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)
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 Žižek’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
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
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. Once the initial shock had subsided and people tried to continue with their normal i 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. These outlets often referred to the double suicide ii 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. For instance. why did Facebook implement the iii 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?
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
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. Because of its temporal logic, the frame moves from place to place whilst the content can be taken for granted in one instance and be criticized in the next (10).
In regard to the apprehension of the precariousness of life, Butler finds that the notion of precariousness refers to the vulnerability innate in every human life due to the fact that every human will eventually perish due to natural causes or manmade destruction (13). Not every life possesses the same precariousness, and the level of precariousness can be influenced by normative and institutional settings in which specific lives are located. Social and political forces also play an important role in this process due to the fact that they forge multiple constructions which make life possible (23). The main reason
individuals experience different levels of precariousness, is due to their varying statuses in the ranks of social recognition. This is what Butler constitutes as precarity, which
eventually determines whose life is potentially grievable and whose lives will be burdened with lower economic conditions and other stressful conditions that are often politically induced (25). In relation to this process of the perception of precariousness, Butler states that the frame of recognition is not only dependent on apprehension, but also intelligibility. This means that a life has to fit a certain preconception of what one constitutes as life.
Otherwise, this life cannot be recognized as such (7). Each body does share a certain level of precariousness, which can also lead people to feel threatened by others. From a Hegelian perspective, these shared conditions in times of war often do not lead to a mutual understanding and reciprocal recognition, but quite the opposite: exploitation of groups of people, who’s lives are deemed ungrievable. Butler argues that these lives are forfeited in advance, because people feel these lives are a danger to the status quo that they are trying to protect. Sometimes, deaths are even rationalized due to the fact that populations feel that the loss of these lives are necessary (31).
With regards to the manner in which media outlets cover various tragedies differently, it is safe to state that mankind has not yet grasped the ability to let all lives matter equally. Butler asks herself who she feels responsible for. Does she identify with a nation, territory, language or culture? Can one only be responsible for those who are like me or recognize me in that sense? In times of war, there has often been a strong sense of “we”, where we consider whose lives we mourn and whose we don’t (36). According to anthropologist Talal Asad, our moral responses to tragedies are regulated by certain types of interpretative frameworks. For instance, when lives are lost due to state-sponsored war, we often don’t mourn those deaths because we don’t link those tragedies to dishonesty and tragedy, but with unfortunate circumstances. When a radical group of extremists claim the lives of completely innocent people, our affect regarding these deaths change (Asad 24). Asad goes on to say that how we feel about others, is in part conditioned by the way we interpret everything that happens around us. These feelings are often affected by interpretative schemes that we do not fully understand (Asad 33; Butler 41).
Not only does Butler pinpoint a certain hypocrisy and inequity regarding the grievability of life, because she also suggests a way of thinking about “global
responsibility” in times of war (Butler 36). In regard to “framing”, Butler suggests that we break free from certain frames, so that we recognize new life and let new frames install themselves, making the emergence of new apprehension possible. One might hope that our frame of recognition could just be enlarged to fit a cosmopolitan society often ascribed to the 21st century ideals in Western countries. Butler sees the current framing as a
reflexive process; a fact which suits the nature of the case concerning the Paris attacks quite well and could lead to interesting insights in relation to the framing for such particular events. In fact, Judith Butler wrote an open letter on her publishers website, entitled
‘Mourning is the law’. In it, she asks herself whether we are truly grieving or are we submitting to increasingly militarized state power and suspended democracy? How does the latter work more easily when it is sold as the former (Butler 2015)? Ironically, she
concludes that the enemy has attacked France’s version of freedom, by which the French authority have decided to implement restriction on the same freedom they say they are trying to protect; the police are getting more militarised, the freedom of assembly is being violated and state of emergency gives authorities the license to raid any house without an actual search-warrant. Butler argues that one of the reasons, news outlets and common people seem to barely acknowledge the bombings in Beirut, is because most people find themselves in an impasse, in which they find it hard to grasp the situations at hand. She begins to coin a new notion of grief which can figure out why we choose to let some events affect us and others not. She calls this transversal grief, which Jorg Haiser defined as “not grief-shaming playing off one terrible incident against another, but an ability to share grief across the divides, which in turn is a precondition to be able to go from impasse to thinking again (Heiser 2015).
2.2 Framing and media bias in news value theory
When we hold Butler’s views to be self-evident, there is a clear link to be made between the recognition and/or apprehension regarding another person’s life in relation to grief and the way in which media platforms frame certain news coverage or create
medium-specific factors by which communication between people is regulated. The theory that determines which news is worthy of certain coverage and the potential bias that comes with these types of decisions, is referred to as news value theory. One of the key aspects of this theory is that a news item must be meaningful for the audience to become news (Ruigrok and van Attenveldt 72). Johan Galtung and Mari Holmboe Ruge, two of the pioneers in this field, found that proximity was one of the most important factors in judging whether an event was meaningful for a desired audience. When getting back to the aspect of framing, we can clearly see a type of framing in the Paris attacks when we see a
polarization of society with Western cultures on the one hand and Islamic extremists on the other. In the context of events such as 9/11 and the Paris attacks, some theorists have argued that the national public sphere is slowly being replaced by Marshall McLuhan’s concept of “global village”, which entails that every citizens receives the same type of information, making the media networks function on a global level (69). This global village would lead to a new information age whereby everyone would constantly be in contact with each other (West 432). On the other hand, other theorists claim the domestic view doesn’t seem to be replaced by an international view, but that global events are often integrated into local discourses (Volkmer 239). In their research based on associative
framing, Nel Ruigrok and Wouter van Atteveldt investigated whether events such as the London bombing, 9/11 and the Madrid attacks were mainly framed in a local or global way in several national media systems (Ruigrok and van Attenveldt 68). What they found is that there was not such existence of a global village in relation to the coverage of these types of media events. Proximity is still the most definitive factor in news value. This is only partially true for the specific framing of the news. After an initial global report on an event, the framing will eventually shift towards the national and/or local consequences this event brings about (Ruigrok and van Attenveldt 85).
