The Spectacle of Suffering: Mediated Crises and the Aestheticization of Human Rights Violations
This paper critically examines how contemporary media transforms human suffering into spectacle. Through visual framing, repetition, and narrative construction, crises are aestheticized in ways that influence public perception, emotional engagement, and political response.
Media Representation, Human Rights, Visual Culture, Crisis Narratives, Spectacle, Ethics
This paper explores how media practices construct suffering as spectacle, raising ethical questions about representation, empathy, and the commodification of pain.
The spectacle of suffering challenges the boundary between awareness and exploitation. Ethical media practices must move beyond sensationalism toward responsible representation that preserves dignity and agency.
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