Distant Suffering: Morality, Media and Politics (Cambridge Cultural Social Studies) Book

The paperback. Pub Date: 1999 Pages: 294 Publisher: Camidge. University Press Distant Suffering first published in 1999. examines the moral and political implications for a spectator of of THE DISTANT suffering of others as presented through the media What Are the Morally acceptable responses to the sight of suffering on television. for example. when the viewer cannot act directly to affect the circumstances in which the suffering takes place Luc Boltanski argues that spectators can actively involve themselves and others by speaking about what they have seen and how they were affected by it. Developing ideas in Adam Smith's moral theory. he examines three rhetorical 'topics' available for the expression of the spectator's response to suffering: the topics of denunciation and of sentiment and the aesthetic topic. The book concludes with a discussion of a 'crisis of pity' in r...Read More