Guardare e agire: la dimensione etica nella rappresentazione mediale dell’altro

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Article

Magazine

Fascicle

COMUNICAZIONI SOCIALI - 2022 - 2. Sustainable Screenings: Economic, Touristic and Cultural Impact of Audiovisual Productions on the Host Locations in the Post-Lockdown Era

Title

Guardare e agire: la dimensione etica nella rappresentazione mediale dell’altro

Watching and Seeing: The Ethical Dimension in Mediated Representation of the Other

Author

Anna Manzato

Publisher

Vita e Pensiero

Format

Article |

Pdf

Online from

11-2022

Doi

10.26350/001200_000161

Issn

0392-8667 (print) | 1827-7969 (digital)

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Literature about distant suffering suggests that mass media are nowadays primary vehicles in representing the suffering Other, thus eliciting in the audience attitudes that span from denial to compassion. Media images are particularly able to trigger reactions that can be situated along a closeness/distance axis. In this context, the ethical dimension is especially relevant: the main question is about how stylistic strategies (both on the content level and in images’ position and captions) can bring the audience to occupy a specific position towards the suffering Other. The article, starting from the sociological concept of the foreign, discusses literature, both theoretical and empirical, about distant suffering; it assumes the presence of a relevant polarization between closeness and distance in the media representation of suffering others. Through an analysis based on a qualitative sample of Italian newspapers, the article then deals with representation strategies of the distant Other in press images and with their ethical implications. Following Kurasawa’s typology, four types are exemplified: personification, massification, rescue and care. In the sample, an iconic narration of a collective subject mostly appears, thus leaving pity and compassion in the background. Finally, the transition from spectatorship to active subject is discussed: solidarity through images can be encouraged if an affective closeness is promoted, by means of specific portraits of subjects and of rescue and care situations.

keywords

Representation of the Other; ethical implications of representation; distant suffering; audience responses to distant suffering; closeness/distance in media images of the Other.