In relation to the field of new media, the connectivity of the Internet has often been heralded as a positive thing. On the other hand, there has been a growing debate amongst social scientists when analysing the cognitive and emotional effect various parts of the Internet is having on its users. This is where we find an interesting contradiction: the Internet is supposed to highlight connectivity between the people that utilise it, but can also have the opposite effect whereby relationships offline and online don’t relate to one another, which can lead to social isolation (Biggs 29). Modern media technologies are often credited to have torn down all sorts of geographic boundaries, but is that really the case? From a traditional cross-cultural perspective in psychology, theorists often made a division between the individualistic West and the collective East when looking at the influence culture has on media ecology. Eventually, cultural psychologists started to differentiate more variations in culture, which were based on self-perception, or some cases, the self-construal. This concept can yet again be divided into two variations: independent and interdependent. The former is based in personal emotions with an internal emphasis, while the latter is based on being more open towards outsiders and emphasizing relationships with others. According to Biggs, these two variations of culture don’t necessarily have to be a division, but also have a potential overlap. Generally, people in Western societies mostly have a self-perception that remains stable in different
positions, while collectivist societies would try to view themselves more in the light of certain similarities they share with a group they can identify with (Biggs 31). These
similarities can be very on-the-nose or relatively redundant in comparison. For instance, I can be part of a religious group or, for a time, I might temporarily be part of a group having a bad case of the flu. These contexts are what create a person’s self-construal. One can be part of many cultures; limiting oneself to just one would seem to be extremely limited to one’s personality, although this is not inconceivable (Heatherton and Baumeister 94).
Cleary, the Internet is bound to have an impact on the psychology of the self. Biggs argues that collectivist and individualist aspects of culture are starting to intermingle;
creating a culture that is more varied. An interesting question to ask is what kind of culture we would adhere to regarding the culture visible on the Internet. Does the Internet provide more intimate spaces for people who aren’t that well connected to the bigger cities, or does it provide a sense of anonymity for the metropolitan citizens of the world? Do we view the Internet as a place where none of our details are safe and private, or do we like the fact that every person can come knocking on our respective online door at any time? In doing so, Biggs juxtaposes the concept of the global village next to the urban jungle; a term which invokes a far more cluttered and unregulated view of the Internet (Biggs 32).
Ellen Ullman wrote an interesting piece on some of the aforementioned issues regarding the valuation of different types of cultures. She argues that the current framing of the Internet leads people to become increasingly narcissistic. This trend can, for instance, be seen in the way platforms and software name certain spaces on the computer for its user: My Preferences, My Data, My Frontpage etc. The medium therefore forces upon its user a singularity of being, whereby it has become extremely important to individualise oneself in the new media sphere. This extreme personalisation can lead to a decreased social responsibility, which leads users to experience a new existence. She calls this “the ultimate suburbanization of existence.” In other words, only the information and other persons in our personalised media sphere will be able to penetrate our otherwise fairly isolated Internet bubbles (Ullman 31). Additionally, the Internet has become the most divisive media form which can deliver a type of personalising, which is unmatched by any other medium. This is especially visible in the way we currently absorb news. Social media has impacted mainstream media in the sense that they have had to adapt to swift changes in the technological landscape. Platforms such as Twitter have invariably changed the ways in which journalism conducts research and surveys suggest that not only the creation, but also the discussion and sharing of the news is increasingly taking place on social media (Hermida et al. 1). Although websites and social media networks have often been described as the newest form of the public sphere, one can also look at the construct of such media outlets where they seem to fall short in spreading certain messages or news. For instance, concern has grown towards the limitation of the news caused by the narrow stream of information people receive via their social media platforms, although recent research suggest that users feel that their social circle gives them a more broad sense of the news than a traditional media outlet would provide them (Hermida et al. 6).
2.3 Cosmopolitanism in the distant suffering of Lilie Chouliaraki
In recent times, there has been an intense debate about the concept of the global village and whether this idea has resulted in a cosmopolitan society. The main argument for the global village is that transnational networks led to more connectivity, which in turn
shortened the distance between all lives on this planet as well as a new sense of responsibility towards distant others (Chouliaraki, Distant suffering in the media 2). But how is the suffering of others made visible? What kind of awareness and responsibility do we pertain in regard to certain events? Here it is important to differentiate the manner in which individuals and the media manage the visibility of suffering, even though there is a definite connection between the two due to the invariable influence of the media on the individual.
The media has a performative value in this sense: the words and imagery they choose to utilize, fill in the gaps of individuals which they think of, but are incapable of experiencing. This plays a big role in where we stand in relation to the suffering of others. This is not only the case with conventional old-fashioned media, but also with events as public spectacles as they play out on social media networks. Contributors to social media routinely choose to respond to a certain event and leave another to the side. A logical question following this statement is what kind of imagined communities we belong to and whether we can link this to a global village or reproduce a western community easily fatigued by distant others (4)?
Journalism invariably addresses a certain audience or a community of people. The news perceived through the lens of the media can at often times be detached from
emotion and very descriptive by nature. Even though, it does have the potential to create a society of intimacy by leaving an open window for our ‘own’ suffering whilst ignoring the suffering outside of our periphery and our reach of responsibility. Chouliaraki argues that these feelings lead to the creation of communitarian publics, which cause a type of global intimacy. The two types of news stories that form communitarian media publics, are divided into adventure news and ecstatic news. The former is very factual and emotionless. At times, these news pieces are accompanied with representations of information such as maps, which lead to an abstraction of the situation at hand. Because there is no imagery, there is also no contextualization of any suffering that might have occurred in relation to the news piece. Other techniques used in adventure news are the long shot, which universalizes the suffering of others. The static composition and scenery of generic landscapes lead the viewer to think that this event could have taken place
anywhere on the planet. This type of news coverage seems to not force upon a sense of morality, but convey that the emotion of recognizing another’s suffering is a limited resource which has to be linked to events scarcely. Ecstatic news, the latter, differs from the previous in that these news events contain a rich tapestry of verbal and visual aspects, which insist commitment of the viewer and active engagement with the persons suffering within the narrative. The use of word ecstatic here refers to the break of the flow of time, whereby a minute can feel like an eternity. Another feature of ecstatic news is the
uninterrupted series of new images and videos, giving the viewer the sensation of a live event that is experienced in the moment the narrative is actually happening (5-7).
