Global trauma and public feelings: Viewing images of catastrophe

Scholars have begun to discuss new digital viewing contexts, but few have explored processes involved in responding to images of catastrophe. Many assume that cognition (meaning) is primary in image‐reception, but I’ll show the complex interaction of cognition and affect. Drawing on research in psychology and cultural studies, I explore how proliferation of images may produce a culture of trauma. I define, analyze and critique three kinds of possible response to images of catastrophe. These are: a) secondary or vicarious trauma (VT), a response in which the viewer is shocked to the extent of being emotionally over‐aroused; b) what I call “empty empathy,” to indicate the fleeting nature of empathic emotions that viewers often experience; and finally c) witnessing – a response that transforms the viewer in a positive pro‐social manner, and that, unlike the first sorts of response, involves ethics along with empathy. The argument is supported by images drawn from the war in Iraq, Hurricane Katrina and recent art by Witkin and Harden.