Visual depictions of the Rohingya crisis: Exodus, cultural othering, genocidal aggression—and audience aversion to graphic portrayals
Talk by Professor Erik Bucy – US-UK Fulbright Scholar in Communication and Media, Loughborough University
Respondent, Dr Ronan Lee – Leverhulme Trust Early Career Fellow, Loughborough University London
26th March 2024, at 2-4pm, in U1.22 Brockington Building at Loughborough University and on MS Teams
The Centre for Research in Communication and Culture (CRCC) and the Challenges to Democracy and the Public Sphere (CHADS) platform are co-organising the event at Loughborough University Midlands campus.
Professor Erik Bucy is the US-UK Fulbright Scholar in Communication and Media and Fellow of the Institute of Advanced Studies at Loughborough University, is delivering the talk; which will be followed by Dr Ronan Lee‘s response. Ronan is working on the Rohingya genocide in Myanmar. The talk will be chaired by Professor James Stanyer.
The talk explores how the genocide of the Rohingya in Myanmar has been visually framed in the news and understood by audiences. It develops an inventory of visual frames used in coverage of the crisis and addresses the consequences that viewer interpretations of images of conflict and mass displacement can have for humanitarian support and perceptions of event severity
The Rohingya people of Myanmar (formerly Burma) have been described by the UN as the ‘most persecuted ethnic group in the world’. Yet despite recognition of the Rohingya’s attempted eradication as a genocide, this humanitarian crisis is rarely the subject of intensive news coverage and largely flies under the radar of international media. When the Rohingya’s plight does appear in the news, media coverage tends to portray this religious and ethnic minority as a displaced people fleeing their native Myanmar rather than depicting the reality of genocide and the gruesome visual truth of systematic, violent elimination. To document how an ongoing genocide is visually framed in news and understood by audiences, this article develops an inventory of visual frames used in coverage of the crisis, then employs a ‘picture prompt’ method of soliciting responses from viewers to document how these frames are received and interpreted. Analysis of 2132 responses from 533 online participants reveals stark differences in viewer evaluations of more graphic portrayals compared to mundane depictions of the crisis. The study summarizes the consequences that viewer interpretations of images of conflict and mass displacement can have on humanitarian support and perceptions of event severity.
Erik Bucy is the Marshall and Sharleen Formby Regents Professor of Strategic Communication in the College of Media and Communication at Texas Tech University. For the 2023-24 academic year, Bucy is appointed as a US-UK Fulbright Scholar in Communication and Media and Fellow of the Institute of Advanced Studies at Loughborough University. His research focuses on visual political communication, news literacy, misinformation and public opinion about the press. The focus of his Fulbright research project is a book-length study of media accountability and news evaluation at peak moments of press scrutiny.
Ronan Lee is a Leverhulme Trust Early Career Fellow at Loughborough University London working on Asian politics and history, the Rohingya, Myanmar, genocide, hate speech and citizenship. Dr Lee’s book “Myanmar’s Rohingya Genocide: Identity, History and Hate Speech”, published in 2021 was banned by the Myanmar military junta. He was awarded the 2021 Early Career Emerging Scholar Prize by the International Association of Genocide Scholars. Ronan has a professional background in politics and media. He was formerly a Queensland Member of Parliament and served on the front bench as Parliamentary Secretary in Justice, Main Roads and Local Government portfolios.
James Stanyer is a Professor of Communication and Media Analysis in the Department of Communication and Media at Loughborough University and the Director of the Centre for Research in Communication and Culture.