An archetypal digital witness: the child figure and the media conflict over Syria

Al-Ghazzi, Omar ORCID: 0000-0001-9905-409X (2019) An archetypal digital witness: the child figure and the media conflict over Syria. International Journal of Communication, 13. 3225–3243. ISSN 1932-8036

Text (9108-39502-2-PB) - Published Version Download (257kB)

• Author
• https://ijoc.org/index.php/ijoc/article/...

Abstract

This article examines how children have been mediated as witnesses of the Syria conflict. I explore the symbolic demands placed on the figure of the child witness in a converging news media and social media environment, as if it can serve as the quintessentially authentic image and truthful voice able to speak beyond the complexities of geopolitics, war, and ideology, and regardless of the question of journalistic presence. I focus on two cases that unfolded in 2016 during the Russo–Syrian military campaign in East Aleppo: the image of three-year-old Omran Daqneesh, known as “ambulance boy,” and the Twitter account of seven-year-old Bana Al-Abed. I argue that the mediation of witness accounts was characterized by two tendencies: an assumption of the possibility of unmediated witnessing via digital technologies, and a forceful politicization of witness testimonies that empties out their signification as fast as they circulate on social media and news media. This reflects an ecology of competing witnessing that construed children as archetypal witness figures simultaneously prone to virality and co-optation.

Item Type:	Article
Official URL:	https://ijoc.org/index.php/ijoc/index
Additional Information:	© 2019 The Author
Divisions:	Media and Communications
Subjects:	J Political Science > JA Political science (General)
Date Deposited:	30 Jul 2019 11:03
Last Modified:	17 Oct 2024 17:26
URI:	http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/id/eprint/101253

Actions (login required)

View Item