Children’s images as a tool for re-sensitization 

The image that went viral - Most of us are familiar with the picture of the three-year-old boy Aylan Kurdi: a refugee who drowned while fleeing Syria. The picture of his lifeless body on the shore caused much controversy and criticism towards the treatment of refugees. The image has circulated many times in numerous newspapers and websites. For many it has become the symbol of the refugees crisis. However, since the war in Syria erupted in 2011, there have been other images of death and violence circulating the internet. Why was it this image that moved many to action or compassion towards the refugees crisis?

In this blogpost we would like to analyze the distribution of images of death and violence in relation to children in the media. Folker Hanusch wrote the article “Representing Death in the Online Age” in which he argues that the internet has brought the notion of death back into the public sphere through citizen journalism. Anyone with access to the internet can share pictures and opinions on global events. Hanusch uses multiple case studies to support his claim. In addition, David Trend studies the role of the public in the distribution of images of violence: how high is the demand for rampage in the media?

We will analyze pictures of children in relation to death and violence in order to come to an understanding of how these images are used by different media and what their consequences are. Most importantly, we argue against Trend’s use of the notion “desensitization” when related to children. This concept is explained later in the text.

According to Trend, the frequent presence of violence in media has resulted in people growing accustomed to seeing violence (Trend 113). People tend to be less shocked when they see images of death and are less horrified by videogames. This process is called desensitization.

In recent years images violence and death have become easy to find on the internet. Research shows that people actually want to see it (Hanusch 152). Moreover, Trend mentions desensitization without distinguishing different groups. We challenge this approach by arguing that desensitization, as a result of violent media exposure, cannot be applied as a whole; it applies differently to children.

In the media, people have shown emotional responses when confronted with children’s deaths. In the case of Aylan Kurdi, Syria had had numerous casualtes. It becomes interesting to question why people were moved to such extreme compassion and activism mostly after Aylan Kurdi’s picture.

Commercials from charities focus on children very often. Many headlines of crises also tend to magnify the focus on children in order to get sympathy from viewers. Take the #bringbackourgirls campaign, a movement to help find 276 schoolgirls who were kidnapped by the islamic terrorist group Boko Haram in Nigeria. The fact that Boko Haram had already kidnapped almost 2000 women was left out of the picture. Even in the case of the Israel-Palestine conflict online petitions were started to instigate foreign government aid by mainly highlighting the suffering of children in this conflict.

In the case of Aylan Kurdi, media headlines such as “If these images don’t change Europe, what will?” or “Will the image of a lifeless boy on a beach change the refugee debate?” suggest that people - indirectly - believe that images of death and violence towards children in the media have more potential to influence people than other kinds of images of violence and death. Cultural texts and products are made or chosen in a way to ensure they circulate (Comella 68). The images of violent acts against children are often purposely chosen because of their high potential to circulate and influence the public since they are seen as a taboo, ultimately stimulating (government) intervention (Rosenbraugh 87-8). This phenomenon, however, is not new. Think, for instance, of the “napalm girl” (1972) during the Vietnam war who was used to influence public opinion on America’s war with Vietnam.

Though it is argued that these kinds of images’ power have been exaggerated and do not have the direct potential to end wars, they do play a role in changing public opinion, just as the Syrian Refugee Crisis gained much more momentum after images of Aylan Kurdi made global headlines and were being constantly shared on online platforms such as Twitter and Facebook (Hanoush) 157-158). Hugh Pinney, vice president at Getty Images, declared the following concerning the picture’s popularity in a TIME´s interview: 

Online search results for Aylan Kurdi’s story show numerous results of websites and organisations that are mostly compassionate towards this boy’s life and show pity for the occurrences and refugees from Syria. However, there has also been online speculation towards the story of Aylan Kurdi’s father, who supposedly does not add up when comparing the accounts he gave to different newspapers. The stories conclude that the family was in fact living in Turkey and were not at war when they decided to go to Europe as ‘refugees’. Australian Senator Cory Bernardi did not have as much compassion on the subject and also criticized the use of the picture in the media since it was taken “to evoke emotion” from people. People reacted negatively against his opinion and also labeled him controversial.

The point here is not to state which version is correct, but rather to show the power of death and violence in images of children in extracting sensitivity and compassion from people, in an age where people have supposedly become desensitized. The example of Bernardi shows that a desensitized or less compassionate attitude towards death or violence in the case of children is not often appreciated in the media. Yet, this kind of attitude does not enable people to critically analyze situations, since people could wrongly use images for their own “ideological ends” without proper research, as has happened before (Hanusch 156-7). It would therefore be helpful to study the influence of images of death and violence against children by analyzing media circulation of said images and their effects on different people. By using the reasoning of “engaged scholarship” for researching these situations, the main approach would be that “no potential research site is off limits”, not even areas where the subject is “debated, embraced, or rejected” (Comella  69).

In conclusion, we have used the recent media picture of Aylan Kurdi as a case study to challenge the notion of desensitization as an indiscriminate process, which is taking place through the portrayal of images of violence or death. The media has for a long time now used images of children in order to create sympathy, yet now these images are less controlled (due to citizen journalism) and are globally distributed much faster. People all over the world apparently sympathize so much that one picture of the body of a small child can change the political debate on the Refugee Crisis. Even though we are indeed more used to images of violence and death, we are not completely desensitized. Apparently, these kinds of pictures can still have a huge impact, especially when children are involved.

Proposition: the impact of the circulation of Aylan Kurdi’s image stimulates a kind of public resensitization to images of death in an age where media violence is supposed to desensitize us.

Works cited:

●Hanusch, Folker (2010), ‘Representing Death in the Online Age’, in: Representing Death in the News: Journalism, Media and Mortality. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 145-160.

●Trend, David (2007), ‘But We Can Understand It: Beyond Polemics in the Media Violence Debate’, in: The Myth of Media Violence: A Critical Introduction. Malden, Oxford & Carlton: Blackwell Publishing, pp. 108-123.

●Comella, Lynn (2014), ‘Studying Porn Cultures’, in: Porn Studies 1 (1-2), pp. 64-70.

●Rosebraugh, Craig (2011). The Logic of Political Violence: Lessons in Reform and Revolution.

Initials: GK, RO, AL