These types of news stories share one common trait, namely that they address audiences as an already constituted community. Chouliaraki refers to these communities as “a community that is united in blocking out emotions for ‘irrelevant’ sufferings or united in fully empathizing with sufferers who are like ‘us’ – the safe West.” In other words,
Western audiences are incapable of engaging with suffrage beyond the West, even though the ecstatic news can be seen as a justification of the global village since distant events can appear to seem very close, whilst adventure plays into the feeling of compassion fatigue - the argument that one can become tired of recurring news along the lines of terrorism and human catastrophes. What this makes abundantly clear, is that nether of the these types of news are able to connect us to the suffrage of others in the distant world, or, to put it another way, that there exists a definite bias between global and national news flows. In past, present and future media, there is a noticeable trend towards a process of selection that signifies which events of suffering concerns us as spectators the most (9-10).
On the other hand, there’s also a type of news coverage which does push our horizon further than our own community. Chouliaraki conceptualizes this type of news as ‘emergency news’, which is “a seemingly simple but subtly complex class of news, where the visibility of suffering is managed in an in-between space, one that does not completely deprive the sufferer of her humanness nor does it render this sufferer thoroughly sovereign – thoroughly humane.” The aspect of emergency is put forward in these news pieces because they have a certain call to action, a demand for progressive and swift help. This form of news confronts us with a question related to suffering as a problem that needs be solved. Therefore, the spectator inherently considers whether the suffering is important enough to enforce a type of deliberate action. When asked this question to oneself, it’s apparent that emergency news can be responsible for opening up a dialogue and the measure by which people inhibit a new space, maybe as long as a the actual length of the
news piece, but nonetheless one whereby our concerns pass the previous limit of our own communities and communitarian bond. This might seem as a watered-down version of cosmopolitanism as coined by Kant, and perhaps also is. But, these kinds of calls of action in media imagery do lead to a form of conditional cosmopolitanism, which can be defined by the confines of the spectator such as limited possibility for effective action due to not being able to physically be present at the mediated area and not being able to make a difference in the approach to the suffering in our society (12-13).
The first use of the word cosmopolitanism can be found in the work of Diogenes of Sinope around the year 400 before Christ in ancient Greece. This word is a composition of the Greek words kosmos (world or universe) and polites (citizen of a city). When asked were Diogenes came over, he presented this now famed answer: “I am a citizen of the world.” Diogenes decided to build on these ideas and posed that every man finds himself in two different spaces at the same time; a physical space and a communal space, which every person shares with one another on the grounds of morality and values (Nussbaum 1-3).
German philosopher Kant was the first in modernity to reinvent the concept of cosmopolitanism by redefining its values. In his essay Zum ewigen Frieden, win
Philosophiser Entwurf, Kant defends the cosmopolitan morality. His ideas are a derivative of Diogenes, but also the Greek stoics that followed the work of cynics like Diogenes. According to the stoics, the value of reasonableness, which can be found in every man or woman, is the basis of all human communities and intercourse. This reasonableness is the common factors that binds all people together. Stoic cosmopolitans try to assist the
concrete struggles of individual persons, therefore not the problems they encounter due to their local or national identity. The follow passage by Marcus Aurelius, as cited by Martha Nussbaum, is a fitting example of this frame of mind: “It makes no difference whether a person lives here or there, provided that, wherever he lives, he lives as a citizen of the world.” The stoics also state that people don’t have to give up their nationality or local iv identity in order to become world citizens. Just the opposite; they feel that these qualities contribute to the wealth of diversity in the cosmos that is human life. Important side-note to this is that they do acknowledge that different political values can play a part in creating wedges between certain groups of people, which leads some to being more inclined to present the image of “the others” in relation to different communities. This frame of mind leads to the stoics basing their thinking process on their sense of empathy, so they can accordingly related to people they might not necessarily agree with in order to work on/ towards a common goal (6-9).
Kant was mostly preoccupied with the role of man as an indispensable entity and a decisive factor in the course of history, as an entity that actually participates in the
landscape that is planet earth. A cosmopolitan will not be frayed by his egoistic individual assumptions, but adopts a pluralistic position for the sake of humanity. Kant has written about four different types of modality regarding cosmopolitanism, which are often the subject of intense debate in relation to the theories on cosmopolitanism in the field of media, psychology and international relations. These are (1) a world federation as legal and political institutional basis of cosmopolitanism as a form of law; (2) the historical basis of cosmopolitanism related to world trade; (3) the idea of a global public sphere; and (4) the importance of the cosmopolitan culture in order to strengthen the sense of participation in relation to the unambiguous humanity (Cheah 487).
Whilst the cosmopolitan writings of Kant have had their impact on the Western world and their media coverage in the field of social, political and judicial areas, there is also a certain trend of regressing in relation to the welcoming position of the traditional cosmopolitan. The European political climate especially is recently the stage of
transgression due to the hostile attitude of extreme right political parties and governments towards cultural pluralism or multiculturalism by threatening to close their borders for refugees and strip non-European immigrants of their rights. With this growing trend in the back of our minds, it’s high time we look at the concept of society and community through the lens of a radical new transnational understanding of cosmopolitanism, as embodied by the growing number of transnational communities within the borders of Europe (Baban & Rygiel 2). In fact, there is a multitude of contemporary literature written about the possible implementation of cosmopolitanism in the Western world that could bridge the dichotomy between cultural differences and a homogeneous national identity.
