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Making Secondary Trauma a Primary Issue: A Study of Eyewitness Media and Vicarious Trauma on the Digital Frontline

Sam Dubberley, Elizabeth Griffin, Haluk Mert Bal

Istanbul: Eyewitness Media Hub (2015), 69 pp.

"The rapid and incredible growth of eyewitness media (also known as user-generated content or UGC) has led to the emergence of a new cadre of journalists, humanitarian and human rights professionals whose job it is to seek out, verify and edit the most disturbing and traumatic raw images captured by ... non professionals and posted online. These professionals are tasked with viewing and sifting through massive volumes of eyewitness media - that is, raw, unedited, authentic footage now captured regularly on smartphones - to enhance their investigations, reporting, operations, prosecutions and advocacy. Professionals who work with eyewitness media watch disturbing footage from war zones, natural and manmade disasters and accidents over and over again to verify its veracity and to edit out images that are deemed too extreme for viewing by the general public. Viewing traumatic images of death, destruction, blood and unimaginable horrors all day every day - often for years on end - is now an integral part of the daily work of many desk-bound staff working for news, human rights and humanitarian organisations who are often located thousands of miles away from where the actual horrors occur. Whether it is a broadcaster, publisher, human rights or humanitarian professional, symptoms associated with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) are now evident amongst staff working in offices on what we call the digital frontline. This study builds upon previous research that proved that viewing distressing eyewitness media can lead psychological injury, including, but not restricted to, such conditions as PTSD and major depression. The principle aim of this research is to explore the following questions: How much distressing eyewitness media are professionals, who work in the three professional sectors, watching? How frequently, and in what volumes are professionals viewing distressing eyewitness media? What kinds of eyewitness media do professionals find particularly distressing?" What coping mechanisms, if any, have been developed by staff to help mitigate the potentially negative effects of viewing distressing content? - What support, if any, do professionals receive from their organisations and senior managers? - Does organisational culture encourage or prevent professionals from requesting support from their organisation’s hierarchy? What training and preparation is provided to raise awareness of or mitigate the adverse impact of trauma exposure on university graduates, newcomers and those established in post? What resources do organisations provide to prevent, mitigate and treat the adverse impact of trauma exposure? Which of those resources have been used? Which are found to be the most useful? What do staff who experience vicarious trauma need and expect from their organisations in order to support them? Based on an online survey (to which we received 209 responses from people working with eyewitness media across all three professional sectors) and 38 in-depth, anonymous interviews we find that: the impact of eyewitness media on journalism, human rights and humanitarian work means that the frontline is no longer geographic. A new type of frontline has emerged that is digital. Staff at an organisation’s headquarters who work with eyewitness media do so daily and often see more horror on a daily basis compared to their counterparts deployed in the field. Consequently, organisations have a duty of care towards office based staff working on the digital frontline who are at serious risk of vicarious trauma and PTSD [...] " (Executive summary, page 3-5) more

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Covering Trauma: A Training Guide

Jina Moore

Search for Common Ground, Radio for Peacebuilding Africa (2011), 20 pp.

"All stories about an ordinary person who becomes the victim of abuse require extra sensitivity, because survivors of abuse – whether the abuse is physical, emotional or political – are usually survivors of a traumatic event. There are many kinds of traumatic events. A terrible car crash, an ear ... more

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Trauma Journalism: On Deadline in Harm's Way

Mark H. Massé

New York; London: Continuum (2011), ix, 229 pp.

"The role of journalists in covering trauma and tragedy isn’t new. Witnessing acts of violence, destruction and terror has long been the professional responsibility of countless print and broadcast reporters and photographers. But what is new is a growing awareness of the emotional consequences of ... more

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Journalists as Witnesses to Violence and Suffering

Amy Richards, Jolyon Mitchell

In: The Handbook of Global Communication and Media Ethics

Robert S. Fortner; Mark Fackler (eds.)

Chichester: Wiley Blackwell (2011), pp. 752-773

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The Moment is Frozen in Time: Photojournalists’ Metaphors in Describing Trauma Photography

Patrice Keats

Journal of Constructivist Psychology, volume 23, issue 3 (2010), pp. 231-255

"In describing their understanding of trauma, disaster, and conflict photography, photojournalists in this qualitative study conceptualized abstract experiences using specific types of metaphors. Their metaphors focused on concepts such as violence, bewilderment, and health/affliction. The unique as ... more

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Representing Death in the News: Journalism, Media and Mortality

Folker Hanusch

Basingstoke, Hampshire: Palgrave Macmillan (2010), viii, 199 pp.

