Susan Sontag, "Regarding the Pain of Others"

1.)  Should the media be allowed to show graphic pictures of people?

2.)  Why is it that the media wants to show such indecent and horrible pictures to the world?

3.)  What emotions do these graphic pictures bring to us?

In response to question number two; “Why is it that the media wants to show such indecent and horrible pictures to the world?” Personally, I think the media broadcasts, prints, etc. these graphic pictures of people because they know that it will grab the consumer’s attention. Just like Sontag stated in her article that not only are pictures left for us to interpret ourselves, but they are also used to manipulate the demographic. For example, by showing a picture of a young man dead through the cause of war, will have Americans feeling sympathy that the young man did not fulfill his life and will feel sadness for him and his family. The media always try to show the most extreme version of the truth the grab the attention of its audience and they achieve this by showing these pictures because they know that most people will react emotionally. By doing this, they are manipulating us into hating whoever or whatever caused harm onto the person in the picture shown. Especially because a lot of people only will look at the picture and read the title, not continuing on to see what actually happened or what caused it. Also on the first page in Sontag’s article she says,”…Nevertheless, it was staged-by General Loan, who had led the prisoner, hands tied behind back, out to the street where journalists had gathered; he would not have carried out the summary execution there had they not been available to witness it.” This brings up the question of whether or not we can even trust the photographs we are seeing in the media, or are we just being shown what they want us to see…