Could the visuals have stoked the attacks?
An American journalism teacher visiting South Africa has been horrified at the broadcast and publication of xenophobic violence. It clashes with her home experience where audiences are sheltered by the media.
In contrast, we’ve long been exposed to graphic representations of our violent society. But it bears asking whether South Africans have come to accept the abnormal as normal in terms of what’s on our media menu.
Clearly, for many local men, it is quite normal to intimidate, assault and murder foreigners. We know this because our media vividly shows the merciless brutality involved. But should these images be put into circulation? After all, we would still know about the attacks from words in print or speech. So what is added by photos and video footage?
The answer: a unique kindling of each viewer’s imagination. Violent imagery also has an immediacy and authenticity that is burnt into our hearts and which crystallises into the icons of an era.
Visuals can also signify meanings directly counter to associated captions or commentary. Thus, for most people, images of violence probably elicit feelings of empathy, distress and anger. Yet, those blaming immigrants for their woes probably respond with joy and legitimation when seeing pictures of the attacks.
Therein lies the rub. It should be our number-one concern about recent visuals, not the United States-style debate about the tastefulness of violent images.
What particularly needs to considered is this: if the images give pleasure to some, is there not a chance that they may inspire repetition and emulation?
Ideally, visuals of the violence should not cause harm in the shape of disrespecting victims, desensitising viewers or deepening the crisis. Some of our media could be doing better here:
On the issue of disrespect, many Daily Sun photos denied individual identities to the victims, rendering, as a mass of alien ”others”. In the absence of sympathetic headlines, the pictures of the fleeing could easily connote ”good riddance”.
By contrast, the Star went out of its way to humanise a gruesome image of a burning man. It did extensive research into him, even though his name could not be traced. The paper also pieced together the particular circumstances behind the gory picture of his death.
On the matter of harm to viewers, it seems that publishing pictures of the burning man was an attempt to shock a complacent public into awareness.
On the other hand, it can be asked whether there were not other ways to portray the seriousness and trauma. The problem with shock is in sustaining it. With so many current pictures of the violence — including those in online galleries and slideshows — they risk losing their power and meaning.
In a sense, many newspapers went for sensation when they could have fired their visual ammunition in a slower crescendo. The photos did not have to be run so large, in colour and on page one.
This is not to downplay the crisis, but to pose the option of a more sparing approach to the long haul of covering this conflict. But if shock pictures are going to be used, it will also be good to explain the reason to the public.
Regarding the matter of inflammatory potential, the challenge is to find images that help break the rationale of the attackers and would-be attackers. Television could show pictures of blazing shacks in smaller windows on the screen. It could publicise perpetrators being dragged off by police. Footage of children made homeless and/or orphans could puncture the madness.
Another option is to weaken xenophobic logic by running stories of mixed-nationality families and friendships.
In the different issues of balancing respect, shock and inflammatory potential, the last is critical. If no consideration is given to it, we could see the bullies starting to stage their violence as a spectacle to be publicised by the media.
Attacks would then be done for wide symbolic impact, rather than local grievance. Additional atrocities would be performed in front of the press in order to amplify impact.
Currently, our in-your-face use of imagery is not sheltering our audiences along US lines. Instead, it has helped mobilise many into actions of protest and aid. But I also wonder if the spread of the mayhem isn’t also a function of the very same visuals. Can we imagine the media without them?