Media and mass communication, perhaps most prominently the Internet, has altered the way we live in today’s world immensely. Eriksen (2007, 3)argues that the Internet, along with the end of the Cold War and identity politics, shifted the globalization of the world into high gear. This implies both ‘a compression of the world and the intensification of consciousness about the world as a whole’ (Robertson 1992, 8). Contributing to this is a greater movement of people. Globalization expanded the range of opportunities available for us. Logically these technological and societal changes have altered the way we think about the scope of people we can provide aid to. Thomas Haskell (1985, 356)suggested that technology, and the process of globalization that comes with it, can change the moral universe we live in. Through the use of mass media techniques, humanitarian agencies (e.g. Oxfam, Médecins Sans Frontières, Save the Children and many others) contribute to the figurative shrinkage of the world (Kennedy 2009), giving the audience the idea that they have the possibility to help someone on the other side of the earth.

A brief history of humanitarian communication
Although globalization is deemed a fairly new phenomenon, it does not mean that before the invention of the Internet there was no consciousness of the world as a whole. Systems in which people all over the world have participated in, often against their own will, have existed earlier. The European colonial era is the most obvious example. It was arguably the European colonial conquest that laid down an early groundwork for humanitarian aid (O’Sullivan, Hilton, and Fiori 2016, 1). Increased interaction with the ‘distant Other’ created not only a curiosity but, most likely after the colonial era, also a feeling of empathy and the urge to help. This interaction is intrinsically linked to that of the colonial era, both in its imperial origins as well as in its efforts to deal with the problematic relationships of a postcolonial world (O’Sullivan, Hilton, and Fiori 2016, 2).

Taking a closer look at the history of humanitarianism, O’Sullivan, Hilton, and Fiori(2016)differentiate five phases that describe its past ‘not as a series of sudden right turns, but instead [as] bursts of activity that refreshed the sector while carrying with them the baggage of what had come before’. The first phase is imperial humanitarianism. After the First World War came the second phase. It was during this time that Safe the Children appeared, crossing official policies in order to relieve the suffering of people caught in conflict. After the Second World War came the third moment, which marked the beginning of official development aid (O’Sullivan, Hilton, and Fiori 2016, 6). After that, humanitarian aid has seen two significant expansions of its sector. The forth phase came between 1968 and 1985, coined the ‘NGO-movement’, between the humanitarian crisis resulting from the Nigerian Civil War and the ‘global fund-raising extravaganza’ of Live Aid, of which the song Do They Know It’s Christmas? was part. This period is also signified by the rise of global media. The fifth and thus far final phase is the post-Cold War period, where NGO’s have been looking for both new forms of intervention as well as communication in a rapidly changing world (O’Sullivan, Hilton, and Fiori 2016, 6–7).

Hereby it must be said that the traditional narrative of aid provided by ‘the West’ to ‘the rest’ needs to be disrupted, for humanitarian aid has also seen South-South relations and, as written in the article Humanitarianism in context, in the case of Indian aid to Spain (1930) also an instance of South aiding the North (O’Sullivan, Hilton, and Fiori 2016, 2). Because this paper involves a closer look at the critique towards Western humanitarian communication involving imagery of the global South, viewed by a Western audience, the focus of the paper stays with this ‘traditional’ point of view, while keeping in mind the exceptions.

Contemporary humanitarian communication is carrying the baggage of the past and the continuities from the colonial era are many. This is seen in the way humanitarian communication depicts the sufferer, which has much in common with the struggle of anthropology in finding an ethically correct description of its subject. The anthropological struggle was most prominently critiqued in the 1980’s, when the discipline tried to once and for all set aside a focus on societies defined as ‘radically “other” to the anthropologists’ own’ (Robbins 2013, 449). During the 1980’s Johannes Fabian wrote Time and the other (1983), where he criticized how anthropological ethnographies cast Others out of the present moment. Also, James Clifford (1983)voiced his critique on the representations of Others, through which a hierarchy is constructed. Clifford and George Marcus wrote Writing culture (1986), challenging the legitimacy of scholars to say anything about Others at all. After the 1980’s, for anthropology, ‘the differences between Western and non-Western societies’ had become ‘blurrier than ever before’ (Robbins 2013, 449). Yet, the echo of the colonial past seems to be more present in the case of humanitarian communication.

