Forced to report: affective proximity and the perils of local reporting on Syria

Al-Ghazzi, Omar ORCID: 0000-0001-9905-409X (2023) Forced to report: affective proximity and the perils of local reporting on Syria. Journalism, 24 (2). 280 - 294. ISSN 1464-8849

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Abstract

Based on interviews with Syrian media practitioners, this article uses the notion of affective proximity to make sense of local media practitioners’ reporting and witnessing of suffering in their country and community. I argue that the life-risking, and sometimes deadly, media practices of local reporters and witnesses, as well as their emotional labour, often do not feature in understandings of journalism when it is conceived as a purely professional discursive pursuit. I explain affective proximity in terms of an imagined space (or the lack thereof) between a media practitioner, on the one hand, and the event they are representing and participating in, on the other. In relation to Syria, I use it to analyse the word ‘revolution’ and what it mediates, the shifting boundaries between activism and journalism, and experiences of, and in, violence. I make the case that the study of affect and emotion in global news should be contextualized within the unequal power relations that give shape to journalistic roles and modes of representaiton.

Item Type:	Article
Official URL:	https://journals.sagepub.com/home/jou
Additional Information:	© 2021 The Author
Divisions:	Media and Communications
Subjects:	P Language and Literature > PN Literature (General) > PN1990 Broadcasting
Date Deposited:	16 Dec 2020 13:33
Last Modified:	20 Dec 2024 00:40
URI:	http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/id/eprint/107921

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