The recent boat tragedy that unfolded off the Greek coast brought widespread attention to the protracted condition of migrants; it is heartbreaking to see them getting backtracked at borders or seeing them left to perish in the sea. But frequently, their situation has turned into a political football. Immigrants are completely dehumanized in the vicious attacks, their dignity stripped through both implicit and explicit xenophobia and racism. While there is absolute chaos to the refugee situation all around the globe, have the nations reached a state of fatigue?
The imagery we are exposed to through media channels impacts how we interpret socio-political events. It is generally known that the victimization experience and the visual representation of identifiable victims in media can cause viewers to react emotionally and empathetically. Due to the audience's constant exposure to terrible occurrences, their senses could get blunted and they might stop being emotionally affected. It is known that when exposed to constant coverage of war or other conflict, for example, the spectator virtually becomes numb and averse. The related notion that people may hold no compassion for the asynchronous suffering of others has been called compassion fatigue.
Photojournalistic depictions of migrants as hordes of faceless people in vast numbers completely dehumanize them and have negative political effects. The traditional visual framing of refugees as medium- to large-sized groups without distinguishable face characteristics in distant camera angles links them with dangerous migrants rather than a humanitarian issue that has to be handled with compassion. In the UK and Australia, asylum seekers were portrayed in the print media as "unwanted invaders," according to a 2015 research. A politics of fear around citizenship and national identity that determines unfavorable reactions and policies toward them is strengthened when their perceived vulnerability is reduced.
US Senator Alan Simpson originally mentioned compassion fatigue during a press conference in opposition to the Refugee Act of 1980, which officially permitted immigration. According to a Providence article, compassion fatigue refers to the weariness that people experience when their efforts are ineffective. It also shows up in various ways. For instance, the inability of border areas to accommodate endless waves of migrants due to a lack of infrastructure puts a tremendous burden on the local people. Along with increasing economic precarity, the rapid population growth may also alter the social dynamics of the host region, leading to, for example, higher security risks and threats as a result of exposure to violence.
Sometimes it may be particularly challenging to humanize others. For example, when people are intimately involved in ingroup-outgroup differences during an ethnic war, it might be extremely difficult to humanize them. In these situations, acknowledging outgroup suffering entails accepting ingroup blame since it calls on ingroup members to take some ownership of the outgroup's plight. Between the desire to see one's group in a favorable light and the admission of wrongdoings by the same, this process may cause dissonance. Therefore, the endeavor to humanize may unintentionally backfire and paradoxically result in less empathy and a greater drive to defend the suffering of outgroups.
A further aspect of compassion fatigue has to do with ineffectiveness and feelings of inefficacy. Despite the fact that some individuals feel compelled to assist and have made various attempts to do so through professional efforts, the proportion of crises requiring assistance is continuously growing. Because there seems to be no end in sight, frustration and helplessness have joined to produce something stupendous than burnout. According to an APA article, the severity of the immigrant situation is what causes this kind of "compassion fatigue." Along with this, the administration is making significant attempts to limit immigration through national laws and vicious political rhetoric, which worsens the situation by depriving professionals of legal tools of help. It is terrible to be around people's pain and suffering for an extended period of time. Helplessness and unpredictability have become the routes through which the advocates sail their lives everyday. As such they experience only empty empathy and become disengaged.
Compassion fatigue is real and blatant media dehumanization is one big culprit. Media portrayal and representation should be responsible and humane in approach. Sensationalism and fear-mongering should be cut out from the framing techniques by media actors. Only then will migrants cease to be seen as "threats" and ‘‘risks”.
Zarnab Zahoor