On the other hand, one could also make the case that the cosmopolitan Western world does not have much to offer to groups of minorities due to the fact that the imagined Western identity does not suit all various nationalities and communities. Some groups have been marginalized to the point where they are pre-emptively left out of the spheres of Western culture in people’s minds. Some radical cosmopolitans see a certain cultural identity as an obstacle in building towards a unison image of what it means to be human. In my opinion, there is often a heavy and encumbered relationship between the cultural desire of man and the quest to find the universal aspect in every person such that humanity can come together at last. Cosmopolitans have approached this relationship relatively problematically through recent times by focussing on pluralism and the differences between communities and people. The cosmopolitan desire of universal
principles to unite certain demographics has often just pointed out the role of a universal element in a certain cultural context (5-7). Theorists such as Appiah, Delanty and Beck try to look beyond the traditional notion of cosmopolitanism towards a grassroots variation. The most prominent is this regard is transgressive cosmopolitanism, which focuses to acknowledge and conserve marginalised populations, whilst giving them the opportunity to situate themselves in the national narrative in a transformative manner (8). Others plea for a new vision on cosmopolitanism due to the fact that the globalization of the last decade has drastically changed the world and her underlying connections and networks, even though this increase on connectedness hasn’t led to any form of a cosmopolitan form of politics just yet (Cheah 491).
2.4 Luc Boltanski’s politics of pity
In his book Distant Suffering: Politics, Morality and the Media, Luc Boltanski narrows down the variation of spectatorship into two positions: abstract universalism and local
particularism. The first views suffering from a global perspective and identifies with every single individual that suffers in any shape or form. The latter position views things inside their own sphere and ignores those outside of their immediate proximity, hence they carefully weigh whether suffering fits within one of their narratives or surroundings. The downside of these two extremes is that abstract universalism can lead to a disassociation and devaluation of suffering on a local level, whilst local particularism can lead to apathy towards world suffering until this suffering is realised. In order to explore the contradictions between these two concepts, Boltanski adopts the term politics of pity in order to pinpoint the modern consciousness in relation to suffering.
Politics of pity make a distinction between people that suffer and people that do not. A second distinction concerns what is seen and what is not, also referred to as the
spectacle of suffering. The concept of spectacle is this regard does not centre any call to action, but is based on observation whereby the observer views the unlucky one without any direct contact or a shared suffering. The question whether the misery of the unlucky is justified, is never posed (the question of justification can be ascribed to the system of a politics of justice, which is based on action from above taken by rulers and is therefore the opposite of politics of pity). The development of a politics of pity relies on two sets of classes that are, ineffectively, equal to each other, expect for the factor of luck. These two classes must be at a distance so their actions are not to influence each other, whilst the fortunate must also be able to witness the misery of the unfortunate. It is important to note
that the spectacle of misery does not always follow politics of pity. Namely, there is a possibility that the misery of the unfortunate generates no pity and is therefore simply whisked away. On the other hand, there is also a possibility that the more fortunate display a form of concern for the unfortunate which is unrelated to any form of politics. This point is made clear by Hannah Arendt, who addresses the examples of the Founding Father
during the American Revolution and the Christian church before the 18th century as illustrations of a situation whereby people can live side by side without acknowledges the suffering of the other due to their respective conditions and the existence of a form of compassion able to manifest itself without being tied to a system of politics (Boltanski 3-6). By making this distinction, there is a definitive difference between the terms compassion and pity, although they are used subsequently in day-to-day conversation. To start, the act of compassion is mainly pointed towards individuals without the need for generalising their suffering onto a larger group of people. Face to face contact is a necessity for compassion, since the fortunate and the unfortunate have to present in the same space in order for compassion to be a viable emotion. Pity does not require this form of loquaciousness, since it can be expressed from far away. Compassion is a relativity mute form of
expression; most of the expression related to compassion is non-talkative and is based on movements of the body and gestures. In other words, “compassion speaks only to the extent that it has to reply directly to the sheer expressionist sound and gestures through which suffering becomes audible and visible in the world (Arendt, On Revolution 86).” We can deduce from this statement that compassion is not talkative and has therefore has little to do with the two-sided exchange of emotion (7).
Even though both forms differ greatly from each other, the question regarding commitment towards the unfortunate is prevalent in both pity and compassion. A face-to-face situation as previously raised bridges the gap between knowledge and action, but does not necessarily help decide whether the fortunate should flee or help. In a
communitarian structure, this decision would be mostly defined by the position that the fortunate and the unfortunate inhabit within the social structure itself. The conventions related to the structure limit the decisions one has to make regarding whether to help someone or not. The question of commitment only seems to be a problem for the
perspective of a politics of pity due to the double requirement it has to meet. To feel pity, a person must be able to detach oneself from the individual and the locality of the suffering. A well-known technique to achieve this is to rely on the statistics-approach in order to dehumanize the suffering. This is not to say that pity relies upon a form of generalisation. Quite the contrary, situations leading to up pity do need a certain framing in relation to a
specific case. For Kant, pity has always been a factor which lacks any form of proportion, seeing as we as humanity can mourn the loss of a child, fleeing from civil war and
drowning in the Mediterranean Sea, whilst we seem completely indifferent in engaging in military conflict in different parts of the world where lives are lost at a much faster rate (11-12).