This echo continues to shape the views of the outside world (O’Sullivan, Hilton, and Fiori 2016, 7). Herein lies what Nandita Dogra calls ‘a double logic of “difference” and “oneness”, […] to show the global poor as different from the [developed world] and yet like us by virtue of their humanity’ (Dogra 2012, 3). Nonetheless, the focus on difference and suffering is understandable, mostly because humanitarian communication is implicitly linked to fundraising. Humanitarian communication therefore needs to “sell” the audience something. Or, differently said, they are creating a need. Which in many cases is done through showing imagery of a person suffering. Within this process, commodification of suffering is prone to happen.

Shock effect appeals
Typical early forms of commodified human suffering are called ‘shock effect’ appeals. ‘Shock effect’ images, as seen in campaigns of Oxfam (1956) and Red Cross (1961) (1) during the aim to show suffering in its purest form, for example relying on depicting human bodies in an extreme state of starvation (Chouliaraki 2010, 110). Shock effect images are known for dehumanizing shots of half-naked people, skinny legs, exposed rib-cages, passively sitting on the floor. Both the Oxfam as well as the Red Cross campaign relied heavily on the sufferer. The relationship that is created by doing so, is based on the ‘colonial gaze’, through which the audience finds themselves being defined through both being privileged and through their own set of value-preferences (Bill, Griffiths, and Tiffin 2007, 187). The term ‘colonial gaze’ is a remainder from the colonial era, in which the colonizers did not only dominate the conquered nations economically or militarily, but also in cultural representation. With the arrival of modern ways of communication technologies, around the late 15^th century (e.g. film, photography, print, sound recording), also started the spread of imagery of distant colonial settings for larger audiences. These images were full of stereotypes and classified societies along a European made hierarchy. The stereotypes defined both gendered relations as well as racial distinctions. About the racial distinction Frantz Fanon, a psychologist, writes that the objectification done through the white, colonial gaze causes psychical trauma (Fanon 1952, 224). In general, the colonial gaze created a sense of cultural and scientific supremacy through which imperial action can be justified, for this style of Othering stigmatizes the subjects in such a way that it becomes easy to relegate them to the margin of humanity (Staszak 2008, 1). By doing so, the imagery keeps the power relations as perceived in the colonial era intact.

The shock effect imagery shows what Nils Christie (1986) calls the portrayal of the ‘ideal victim’; an individual who ‘most readily are given the complete and legitimate status of being a victim’. He describes the term as a sort of an abstract public status comparable to ‘the hero’ or ‘the traitor’ (Christie 1986, 18). Arthur and Joan Kleinman (1996)describe the process that the sufferer goes through as the creation of ‘trauma stories’ and with them, in their core, a cultural image of ‘victimization’. This victimized image becomes the currency that runs through our political economy. Through these images papers are sold, companies are funded, television shows are broadcasted and jobs are created. All this is done because of the misery (and in some cases; the death) of a nameless subject. The sufferer has become a form of entertainment (Kleinman and Kleinman 1996, 8–10).

Positive image appeals
In reaction to the critique that was voiced against the described form of othering that is perpetuated through the depiction of shocking images, NGO’s changed their course in visual communication. This resulted in what is now at the other end of the spectrum: ‘positive image’ appeals. Rejecting the image of the sufferer as a victim, positive image campaigns rather represent people in conflict areas with agency and dignity (Chouliaraki 2010, 112). This style shows smiling faces, people working passionately, often along with sentimental yet empowering texts of either the sufferer or the aid worker. Although seemingly harmless, positive imagery creates an odd juxtaposition when used to depict a humanitarian crisis. When such imagery is used in times of inhuman suffering, the humanitarian organization can easily be critiqued for neglecting the suffering and glossing over the asymmetries of power that might have put the sufferer in their situation in the first place. An instance that could be described as a classic ‘misrecognition’ (Bourdieu 1977, 183–97); concealing the power relations through images of smiling beneficiaries (Chouliaraki 2010, 113).

