Watching 11 September: The politics of pity

So, pursuant to an assignment for one of my assignments for school, I stumbled across an interesting scholarly journal article. (be forewarned, if you go to read the article, it's written in very scholarly language)

The basic point of the article is to evaluate the extent to which television coverage of the September 11 terrorist attacks acts to establish expectations and a norm as far as viewers' feelings about, and impulse to act on, the event.

The article doesn't make any good/bad claims, but does point to a fundamental point about television coverage of catastrophic events: The tension between the feeling of 'being there' and of powerless to act directly on that suffering.

The author then points out that, in an effort to resolve that tension, pity comes into play, and a politics of pity acts on it. Politics acts on our behalf to alleviate the suffering and asuage our own discomfort.

Though never in the entire paper does she mention Iraq at all, my own thoughts on the subject led me to a certain conclusion. Whether it's war with the Taliban and Al Qaeda in Afghanistan or an invasion in Iraq, the administration is acting to mediate that disconnect. On an emotional level, people feel better that something is being done.

The further moral claim of the article is that media coverage shaped the nature of our feelings about and response to September 11. My thought: Would we feel quite as outraged if we hadn't watched the second plane slam into the WTC over and over and over? And the question to which I don't have an answer: How should we really feel? And to what extent does our collective feeling of victimhood contribute to our general complacency about all the death and misery that have occurred in the Middle East as a result of our outrage? Come on, admit it, even those of us who are opposed to the war aren't generally out in the streets demonstrating our disgust for the number of innocent Iraqis and Afghanis murdered in this rampage across Lesser Asia. Through our passivity, we tacitly accept it.

I consider myself a pretty media-savvy person, but every so often I 'wake up' and realize how much even I am a tool of the media. And I realize what a grave responsibility those in the media have, especially those in TV, and how cavalierly they often treat that responsibility. (I am pleased, however, that I am personally acquainted with a number of individuals who are aware and are anything but cavalier in their attitude toward that responsibility.

I'm actually quite enjoying reading this article.