A paradoxical problem that comes to the forefront when discussing the locality of a politics of pity, is the treatment of distance. A politics of pity wants to retain the qualities as presented to be in a physical encounter, but also has an inherent need for distance in order to be able to cope with the suffering of an assemblage of suffering across multiple regions and locations. Hannah Arendt goes even further by stating that when the
unfortunate decide to inhabit the same space as the fortunate, they can no longer be seen as the unfortunate and a politics of pity breaks down. But even if the unfortunate is not physically present, the distant spectator still possesses a certain responsibility and moral obligation towards the unfortunate. In the situation of ordinary citizens who have adopted the role of the fortunate and the distant spectator, the subject of distance is only ever referenced to when the suffering of others is far away yet visible, but the spectator is not in a position to help the sufferers. So how are we to enhance to distant responsibility in a politics of pity? Seeing as distant spectators rarely respond to a cry for help for a multitude of reasons, one way of expanding the connection between the unfortunate and the
fortunate is to reinforce the concept of omission. This means that we are all responsible for allowed events and tragedies to happen and linger, from the person most nearby the situation to the person furthest away from it. When averting his or her gaze, the distant sectors continue to do nothing about the suffering of the unfortunate, and is also partially responsible for the situation which he could have prevented (13-16). In this reasoning, Boltanksi finds the clear distinction between the world of representation and the world of action to be one of its most important components. Action leading upon suffering must be based on an accurate representation of the world. Perhaps not unsurprisingly, he is not too fond of the work of deconstructionist critics such as Jean Baudrillard, whom he actively mentions in his book as the primary example of a frame of mind that blurs the distinction between representation and action, making it seem nothing more than an illusion
(154-158).
Boltanski argues that every group of unfortunates should get the same amount of media attention, but recognizing that there is not enough media space to show all the suffering that happens at the same time all over the world. He finds it unethical that the media often displays the suffering of others in a passive manner, but concurs that the
display of passive suffering can lead to a form of action. In doing so, Boltanski might be his worst critic by showing both sides of his conceptual thinking. What Boltanski successfully does, is show us that we can become absorbed with our own pity when witnessing the suffering of others. In order to move away from the “perverse delight of spectacles of suffering”, society should move to a frame of mind focussed more on morality and
commitment to the help of others, distant if not. Even though pity is not the most engaged manner of reacting to one’s suffering, it does leave open the chance for the sentiment to lead to compassion and possibly even social change. This is how the suffering of others can hopefully eventually be ended (Sawchuk 2002).
2.5 Roger Silverstone’s moral maximalism and proper distance
In relation to the morality associated with a politics of pity, theorists such as Chouliaraki and Roger Silverstone question whether a moral maximalism, in lines with the traditional sense of cosmopolitanism, can be translated into a form of uses and lead to a solid base for a deontology. Influenced by Boltanksi amongst others, Silverstone calls for media morality according to social scientist Daniel Dayan, whereby he makes the assumptions that some forms and subjects of journalism are, in fact, too significant to be left in the hands of journalists. In lines of the work of previously mentioned authors such as Arendt and Beck, Silverstone begins his moral investigation by coining the concept of the
Mediapolis. This term refers to a “mediated public space where contemporary political life increasingly finds its place, both at national and global levels (Dayan 114).” A cosmopolitan character is at the heart of this concept, in that it revolves around a collection of individuals who inhabit the same space, but adhere to different religion, live in different cities etc. Even though there are clearly visible differences between the individuals, they do form a plurality in which everyone is included. Therefore, the Mediapolis is not necessarily a geographical entity that can be pointed out on a map, but a city-state formed by the
organization between people themselves. This structure has certain Arendtian, namely that it functions in a reflective manner as we appear to others as others appear to us (114).
Silverstone focuses on the aspect of media performances, which invariably demand a moral dimension. He goes as far to state the moral state is the main responsibility of the media, because it supersedes all other ways of communication and connection with
others. The media is, in this framework, the most constructive factor in our moral universe. This imposed importance upon the media should lead to regulation of the media, since the role they are to carry out is too vital to be left to corporations. This initial point of view could
shock and to a degree frighten readers due to the dangers that come with regulating media, as this is a prevalent occurrence through world history leading to harrowing
situations of limitation. According to Silvester, regulation of this kind can swing two ways; in a benevolent society it should increase the quality of the democratic process in the media, but endanger this process in a non-benevolent society. The emphasis of the desired regulation should be focussed more on the initial reasoning behind the regulation on a conceptual and intellectual level instead of referring to the actual measures taken. There are three themes that play an important role in Silverstone’s thinking: distance,
responsibility and hospitality. These themes refer to the 1) ‘proper distance’ a person should adopt in relation to the other (which is no distance in the maximalist vision), 2) a ‘substantive responsibility’ that functions as a concept in which a person is responsible for himself and the condition of the other, and 3) a welcoming attitude towards all others in relation to you own space as drawn upon in Perpetual Peace by Kant and a willingness to let all parties be heard. In doing so, Silverstone adopts an extremely maximalist approach to these subjects. There’s no choice between immorality or morality in his vision, but only the moral stance and the even further moral stance towards suffering (115-121).
3 Methodology and Corpus
The objects which shall be analysed in order to answer the research question, can be divided into four sections. From a theoretical point of view, I shall be discussing a number of authors connected to the subjects of grief, media bias, distant suffering and
cosmopolitanism in relation to the case study of the Paris attacks and the Beirut bombings. These authors chosen have sculpted the framework in the understanding of grief and suffering for decades, and are therefore a reliable basis for the analyses of the case study at hand. The analysis of the case study will be discussed in chapter five.
Firstly, this piece will examine a number of images in relation to the Paris attacks and the Beirut bombings, as they have been published next to a number of articles on influential and major news websites. These include Western-based websites such as The Guardian, The Telegraph, The New York Times and The Atlantic, but also Non-Western and global based media such as Al-Jazeera, CNN and Reuters. This selection will give the analysis of the iconography a certain gravitas which is needed in order to answer the research question adequately. Furthermore, the decision to highlight a variety of national and international media is an intentional one, since it is important for the research question to clarify if there is a difference in the news coverage of these media outlets in the manner with which they frame their iconography to convey the suffering of others. For instance, the Al Jazeera news platform has its roots in the Arabic peninsula, which I felt would be a good counterweight for most of the other reports this piece will be utilising, which have a Western background. This variation is especially interesting in the light of the cosmopolitan perception of new media as a potential binding factor between communities of all sorts. In examining these various iconographies, I will primarily be referencing to the work of Butler and Chouliaraki, since their work is of a similar nature in the sense that they analyse iconography to see how a certain news event is situated by the media and perceived by the distant spectator.