"This new study maps and synthesizes existing research on the ways in which journalism deals with death. Folker Hanusch provides a historical overview of death in the news, looks at the conditions of production, content and reception, and also analyzes emerging trends in the representation of death ... more

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Trauma, Media, Art: New Perspectives

Mick Broderick, Antonio Traverso (eds.)

Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing (2010), vii, 285 pp.

"The essays collected in this book follow a contemporary critical trend in the field of trauma studies that reflects comparatively on artistic and media representations of traumatic histories and experiences from countries around the world. Focusing on a diversity of art and media forms—including ... more

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Trauma and Media: Theories, Histories, and Images

Allen Meek

New York et al.: Routledge (2010), 224 pp.

"This book provides the first comprehensive account of trauma as a critical concept in the study of modern visual media, from Freud to the present day, explaining how contemporary trauma studies emerged from research on Holocaust representation in which the audiovisual testimony of survivors was pos ... more

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Cine-Therapie / Film-Therapie. Eine erste Bibliographie

Caroline Amann

Hamburg: Universität Hamburg, Institut für Germanistik (2009), 10 pp.

"Darüber können viele, die in der Bildungsarbeit der Akademien versuchen, mit allgemeinem Publikum über Themen ins Gespräch zu kommen, die tabuisiert, traumatisiert, intimisiert oder sonstwie blockiert sind, berichten: Setzt man Filme als Katalysatoren des Gesprächs ein, wird es vielen möglich ... , über Dinge zu sprechen, die ihnen sonst unzugänglich sind. Und sie können anders darüber sprechen, als ermögliche der Film eine Spiegelung und dadurch eine Abmilderung der eigenen Behinderungen im Umgang mit einem Thema. Dass Psychiater sich dieser eigentümlichen Fähigkeit des Films versichert haben, sie zu therapeutischen Zwecken ausnutzen, nimmt nicht wunder. Zwar ist die Film- oder Cinetherapie erst seit wenigen Jahren auch Thema theoretischer Reflexion, doch spielt Film im therapeutischen Prozeß schon lange eine gewichtige Rolle. Film and andere Künste, müßte man ergänzen, weil gewisse Spielformen der narrativen Therapie, die Bibliotherapie und die Kunsttherapie sehr viel längere Traditionen auch theoretischer Reflexion kennt, manchmal zur Grundlage ganzer Therapieformen geworden ist. Filmtherapie ist auch für den Filmwissenschaftler von höchstem Interesse, zeigt sich doch hier Aneignung von Filmen an einer signifikanten Grenze. Ist es Aufgabe einer Rezeptionstheorie oder -ästhetik des Films, die formalen Vorgaben, die ein Film als materiale und symbolische Vorgabe des Rezeptionsprozesses macht, in Beziehungen zu bringen mit den allgemeinen Bestimmungen, denen das Verhalten des Zuschauers unterworfen ist (ihn zu „positionieren“, die „Zuschauerrolle“ als textuell-dominierte Rolle zu skizzieren oder ähnlich), so ist das individuell-empirische Urteil eines Zuschauers, die sozialen oder biographischen Bezüge, die er dazu aktiviert, gerade nicht Aufgabe der Filmtheorie. Filme eröffnen Potentiale von Bedeutungen, sind anschließbar an diverse Rezeptionshorizonte, die ihrerseits wieder signifikant sein können (als klassenspezifische readings etwa, als Dekodierungen, die auf Distanz zu den angebotenen Deutungsmustern gehen - die Cultural Studies handelt zentral von solchen Differenzierungen -, oder als Differenzierungen der Zuschauer hinsichtlich ihrer „cineastischen“ Orientierungen und Vorlieben). All dieses ist aber ebenfalls nicht vom einzelnen abhängig. Für die Therapie dagegen steht nun aber das Besondere des jeweiligen Patienten im Zentrum, das Besondere seiner Auslegungen, Impressionen, Assoziationen, Urteile, das Besondere auch in Form des Nicht-Wahrnehmens, des Vergessens und Übersehens. Darum markiert das psychotherapeutische Projekt der Cinetherapie eine höchst interessante Grenze der filmischen Arbeit an Strukturen des filmischen Textes, die das Ausgangsmaterial je indivdueller und zumindest zum Teil subjektiver Aneignungen bilden. Darum auch ist eine Kasusistik eine der ersten und allgemeinsten Teildisziplinen der Cinetherapie. Dass Prozesse der Übertragung hier ebenso große Bedeutung einnehmen wie Prozesse der in allgemeiner Therapie, und dass es opportun ist, Strategien der Verdrängung, Sublimierung, Blockierung etc. beim Umgang mit filmischen Materialien anzunehmen, wie sie im Umgang mit primärere Erfahrung auch verfolgt werden, erscheint insgesamt evident zu sein." (Seite 1) more

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Dealing with the Past, Reaching the Future: Historical Memory and Social Transformation in (South) Africa and Germany after 1989. International Conference, 29. – 31.10.2009

Berlin: Haus der Kulturen der Welt (2009), 4 pp.

