This study deals with the distinct difference in media attention the earthquake-disaster in Haiti and the flood-disaster in Pakistan got in 2010. There may be many reasons to this divergence, but this study focuses on how news articles can create compassion. This study, with its critical perspective, examines how two daily papers in Sweden portray the suffering of the victims of the catastrophes in Haiti and Pakistan, and create compassion for them. Furthermore it asks the question who benefits from the newspaper’s description of human suffering in the third world. The result shows that the manner of which Swedish daily newspapers report from the catastrophe in Haiti creates an emotional involvement, which most likely leads to compassion. Furthermore it shows potential to lead the readers to identify with the suffering people in Haiti. The Swedish daily newspapers report of the catastrophe in Pakistan on the other hand, does not involve the reader on an emotional level, but gives them the role of a spectator. However the result also indicates that the distance between the victim and the reader is reducing. In that remark the report have potential to create compassion for the victims in Pakistan, although it is more likely that this does not occur. In conclusion the study shows that the Swedish daily newspapers report of the catastrophes in Haiti and Pakistan is embedded in an ideology, which reproduces a global hierarchy of suffering by reproducing the construction of an Us and Them. In addition this study reveals a social conception of the West as more worthy compassion than the third world, and therefore the Swedish daily newspapers report of the catastrophes reproduces the West’s dominance and power in the society.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:UPSALLA1/oai:DiVA.org:oru-14523 |
| Date | January 2011 |
| Creators | Andersson, Lisette, Lundin, Kajsa |
| Publisher | Örebro universitet, Akademin för humaniora, utbildning och samhällsvetenskap, Örebro universitet, Akademin för humaniora, utbildning och samhällsvetenskap |
| Source Sets | DiVA Archive at Upsalla University |
| Language | Swedish |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Student thesis, info:eu-repo/semantics/bachelorThesis, text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Rights | info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess |
| Relation | Örebro Studies in Media and Communication, 1651-4785 |
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