On Bridging the Empathy Gaps through International Media:
A Look at the Attacks in Beirut and Paris in November 2015
On November 12, 2015, the Beirut attacks took place killing at least 43 people and wounding more than 200. Hours later, on November 13, 2015, the Paris attacks took place killing 130 people and wounding hundreds. On that day, the two terrible terror attacks in France and Paris lined up so clearly, offering a comparison of how the media covered two events that are very similar in content, but different in location. One would think that the almost identical events would be covered similarly and would at least receive a closer share of the media’s attention. Unfortunately, that was not the case. The unequal coverage of the two attacks created an empathy gap towards the two events.
Rhetorics
The stories on Beirut weren’t able to present a picture that the audiences were able to relate to or empathize with. Beirut is known for being the “Paris of the Middle East.” However, while reporting on the attacks, the “Paris of the Middle East” was no Paris at all. The romanticized tones of describing the European-like city were replaced by ethno-religious terms such as “Hezbollah stronghold” and some other political terms that experts on the Middle East can barely understand. The use of such rhetorics embraced the construction of the Lebanese society as an “Orientalist” one that Western audiences can hardly relate to.The generalized view of the Middle East which emphasizes differences over similarities and encourage negative stereotypes is clearly seen in the coverage of the Beirut attack. Thus, the coverage presented the public with a story that is hard to follow, of people they knew little of, and of a region that is extremely troubled. The stories on Beirut focused on the “differences” rather than the “similarities,” raised many questions and offered little, if any, space for empathy.
News Coverage on Paris
Major newspapers like The New York Times covered the Paris attacks in six articles, three of which were front page stories. The first article, “Paris Terror Attacks Leave Awful Realization: Another Massacre,” began with a beautiful, romanticized description of the night of the attack. The introduction reads “The night was chilly but thick with excitement as…” The romanticized tone and word choice, such as “massacre, “strongly opposes the rhetoric of “the blasts that killed dozens in Beirut’s Hezbollah stronghold” used in an article covering the Beirut attacks.
In Paris, the media used a romanticized tone which humanized the victims. Articles described the victims as those who were enjoying a night out at the concert, a cafe or a soccer game. Those in Paris were people who were just like “us.” On the other hand, the victims of the Beirut attacks were presented as the “other.’ How can we empathize with the “other? Especially if their story isn’t even reported on enough.
News Coverage on Lebanon
The same paper, The New York Times covered the Beirut attacks on page 6, in one article under the title “ISIS Claims Responsibility for Blasts That Killed Dozens in Beirut” focusing on the fact that the neighborhood is affiliated with Hezbollah. The Atlantic reported under the title, “Twin Explosions in Beirut.. They struck a Shiite suburb in the south of the Lebanese capital.” The article, similar to the New York Times’, focuses on the fact that the neighborhood is a “stronghold of Hezbollah,” and mentions that “Lebanon is no stranger to conflict.” Thus, the early reports on the event focused on the political and ethno-religious affiliations of some Lebanese groups distracting the audience from the human aspect of the story. People tend to perk up when they see themselves in the victims, and the stories on Beirut presented the victims as people who could never be “us.”
In an interview with BBC, a young Lebanese explained how he felt as he scrolled down a Facebook newsfeed mourning Paris, but not his hometown, Beirut. He stated “…it tells me that I’m irrelevant. Living in the Middle East, you are always a third class citizens,” “….It tells that the people in Beirut are not worthy of your attention.”
The Lebanese people felt abandoned, neglected and totally irrelevant for many reasons. The world shed a spot on Paris and turned a blind eye on Beirut. Facebook activated two innovative tools to show solidarity with Paris, but not Beirut. Global monuments lit up around the world with France’s flag colors, but not with Beirut’s. Facebook activated the Safety Check tool on the day of the Paris attack, but not for Beirut’s. Over four million people used the tool leading to about 360 million people getting notifications. Following up, Facebook activated a France filter where people can applied masks on their Facebook photos with an overlay of blue, white, and red, the colors of the French flag. Acts of solidarity were easily tracked through hashtags. Every minute, 99 posts with the #PrayforParis were shared on social media compared to only 2 with a hashtag on Bierut. Global leaders mourned Paris, but not Beirut. Obama described the attack as a “massacres against ‘all of humanity’ The same common humanity Obama referenced was not very common but selective. Selective by western standards, catering Western audiences and reporting on the West. But why is it that Western lives get a better coverage, is it because they matter more?
“Western” lives do matter more. More importantly, the geographic location of the victims in a certain story is what matters most. The attacks on Beirut killed three American citizens, but the fact that they were three American citizens in Beirut made them less newsworthy. Their geographic location prevailed over their nationalities. Only certain aspects of the audiences multi-layered identities are spatial or geographic. The role of the media, especially in global events like these, is to use the audiences multi-layered identities to move beyond geographic proximities and reach cultural ones. The two attacks present two global events where the pain was similar, the victims are similar, and the enemies are identical. Thus, the two attacks provide a great opportunity for the media to draw on cultural proximities. However, cultural proximities were only drawn upon in Paris, but not in Beirut.
Imagined Communities to Include or Exclude?
The generated buzz in the media and the excellency in the coverage of Paris created a global audience that stood in solidarity with Paris. The media invited global audiences to relate to other people by developing a ‘mediated intimacy’ for those who are at distant. Thus, global audiences formed imagined community for Paris, and Paris only. An imagined community was created as the audiences imagined to be connected with others they didn’t know immediately, or speak their. Idealy, imagined communities result in inclusions and connections. That was the case for Paris. However, Beirut suffered the exclusion of that imagined community. France’s imagined community was able to perform more than 30 million interactions on social media during the first 24 hours after the Paris attack. Individuals from more than 200 countries joined this imagined community to stand in solidarity with France, but where was Beirut in all that?
A Better Global Imagination
Media representations shape how we come to see, think of and feel about the world. International media, especially in tragic events like terrorist attacks, help the audiences situate themselves in relations with others in this world . Thus, in the collective way of seeing, understanding and feeling at a global level in such international events, the audiences are presented with large amount of information, leading to more and more engagement in the topic. In our modern world of a “new media visibility,” it is up to the media to determine how this global imagination is created through its coverage.
So What If?
How can the public create an interest for a story that has been rarely covered? Isn't it hard to truly mourn a stranger unless you can hear their story? What if the Beirut attack got the attention the Paris attacks did? Would the general’s public reaction be the same? What if the article focused on humanizing the incident? Would Facebook then see the need to activate the same features of safety checks to Beirut? Would the public stand in solidarity with Beirut? Would the world reach a common humanity or at least a better one?