Second, the piece will examine some videos and animations that were either created or recorded during and after the Paris attacks and Beirut bombings. By
incorporating this into the case study, it will add another layer of depth to the analysis of the online media coverage of both events. The moving image has a way of conveying certain information and emotion in a manner that still imagery cannot. Furthermore, the factor of the quantity of “live coverage” during the Paris attacks plays a role in the decision to include video clips in the analysis, since this is one of the most clear divides between
the ecstatic nature of the Paris attacks news coverage and the predominantly adventurous coverage of the Beirut bombings.
The third part of the iconography analysis will look at the medium of Google Images, a subpage of the well-known Google website, which is the most widely used search engine on the web. This medium was selected as an object of importance because it relates highly to the spectator’s view of a tragedy such as the Paris attacks and those in Beirut, seeing as this is the most likely place one would start searching for iconography in relation to the aforementioned tragedies. The first forty pictures in relation to the search queries ‘Paris attacks 2015’ and ‘Beirut bombings 2015’ will be analysed in the next chapter. This number will ensure that the most relevant photos on the web will be taken into account when evaluating the media coverage of both events as a whole, without delving too deep into the lower ranking images in the database of Google.
The last paragraph of the fifth chapter will research the linguistic differences in the headlines regarding the Paris attacks and the Beirut bombings. Since performativity, which has “the reiterative power of discourse to produce the phenomena that it regulates and constrains”, has its roots in linguistics and plays a crucial (and sometimes pivotal) role on the discourse of these types of tragedies, it is vitally important that the possible differences in tone of voice and information in the linguistics related to these events are also examined (Butler 1993, 2)
4 Summary of the 2015 Paris attacks
On November 13th 2015, Paris was struck by a series of coordinated attacks that took place in the city centre of a capital and in one of its suburbs Saint-Denis. The attacks began at the Stade de France where the French and German national teams were in the middle of a friendly football match with more than 50.000 spectators in the stadium, which was also attended by French president Hollande and the German foreign minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier. Three suicide bombers struck just outside of the stadium within a timeframe of 40 minutes. This was just the beginning of a harrowing night for the city of Paris: several minutes after the first detonation at the football stadium, various mass shootings were initiated on the streets of Paris as well as in restaurants and cafe’s. Most notably, terrorists took hold of the Bataclan theatre, opened fire on the crowd inside and held a large group of people hostage within the building. This lead to a conflict with police outside, after which the terrorists in the Bataclan theatre were either killed by police fire or took their own lives by shooting themselves or detonating explosives on their body.v
The number of casualties in the Paris attacks were as high as 130 with another 368 people being injured. The Islamic State eventually claimed the attacks through their
networks, stating that they carried out the strike as a form of retaliation for the continuous efforts of the French governments in the airstrikes of IS-related targets in Iraq and Syria. France vowed to retaliate themselves and started their biggest airstrike to date up until that point just two days after the initial attacks of IS. The terrorists most likely chose the
Bataclan theatre as one of their target because the location was previously owned by two Jewish men before selling the location in September 2015. The location had been
threatened before due to its open political support for the state if Israel. Notable, the French government had been warned for a new attack by intelligence agencies from Turkey, Israel and Iraq. This information was not used to the fullest by the French authorities.vi
4.1 Summary of the 2015 Beirut bombings
On November 12th 2015, two suicide bombings blew themselves up in a crowded marketplace in the Bourj al-Barajneh neighborhood of Lebanon’s capital Beirut near the Mansour shopping centre, Panarea which is a well-known spot for the commercial side of the city. The attack was in the vicinity of a Palestinian refugees, also officials think that this fact was of no particular relevance to the terrorists. The explosives were detonated during
one of the busiest parts of that evening, with large groups of people making their way through the narrow streets as most of the casualties were traveling back to their homes. The explosions led to the deaths of over 41 people and more than 180 were injured. The vii neighborhood that was struck by the blasts, in considered to be a Hebollaz stronghold along with most of the southern part of Beirut. IS claimed responsibility in this case for the attacks, which lead most people to think this to be a form of retaliation for the involvement of Hezbollah within the Syrian civil war. The attack lead to a day of national morning on viii November 13, officially initiated by the President and Prime Minister of Lebanon, Tammam Salam.
5 Iconography in the online news coverage of the Paris attacks and Beirut bombings
In the first picture (see image 1) as published by the website Reuters , we see a type of ix image that dominated several days of news coverage right after the Paris attacks took place. The picture shows the iconic Eiffel Tower in the centre of Paris, illuminated in the colours of the French flag. The angle of the camera is extremely low, enhancing the scale of the tower, making it seem ever taller than usual. The Latin phase ‘fluctuat new mergitur’ is visible in the middle of the tower, which translates into ‘tossed but not sunk’ and
functions as one of the cities motto’s since at least 1358. Beside the clear resonance of the motto (Paris has taken quite the hit because of the attacks, but will invariably survive this horrific events as it did all others in her long history), the imagery of the tower in
combination with the French flag carries out a message which is not hard to figure out. The Eiffel Tower, both as a symbol for the city of Paris and the French nation as a whole, is literally looked up to in this photo. France as a nation is defined as a strong structure which has stood the test of time and will always be triumphant in the face of adversity.
Following the Paris attacks, numerous countries around the world adopted the colours of the French flag on their important landmarks. Notable examples here are the Opera House in Sydney, the World Trade Center in New York, the Christ the Redeemer statue in Rio de Janeiro, The Brandenburg Gate in Berlin and the Tower Bridge in London. From a x
cosmopolitan perspective, this is a clear indication of a sense of unity, with multiple countries adopting the symbol of one nation to show that they are committed to their suffering. This framing of suffering in a local, national and translational context show that the news coverage of the Paris attacks had such an impact on the Western population that there was a need for action from the spectators through a communitarian bond. In
adopting the French flag as a symbol, Western countries invariably broke out of their own community and enlarged the range of engagement by showing a form of compassion. In our reflexive modernity, emotions and the identification of others walk a fine line with narcissistic intimacy and the communitarian reflex. In both scenarios, we are both prone to caring for others who are similar to us in all facets of life (Chouliaraki, Distant suffering in the media 14).
