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The Ironic Spectator: Solidarity in the Age of Post-Humanitarianism

ISBN: 978-0-745-64210-9

January 2013

Polity

248 pages

Description
WINNER of the 2015 ICA Outstanding Book Award

This path-breaking book explores how solidarity towards vulnerable others is performed  in our media environment. It argues that stories where famine is described through our own experience of dieting  or or where solidarity with Africa translates into wearing a cool armband tell us about much more than the cause that they attempt to communicate. They tell us something about the ways in which we imagine the world outside ourselves.

By showing historical change in Amnesty International and Oxfam appeals, in the Live Aid and Live 8 concerts, in the advocacy of Audrey Hepburn and Angelina Jolie as well as in earthquake news on the BBC,  this far-reaching book shows how solidarity has today come to be not about conviction but choice, not vision but lifestyle, not others but ourselves – turning us into the ironic spectators of other people’s suffering.

About the Author
Lilie Chouliaraki is Professor of Media and Communications at the London School of Economics.
Features
  • Analyses how the media present violence globally and the ethical implications this has for audiences
  • Develops an Aristotelian framework in order to understand the issues involved
  • Accessible and engaging text that uses strong, international examples to explicate the philosophy
  • Deals with a pressing and important topic in the field of media and communications