateful. But sometimes we wonder what it takes to get on screen. How bad must it be for people to make their way to TV and benefit from the attention which for some mean life and hope? We are referring to the „forgotten emergencies‟. Right now, a grave humanitarian and medical emergency is ravaging South Sudan. The country has long been haunted by countless violent attacks on the civil population. The children of South Sudan are suffering from pervasive malnutrition and the mortality of mothers is the highest in the world. It would appear this is not enough to make it to Danish TV, but hopefully enough that maybe you will help us with our work. And if you have read this far in the ad, fortunately that also goes to show that there are, after all, other media than TV. If one needs a little attention. REMEMBER SUDAN WHEN NOBODY ELSE DOES 4 The ad points to one of the main challenges of humanitarian organizations today, the fact of the harsh competition for visibility in a mediated public space, where concern for the common good does not always set the agenda. What is interesting about this ad, however, is not so much the frustrations of MSF at the media‟s role as gate keepers and agenda setters in public life. This is common knowledge - nobody in Denmark leaves primary school without understanding that such is the way of the world. What is interesting is that this is how MSF choose to appeal to their audiences. Where are the emaciated babies with eyes full of flies instead of tears? Where are the happy children that have been brought to safety, where is the doctor with his stethoscope against the skeletal child‟s chest? The appeal includes none of these traditional pity figures, neither in imagery nor in language. Neither compassion nor tender-heartedness organize the emotional logic of the appeal. Instead, it is a meta-appeal which displaces the guilt and shame associated with witnessing the suffering of fellow human beings from the safety of „our couch‟, to the media and invites the audience to say: „not me! I will not allow my moral identity to be shaped by the media‟. In the campaign‟s second news paper ad, the relationship between public moral identity and popular culture is addressed explicitly and framed as a matter of compassion fatigue. Have we really become so cynical that it takes a large TV show, a campaign song and an ad with a celebrity actor, before we are willing to help? Is it understandable if we from time to time feel that we have had enough? Have we become weary of emergencies and relief work? We hope not. In this address, the ad not only speaks to a certain kind of audience, it also constructs a particular position for the reader to fill. This position is associated with an identity which aligns not with the first „we‟, but with the latter.
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