The mixture of cosmopolitanism and nationalism in the context of this picture is an interesting subject, because how do these national and transnational spaces precisely relate to each other? Globalisation is often seen as an added change that takes place outside of the concept of a nation, but in the view of cosmopolitanism, I feel that the initial concept of the nation in this context would be critically re-evaluated. The side by side existence of the national and transnational space are one of the difficulties we face in our reflexive modernity, whereby the simple distinction between places, events and people have shifted towards a logic based on complex ambiguity and reflexivity. When we think of the world becoming ever more cosmopolitan, we should also consider a new framing of sociology to fit new forms of communities instead of holding on to old conceptions of the nation-state. An important element in achieving a truly cosmopolitan society is to avoid utilizing the ideology of the nation-state as a focus point in our references, imagery and news coverage. This is because the concept of a nation assumes that humanity is by nature divided into a limited number of nations. This division, in turn, leads us to
distinguish ourselves from others and is therefore less appropriate to play a solving and uniting role in the problems and challenges we face in our global climate (Beck 454-458).
Reuters also placed a photo slideshow of the Paris attacks aftermath on their website, which also give an extensive look into the iconography deemed expressive enough to convey not only the emotions involved with and stirred up by the attacks, but also which raw information is the right representation of the situation at the time. One of xi
the most striking photos in the series depicts multiple women visibly grieving near one of the spots where the Paris attacks took place. This image is a clear example not only of a spectacle of suffering, but also a type of action since they are engaging in a type of display of commitment. Boltanski would characterize the expression in this image highly ‘authentic’ and define this as a good example of an enlarged sense of compassion in the news media coverage, since there’s an engagement with the suffering of others (Boltanksi 190).
Image 2 - Picture: REUTERS / Benoit Tessier
When researching the iconography in French national online media, the third image is somewhat related to the previous image, but has an added layer in combination with metaphorical language to the imagery. In this picture, placed on La Dépêche du Midi and originally taken by Agency France-Presse , we see a woman looking rather determined xii into the distance, whilst people around here observe a minute of silence in front of the La Casa Rostra pizzeria. This site was one of the spots where the attackers opened fire and several victims died. The gathering was organized to pay tribute to all the victims of the attacks in Paris. The French flag fills a large part of the frame, again pointing towards the
national spirit and the importance of France as the nation-state during the attacks in Paris. As has been seen in the picture of the Eiffel Tower, this image is also steeped in recursive representations. The woman in combination with the French draws to mind the reference to Marianne, a figure often displayed in several forms of French art such as literature, paintings and sculptures. She’s also the national symbol of the French republic and an allegory of liberty and a portrayal of the Roman god Libertas. Marianne can also be found on the French euro coins and is utilized as a state-symbol on most of the governmental documents.
Image 3 - Picture: AFP - Lionel Boneventure
But perhaps most importantly, she is the female embodiment of the Republic, which is a direct counterpart of not only the monarchy, but also any form of dictatorship or oppressive regimes. Immediately after the Paris attacks, the Islamic State claimed responsibility on November 14th 2015 through a stamens on a Telegram channel, calling the attacks “the first of the storm” and mocking France as a “capital of prostitution and obscenity.” In light xiii of this, the image leaves a juxtaposing aftertaste to say the least. Even though the Islamic State might carry the name of an actual state, it does not possess any actual authority, sovereignty or legitimacy in the field of constitutional law. To me, the goal of this image is to try and counterpart the French values and ideology with the ideologies of their
attackers. In doing so, this is bound to create a certain divisiveness not only amongst Frenchman and ISIS supporters, but also people from across the Middle-East who are in some way affected by the radical organization.
The community of ecstatic news may seem global in its scope in that it caters to a world-wide audience, but it also shows that the effectivity of these news pieces are only applicable to stories that have a relevance to the Western world. In the case of the Paris attacks, the ecstatic news that is the media coverage in the Western world mainly focuses on the European community and addresses the fears that an attack such as the one in Paris might be on the cards for other neighbouring countries and political allies.
Consequently, the space where identification and action are formed within the news coverage is the exact same space where the spectator is left after watching the ecstatic news piece. Therefore, the spectator is stuck in a loop experiencing the same Western sentiment and focus time and time again, without the chance of witnessing the suffering of others where terror is possibly more prevalent (The Mediation of suffering, Chouliaraki 14-15). In my opinion, this scope of the iconography of the Paris tragedy is best described by the following image (see image 4). Hereby we look at the national team of France and England, all lined up on the lines of the mid-circle, coming together for a minute of silence to remember those who lost their lives during the attacks.
The game between England and France taking place right after the attacks is, in my opinion, a random occurrence but the picture does cause one to think about the different spheres within which a news piece can roam. In regard to the Paris attacks, we can see that this story plays out on a national level, a European level, a Western level and, arguably, a global level. But how does the media coverage regarding the Beirut attacks fare in relation to the Paris attacks? In the next section, we will be looking at a handful of images and headlines in order to see how the situation and the possible grief are
represented through the lens of the Western media.