Analysing the positive image appeal brings up two characteristics. Firstly, the way of portraying personalizes the sufferer and focusses on how they work to change the situation they are in. Secondly, the appeal addresses the audience personally in such a way that their contribution can have a concrete effect on the improvement of the subject’s life (Cohen 2001, 216–18). The relationship created here, where the state of wellbeing of the subject is depicted as a direct cause of the donations done by the observer, renders the ‘Other’ as a ‘perpetual object of “our” generosity’ (Chouliaraki 2010, 113). While, at the same time, the felt generosity of the audience unites them through feeling part of a self-content community of narcissistic good-doers (Hattori 2003, 153). This so called ‘gift giving relationship’ is thoroughly described in Marcel Mauss’ prominent essay The gift (1990), In which the author shows that gift giving establishes a social bond between giver and receiver. He describes three elements to this: giving (the establishment of the social bond); receiving (for refusing the gift would be to refuse the social bond); and reciprocating (a demonstration of one’s own wealth and status). The giving of the gift must be voluntarily, even if the obliged reciprocation is placed in the future. Through this observation Mauss argues that the gift economy foremost has a social function: the creation of a social relationship (Mauss 1990, 18). But opposed to a gift between equals, as a form of exchange, the gift of aid is a type of gift that seemsunreciprocated. The gift of aid does not have to be paid back, or, as put by Ilan Kapoor (2008), appearsto be free from the obligation of repayment. Kapoor describes how Western aid produces a ‘unified and virile sense of the generous nation’. Foreign aid focusses almost completely on generosity and the act of giving through, for example, imagery of heroic camp workers, branded medical teams and branded food distribution, while the negative side of the gift giving relationship (self-interest and pay back) are concealed (Kapoor 2008; Mawdsley 2012, 259).

Another risk in communicating with positive imagery is overly using the beauty of the suffering person in a stereotypical way. Superimposing symbolic and material distance can lead to ‘exoticism’ and is another constitution of otherness, but entails a similar asymmetry of power relations (Staszak 2008, 6). Although not a forceful form of othering, exotism is subtler, such as commodifying the exotic appeal of the stranger in need through communication outings with essentialist imagery. But even if thought of as subtle, the implications of exotism are harmful on the long run. Exotism reassures the already perceived differences, as if the ‘distant Other’ is true to our fantasies, which comforts the Western audience in their identity and perceived superiority (Staszak 2008, 6).

Signifying inequality through commodification
As shown above, humanitarian communication can be placed on a spectrum between either outings of extreme suffering, so called shock effect appeals, and positive images, where sufferers are depicted empowered and with agency (Chouliaraki 2010, 109). There has been, and still is, a lot of commentary on the aesthetics of suffering. Both styles of strategic framing reveal a hierarchy in social relationships that put the spectator above the sufferer. Whether this is by a rather direct form of othering, reifying a postcolonial relationship, or for the gift-giving relation where those who are able to give gifts to those who cannot adequately provide gifts for others.

Despite the critique, shock effect and positive image appeals are both still present in current communication of suffering. The styles should not be seen as following up on each other, but rather as the styles that have dominated humanitarian communication throughout different phases. Arguably did the ‘positive image’ appeal appear as a result of the critique on the shocking imagery, but the shocking images remain widespread. This is mostly because the ‘shock effect’ appeal is proven to be a very effective way of moving the public towards action (Chouliaraki 2010, 122).

The use of both styles exemplifies that commodifying suffering can take on a variety of forms. What these forms show is that the unequal relation between the giver and receiver will always be visible once the giving party starts to represent of the receiving party, notwithstanding any effort to frame it differently. Fundamental to this, is that one party uses the other through representation for monetary gains. This commodification is in itself a signifier of inequality and can, most likely shall, at all times be critiqued, as seen in this chapter.

Well aware of the critique on the commodification of suffering, present day NGO’s struggle to find more suitable ways to mobilize the public on fighting human suffering throughout the world. Keeping the critique to the rousing of grand emotions in mind, the next chapter provides insight on the mediatized landscape in which these NGO’s find themselves in, together with the complications that lie within representing the sufferer in a way that is deemed ethically correct by the critics.