english lecture 1 Critical Engagement with Images of War and Refugeesn
Critical Image Analysis
Image analysis involves dissecting not only what is shown but how meaning is made through:
Composition, lighting, framing and color.
Circulation contexts (news, social media, NGO reports, exhibitions).
The viewer’s own cultural–political filters.
Philip Butler’s notion of the “critical image” stresses the discomfort that makes a viewer “stop in their tracks.”
Discomfort is a productive entry point for reflection rather than simply an aesthetic glitch.
Critical images function as interrupts in the habitual media stream, forcing spectators to ask why and how they feel what they feel.
Building “the World” Through Media
Television, photography, and digital platforms are world-building machines: they supply the visual raw material from which audiences assemble an idea of reality.
Susan Sontag’s reminder: photographs—even of war—are “made”, not passively “taken.”
They are constructed artefacts with embedded choices (angle, moment, editing, captioning).
Therefore they can manufacture particular ethical or political affects.
Post-Auschwitz Paradox & Ethical Imperative
Reference to (mis)readings of Theodor Adorno’s dictum about poetry “after Auschwitz.”
Common misinterpretation: artistic creation is forbidden after atrocity.
Corrected view: art must continue, yet faces a heavier ethical burden; creating art about suffering is itself tinged with barbarity even while morally necessary.
Resulting responsibility for artists, poets, photographers, journalists:
Bear witness while avoiding exploitation.
Move beyond voyeurism toward careful, responsible representation.
Case Study 1 – The Terrified Refugee Child (The Elders / UNHCR Document)
Source: Digital document circulated by The Elders (Nelson Mandela–founded organization), underwritten by UNHCR.
Purpose of document: illustrate how language shapes refugee destinies (e.g., “migrant” vs. “refugee”).
Image particulars:
A small child’s frightened face—simultaneously vulnerable and visually captivating.
Invites the audience to care, yet also risks aestheticizing suffering (the image is “beautiful” as well as tragic).
Demonstrates tension between ethical urgency and visual seduction.
Case Study 2 – The Drowned Syrian Boy (Alan Kurdi Photograph)
Photographer: Nilüfer Demir (frequently mis-spelled; pronounced Nil-fer De-meer).
Captured on a Turkish beach, circulated globally via major news agencies.
Widely labeled the “defining image of the Syrian war.”
Demir’s reflection: “There was nothing left to do for him.”
Highlights the limits of journalism: witnessing without the capacity to reverse death.
Ethical debate posed by writer Teju Cole:
\text{Question:}\, \text{Do we need the spectacle of corpses to make the story real?}
Spectacle can produce compassion fatigue or self-congratulatory pity (“Look how much we care”).
Urges critical literacy so that spectators examine why certain images move them and whether such movement leads to structural change.
Media Circulation & Ideological Functions
Images do not travel neutrally; they participate in “circuits of ideology.”
Can bolster positions (humanitarian intervention, anti-immigration panic, charitable fundraising).
Audience emotional response can be harvested for political ends:
Moral outrage → policy pressure.
Fear → xenophobic rhetoric.
Scholar Sarah Towner (implied in transcript) asks viewers to map how their own media consumption helps legitimize an unequal world system.
“Tough on Crime / Tough on Immigration” Visual Rhetoric
Rising popularity of hard-line stances toward migrants, amplified by shock imagery.
Example reference: Donald Trump’s proposed U.S.–Mexico border wall.
Image shown dated 02/2019; intensification of the wall narrative since then.
Encourages spectators to weigh how fear-laden symbols translate into policy.
Practical Framework for Ethical Image Engagement
1. Contextualize: Who produced the image? For what platform? How is it funded?
2. Interrogate Affect: What emotions arise (pity, anger, shame)? Why these and not others?
3. Trace Consequences: Does the image prompt donation, legislation, or only momentary empathy?
4. Check for Aestheticization: Is suffering rendered beautiful—and does that aesthetic distance dull the political urgency?
5. Maintain Reflexivity: Understand personal complicity in the media economy that demands ever-more shocking visuals.
Key Takeaways & Concept Links
Critical images are designed disruptions—they problematize easy looking.
Artistic witness post-atrocity is necessary but ethically fraught.
Refugee photographs trigger complex politics: humanitarian sympathy vs. voyeuristic consumption.
Media circuits convert images into ideological fuel—either to open or close borders.
Ethical spectatorship involves constant questioning of how and why images move us, and toward what social ends
how do images make things more “real “:
Images make things more real to the public by acting as "world-building machines" that provide the visual raw material from which audiences construct their idea of reality. As constructed artifacts, photographs, even of war, are consciously "made" with embedded choices in angle, moment, editing, and captioning, allowing them to manufacture specific ethical or political affects.
For instance, an image like the Alan Kurdi photograph, widely labeled the "defining image of the Syrian war," aimed to bear witness to suffering. However, such "spectacles of corpses" prompt ethical debate, raising the question of whether they are necessary to make a story real. While they can evoke compassion and moral outrage, they also risk leading to compassion fatigue or self-congratulatory pity, rather than genuine structural change.
Images do not travel neutrally; they participate in "circuits of ideology," which means the emotional responses they trigger can be harvested for political ends. This can range from mobilizing support for humanitarian intervention or charitable fundraising to fueling anti-immigration panic or xenophobic rhetoric. Therefore, images contribute to awareness not just by showcasing events, but by influencing how these events are perceived and how the public is moved to respond, sometimes leading to superficial empathy rather than deep understanding or systemic action.
The meaning of images is profoundly shaped by a viewer's own cultural-political filters because individuals do not perceive images neutrally. Rather, they integrate the visual raw material supplied by "world-building machines" such as television and digital platforms into their existing understanding of reality. These filters influence how an audience assembles their idea of reality, and how they interpret and react to visual content.
Images inherently participate in "circuits of ideology," meaning they are not neutral carriers of information. A viewer's pre-existing cultural beliefs, political stances, and social conditioning determine which emotions an image evokes (e.g., pity, anger, fear) and why. For example, the same image might trigger "moral outrage" in one viewer, leading to policy pressure, while inciting "fear" and contributing to xenophobic rhetoric in another, depending on their existing ideological framework. Ethical spectatorship, therefore, involves interrogating one's own affective responses and understanding personal complicity in the media economy, recognizing how internal filters influence whether images lead to superficial empathy or deeper engagement and structural change.