A striking thing concerning the photo slide show as presented on the website of The Telegraph, is that the spectator sees almost exclusively complete destruction and
annihilation in the images. These vary from burning cars alongside a fire-fighter trying to xiv extinguish the flames with a fire hose, to the rumble in the street caused by the explosion and complete building wiped away by the blast. Most of the pictures are taken from afar or from an elevated level. This causes the spectator to not be able to clearly identify the suffering of individuals. Also, the elevated level of the photographers may be due to the fact that there was no other space for the photographer to get a clear view of the situation at hand, even though films theorists amongst us clearly recognize this “technique”, which is often used to “swallow up” the point of focus and make the subject of the image seem vulnerable, weak, frightened or submissive. The prevalence of wreckage and debris being the centre of almost every image seems to correlate with the perspective that a
percentage of Westerners still visualize Beirut and Lebanon as an area of conflict. It is surprising to say the least that there are no pictures of grieving people located in the rest of city. The images related to the Paris attacks are flooded with important landmarks in the city itself, and a majority of the pictures have been taken in the vicinity of the attacks, but not at the direct spots. The Telegraph photo section clearly lacks any recognizable imagery for people to utilize in order to be able to apprehend the suffering of the Beirut civilians. Only the first picture falls in this category, whereby a man carries away a women who was near the explosion when it happened. Another technique used in these images, are shots from afar. There are definitely people in the images, but the photos do not revolve around a single individual or a group of people. Hence, nobody acknowledges the medium as such, which could have been done with a look or a gaze to convey emotion or reactions. Shots like these present few points of recognition or distinctive factors to direct the spectator into a certain direction. What these images convey is a type of universalism in this particular scene of suffering. When looking at these pictures without any form of
context, it would be hard for a neutral and average-informed spectator to figure out where this attack took place, let alone what exactly happened during the calamity.
Image 5 and 6 - Picture: Agence France Presse / Anwar Amro and European Pressphoto Agency / Wael Hamzeh
5.1 Videos and footage in the online news coverage of the Paris attacks and Beirut bombings
One of the big differences in the news coverage between the Paris attacks and Beirut bombings, was the continuous updates by news media in their online facility. The mixture of images, videos and soundbites offered the spectator a hectic range of impressions of the goings-on in Paris, ironically, much like the situation in real-life would have felt like. This variation of impressions enables us to engage with the sufferers in a multitude of ways, namely “to empathize, to denounce and to reflect on it as a human tragedy and as a political reality (Chouliaraki 2008, 9).” In these images, the sufferers of the Paris attacks are very much humanized, and therefore we are able to feel their pain and transcend the phase recognition into an apprehension of their grief.
Undoubtedly of the most shared video’s of the Paris attacks by the online news media, was the video recording of a CCTV camera in the café Cosa Rostra, which was attacks by gunman during the Paris attacks. Reportedly, the British newspaper The Daily Mail bought the video for €50.000, after which they destroyed the original to prevent other media organizations to obtain it. The video was published online on November 18th and can now be viewed under the search query ‘Terrifying ISIS Paris attack CCTV’ on YouTube.xv
In the beginning of the CCTV footage, the café and its guests seem to be having a normal night, no distressed behaviour whatsoever. Almost immediately, bullets are being fired in the direction of the café and the windows are shattering, whilst people are trying to figure out precisely what is happening. Two people flee inside the café in order to get away from the shooter and also fall to the floor for cover. The shooter walks over to the door of the cafe and seemingly spares the lives of two women laying on the ground in front of the café (this is actually because the gun of the assailant jammed, leading to a chance for her to run away). The video thereafter shows the same moment but from the viewpoint of the bar, where we can see the staff ducking for cover and people making their way up the stairs to the second level and down the stairs to the basement in order to flee for safety. Afterwards, it became clear that everyone in this café had survived the attacks, some with minor bullet wounds. Others in the vicinity were not so lucky, as five people perished in a likewise attack nearby the café. The attacker fired at least 30 bullets at the café.
Image 9 - Still from CCTV footage of gunman aiming at woman. Placed by The Guardianxvi
The video can be characterized as particularly chilling in nature and grainy in regards to the visual aspect. The rough quality of the footage normally reminds us of robbery footage, thus it is an alienating sensation to see CCTV footage of this sort in combination with a terrorist
attack. Even though the images are grainy and at times too fuzzy discern in an instant what exactly is going on, the content is definitely harrowing and displays the fear and shock the people of that café must have felt on the moment itself. The Paris attacks were heavily reported on, with the massacre in the concert hall La Bataclan at the forefront. Reading about the horrors is one thing, but actually having a visualization of the moment where ordinary people have and may have lost their lives, these accounts are an
extremely immersive form of engagement with those events. Here we can see a clear politics of pity, whereby the observer and the sufferer are physically distant from each other, even though the media attempts to bring the news as direct and close-up as possible. With all the terrible things happening in the world, people are increasingly
avoiding the suffering of others, especially when they have the feeling that there is nothing concrete they can do to help the situation. So when society is overexposed to the news coverage of the media as much as it is today, observers view the problems of others from a distance, assuming that these struggles will not go away any time soon. This leads to a
downward spiral in regard to the suffering of others, whereby the audience seems to get desensitized after so many news items with seemingly the same events.
In examining actual footage of the Beirut attacks, real footage taken during the attacks is very scarce. One most widely publicized footage of the bombings was done by RT (previously known as Russia Today), which is an international multi-lingual news network based in Russia. They published a video entitled “Twin suicide bombings rock Beirut; 43 killed, over 200 wounded” on Youtube on November 12 , with other networks xvii such as The Independent sharing the video on their channels.xviii
The 30-second video can be divided into two sections. In the first thirteen seconds, the spectator is presented with the grainy footage filmed by a by-stander, most likely someone with a camera phone. The image starts with the view on a Beirut street, after which a blast goes off. The crowd gathered in the street decide to run and so does the cameraman, since the camera is pointed on the floor the seconds after the blast. The camera turns around and films a quick snapshot of the people behind him, some running away and some standing still to try and see what exactly has happened. The last 17 seconds of the video are set in what is mostly likely the front-end of a Beirut hospital. Several people are rushed on hospital beds and pulled into the building for treatment. Another injured person is driven in on a scooter, to also be treated for a wound to the head.
Image 10 - Still from Al-Jazeera’s online piece “Deadly suicide attack rocks southern Beirut”