"The role of historical memory and of cultural remembrance in societies dealing with dramatic transformations and, at times, traumatic pasts are numerous. In this conference, we will look at post-apartheid South Africa and reunified German society, how each country views itself, as well as the diffe ... more

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Media Witnessing: Testimony in the Age of Mass Communication

Frosh, Amit Pinchevski (eds.)

Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan (2009), 242 pp.

"From the Holocaust to 9/11, modern communications systems have incessantly exposed us to reports of distant and horrifying events, experienced by strangers, and brought to us through media technologies. In this book leading scholars explore key questions concerning the truth status and broader impl ... more

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Prejudice, Conflict and Media. Reducing Intergroup Prejudice and Conflict Using the Media: A Field Experiment in Rwanda

Elizabeth Levy Paluck

Harvard: Harvard University, Weatherhead Center for International Affairs (2007), 64 pp.

"Can the media reduce intergroup prejudice and conflict? Despite the high stakes of this question, understanding of the mass media’s role in shaping prejudiced beliefs, norms, and behaviors is very limited. A year-long field experiment in Rwanda tested the impact of a radio soap opera about two Rw ... more

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Trauma and Journalism: A Guide for Journalists, Editors & Managers

Mark Brayne

Dart Center for Journalism & Trauma (2007), 28 pp.

"Trauma is at the heart of news — and of the human condition. How it’s reported gives those who weren’t there their first understanding of what a traumatic event means. Personally. For their families and loved-ones. For their community and their nation. Indeed, for the world as a whole. The jo ... more

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Covering Children & Trauma: A Guide for Journalism Professionals

Ruth Teichroeb

Washington, DC: Dart Center for Journalism & Trauma (2006), 13 pp.

"When children are victims of violence, journalists have a responsibility to report the truth with compassion and sensitivity. Kids aren’t mini-adults; they deserve special consideration when they end up in the news. Yet few journalists have experience interviewing children for routine stories, le ... more

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Child Clinicians & the Media: A Guide for Therapists

Elana Newman, Robert P. Franks

Dart Center for Journalism & Trauma;National Child Traumatic Stress Network (2006), 17 pp.

"Whether clinicians like it or not, children and families affected by trauma are routinely covered by the media. When that happens, clinicians often face difficult choices [...] Audiences are powerfully affected when direct information comes from children, adolescents or family members. Yet balancin ... more

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Covering Violence: A Guide to Ethical Reporting About Victims and Trauma
Key Guidance

Roger Simpson, William Coté

New York: Columbia University Press, 2nd ed. (2006), xv, 295 pp.

"Now in its second edition, Covering Violence remains a crucial guide for becoming a sensitive and responsible reporter. Discussing such topics as rape and the ethics of interviewing children, the book gives students and journalists a detailed understanding of what is happening "on the scene" of a v ... more

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Best Practices in Trauma Reporting: Ideas and Insights from Award-Winning Newspaper Articles
Key Guidance

Kevin Kawamoto

New York: Dart Center for Journalism & Trauma (2005), 26 pp.

"The goal of this best practices guide is not to provide a template for trauma reporting, although the specific examples should be useful for journalists working on similar stories or faced with similar ethical dilemmas related to trauma reporting. The goal is to help journalists produce professiona ... more

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Puppetry in Education and Therapy: Unlocking Doors to the Mind and Heart

Matthew Bernier, Judith O'Hare (eds.)

Bloomington, Indiana: AuthorHouse (2005), xvi,, 212 pp.

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Breaking the Silence: Memory Books and Succession Planning. The Experience of NACWOLA and Save the Children UK in Uganda

Sophie Witter

London: Save the Children;National Community of Women Living with HIV/AIDS in Uganda (NACWOLA) (2004), 36 pp.

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Alle Toten auf ihre Plätze! Die mediale Inszenierung des Todes

Elisabeth Hurth

Mainz: Matthias-Grünewald-Verlag (2004), 144 pp.

Covering Violence: A Guide to Ethical Reporting About Victims and Trauma Key Guidance

Best Practices in Trauma Reporting: Ideas and Insights from Award-Winning Newspaper Articles Key Guidance

Covering Violence: A Guide to Ethical Reporting About Victims and Trauma
Key Guidance

Best Practices in Trauma Reporting: Ideas and Insights from Award-Winning Newspaper Articles
Key Guidance