The Discourse of Global Compassion: The Audience and Media Reporting of Human Suffering

The article focuses on the development of a global discourse of compassion, which has grown in the intersection between politics, humanitarian organizations, the media and the public. In the media there is a growing focus on distant victims of civil wars, genocide, massacres and other violence against civil populations. In the critical media debate it is a common view that the audience is left unmoved by the pictures of distant death and pain. The article presents audience studies, which show a two-sided effect of global compassion on the one hand and indifference on the other. It is shown that compassion is often a more female reaction while indifference is more common among male audiences. It is further shown that there are different forms of compassion as well as different forms of indifference. The results challenge or strongly modulate the thesis about a pronounced compassion fatigue among people in general.