AUTHOR=Müller Marion G. , Christ Katharina 

TITLE=Empathic reactions to press photographs from the War in Ukraine: A Q-sort study

JOURNAL=Frontiers in Political Science

VOLUME=Volume 4 - 2022

YEAR=2023

URL=https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/political-science/articles/10.3389/fpos.2022.1042326

DOI=10.3389/fpos.2022.1042326

ISSN=2673-3145

ABSTRACT=This study scrutinizes press photographs published during the first six weeks of the Russian War in Ukraine. Its objective is to shed light on the emotions evoked in Internet-savvy audiences. This empirical research aims to contribute to the understanding of emotional media effects that shape attitudes and actions of ordinary citizens. Main research questions are: What kind of empathic reactions are observed during the Q-sort study? Which visual patterns are relevant for which emotional evaluations and attributions? Empathic reactions are based on visual patterns which influence the type of empathic reaction. Identification of specific categories for visual and emotional reaction patterns developed using different methods. Visual pattern categories were developed inductively, using the art history method of iconography-iconology to identify visual motifs in a final sample of 33 war photographs. The overarching categories for empathic reactions – empty empathy, vicarious traumatization and witnessing – were applied deductively, building on Kaplan’s (2011) pivotal distinctions. Results from this exploratory research include motivational statements on the meanings of war photography from semi-structured post-sort-interviews. The major result of this study are three types of visual patterns (“factors”) that govern distinct empathic reactions in participants: Factor 1 is “veiled empathy” with highest empathy being attributed to photos showing victims whose corpses or faces were veiled. Additional features of “veiled empathy” are a strong anti-politician bias and a heightened awareness of potential visual manipulation. Factor 2 is “mirrored empathy” with highest empathy attributions to photos displaying human suffering openly. Factor 3 focused on the context. It showed a proclivity for documentary style photography. This pattern ranked photos without clear contextualization lower in empathy than those photos displaying the fully contextualized setting. To the best of our knowledge, no study has tested empathic reactions to war photography empirically. In this respect, the study is novel, but also exploratory. Findings like the three patterns of visual empathy might be helpful for photo selection processes in journalism, for political decision-making, for the promotion of relief efforts, and for coping strategies in civil society to deal with the potentially numbing or traumatizing visual legacy of the War in Ukraine.