Compassion Fatigue
February 20th 2008 03:43
The new epidemic facing modern men and women living in capitalist societies is the spread of compassion fatigue. Through the media, people have been engulfed by images, showing the sorrows of the Third World; that being war, poverty and social disorder. This relentless coverage of the spectacle of suffering by the media, has assisted in the development of a distant, uncaring attitude, which Moeller (1999:9) describes as compassion fatigue. Moeller (1999:14) suggests that the sensationalism in which the media delivers Third World suffering has desensitised people to the point that action and compassion are only incited when the spectacle is greater that its predecessor. As Debord (1994:33) suggests, within the society of the spectacle; no spectacles are immune to the process of commodification. In addition, since culture itself is becoming “a process of market exchange between producers and consumers of images…” (Ignatieff 1998:29), the suffering of others has no other option than to go through this same process as well. In a capitalist society, suffering becomes another product to manufacture and sell, if not just for money, but for compassion.
Ignatieff (1998:24) suggests that this is television’s bad conscience, where the suffering of others is reduced to a slide show of corpses, allowing for people to misunderstand what the real cause for the suffering is. Moeller (1999:13) explains that this is due to the agencies behind the news, where reporters and newspaper companies only determine coverage of Third World suffering based on its horror and “news worthiness”. Adding to this, Moeller (1999:22) reports that people are more inclined to care about others when they are able to relate to that person’s plight. Since most people in Western societies are unfamiliar with the experience of war and famine, this is hard to do, and instead of an outward show of compassion, people take these images for granted and turn to the next page or to the next channel (Moeller, 1999:14).
However with television’s bad conscience, comes with it, its good one. Ignatieff (1998:12) and Hoijer (2004:515) suggest that television has helped in the idea of a moral universalism, allowing people to recognise that each culture has something very similar to the next, and that people are not entirely different from one another as they had first thought. Television has enabled people to see that they, universally; bleed, cry and suffer in the same way. Without it, as Ignatieff (1998:10) argues, there would be many more victims and deaths that would go unnoticed and unheard. Additionally, with the rise of the Internet breaking down barriers of race, gender and geography, the media helps to draw attention, and spread the need for empathy and compassion.
Not all people are able to show compassion in the same way, but that does not mean there is no compassion overall. Hoijer (2004:528) suggests that there are many forms of compassion as well as indifference. So therefore, there is still hope to justify people turning away, not because of compassion fatigue, but because of a difference in the way they show their compassion. Then, if this is the case, instead of the media inspiring a fatigue in compassion; the way the media helps in bringing attention to the numerous problems of the world, it inspires an abundance in compassion.
References
Debord, G (1994) Society of the Spectacle. New York: Zone Books.
Hoijer, B (2004) ‘The Discourse of Global Compassion: The Audience and Media
Reporting of Human Suffering’, Media Culture and Society, London: Sage Publications
Ignatieff, M (1998) ‘Is Nothing Sacred? The Ethics of Television’, The Warrior[COLOR=Teal]’s
Honour: Ethnic War and the Modern Conscience, London: Chatto and Windus
Moeller, S (1999) ‘Compassion Fatigue’, Compassion Fatigue: How the Media Sell
Disease, Famine, War and Death, New York and London: Routledge
Ignatieff (1998:24) suggests that this is television’s bad conscience, where the suffering of others is reduced to a slide show of corpses, allowing for people to misunderstand what the real cause for the suffering is. Moeller (1999:13) explains that this is due to the agencies behind the news, where reporters and newspaper companies only determine coverage of Third World suffering based on its horror and “news worthiness”. Adding to this, Moeller (1999:22) reports that people are more inclined to care about others when they are able to relate to that person’s plight. Since most people in Western societies are unfamiliar with the experience of war and famine, this is hard to do, and instead of an outward show of compassion, people take these images for granted and turn to the next page or to the next channel (Moeller, 1999:14).
However with television’s bad conscience, comes with it, its good one. Ignatieff (1998:12) and Hoijer (2004:515) suggest that television has helped in the idea of a moral universalism, allowing people to recognise that each culture has something very similar to the next, and that people are not entirely different from one another as they had first thought. Television has enabled people to see that they, universally; bleed, cry and suffer in the same way. Without it, as Ignatieff (1998:10) argues, there would be many more victims and deaths that would go unnoticed and unheard. Additionally, with the rise of the Internet breaking down barriers of race, gender and geography, the media helps to draw attention, and spread the need for empathy and compassion.
Not all people are able to show compassion in the same way, but that does not mean there is no compassion overall. Hoijer (2004:528) suggests that there are many forms of compassion as well as indifference. So therefore, there is still hope to justify people turning away, not because of compassion fatigue, but because of a difference in the way they show their compassion. Then, if this is the case, instead of the media inspiring a fatigue in compassion; the way the media helps in bringing attention to the numerous problems of the world, it inspires an abundance in compassion.
References
Debord, G (1994) Society of the Spectacle. New York: Zone Books.
Hoijer, B (2004) ‘The Discourse of Global Compassion: The Audience and Media
Reporting of Human Suffering’, Media Culture and Society, London: Sage Publications
Ignatieff, M (1998) ‘Is Nothing Sacred? The Ethics of Television’, The Warrior[COLOR=Teal]’s
Honour: Ethnic War and the Modern Conscience, London: Chatto and Windus
Moeller, S (1999) ‘Compassion Fatigue’, Compassion Fatigue: How the Media Sell
Disease, Famine, War and Death, New York and London: Routledge
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