As others have noted, there is too much news at the moment. The current UK riots are the latest massive story to grab the headlines after a succession of other major incidents that would normally hold media and public attention for much longer. 2011 is the year in which developments of global significance happen simultaneously – the Eurozone crisis, the Norwegian massacres, the News International scandal and the American debt crisis, to name just four from recent days and weeks.
At huge risk of being lost in this superabundance of significance, is the drought in East Africa, where ten million people face starvation and tens of thousands of people have already died. Today’s Guardian reports that less money has been raised than for other recent major fundraising appeals run by the Disasters Emergency Committee, such as the Haiti earthquake in 2010 and the Asian tsunami in 2004.
One reason offered for the inability of this humanitarian emergency to compete with the glut of other issues crowding the media agenda, is the absence of sufficiently compelling visual images from the crisis-hit area. Inaccessibility and safety concerns are preventing journalists from reaching the heart of the disaster area where they can produce TV footage and press photographs that conveys the full horror unfolding in east Africa. It seems that donors need visual proof, or at least visual prompts, to encourage them to reach for their wallets. Yet when such footage and photos are available, it can create concerns about the ethics of exploiting the suffering of those depicted, as effectively encapsulated in the term ‘disaster porn’.
So what are we to do? Use the pictures that are most likely to elicit the largest donations, or insist the dignity of potential beneficiaries is respected, even if that results in less successful fundraising?
We are exploring this tricky issue with a small study undertaken as part of our work within the ESRC Centre for Charitable Giving and Philanthropy. Our research uses focus groups to find out what people who use the services of homelessness charities think about the images of homeless people that appear in fundraising materials. The interim findings, available here, suggest that the beneficiaries are more relaxed about the use of images than might be predicted. Participants do note that fundraising adverts are often too simple, using images of atypical homeless people, many of which look “fake” or “staged”, or use images that are too generic and fail to help donors understand to the issues surrounding homelessness. Yet our focus group participants strongly viewed the maximisation of income as the most important outcome, and understood that the most powerful images may not be either educational or accurate. In the words of one young man:
“When you’re in the situation and you ain’t got no money of your own your ain’t got time to be judgemental, so if the organisations haven’t got their money in the first place to help you then the whole system breaks down, really and truly, Just get the money, hook or crook, y’know? “
Clearly there are important differences between domestic causes helping young adults, and international development charities helping the starving, including babies and children who cannot consent to the use of their images. But if the lack of effective imagery is indeed a key factor behind the slow start to the East Africa appeal, might that cause anyone to rethink their views on the dangers of using the most provocative pictures?