I Feel That Exposure To Media Should Be Excluded As Part

1849 WordsMar 20, 20178 Pages
I feel that exposure to media should be excluded as part of the criteria for Post-traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). The criteria currently defines the effects of PTSD as stemming from direct involvement with a traumatic event in some way- whether it be from personal experience, bearing witness to an event or its aftermath, or a connection to someone involved in the trauma. So to me, I feel that in a general sense in order to be subjected to authentic PTSD effects, an individual needs to have been personally involved in the traumatic event in some way, rather than just witnessing a media’s constructed representation such as a photograph. By viewing trauma from a distance, we cannot truly feel or comprehend what an individual has…show more content…
All of this I believe, leads to an ever-increasing desensitization, where society has become so accustomed to witnessing devastation in different forms that it no longer shocks or horrifies us in a way that it should, or would have, a few decades ago. When we switch on the TV and see a news clip about the latest Syrian beheadings, we instantly experience feelings of anguish and unease, as we witness something so disgusting and morally wrong, yet at the same time we see so much of this kind of thing every day that it begins to lose its shock factor, and we can’t help but think ‘here’s yet another story of devastation or horror in the world.’ Media images of traumatic events have become “living room sights and sounds” (Sontag 18), where the media’s motto seems to be that ‘If it bleeds, it leads.’ We also have to consider the fact that our lives are so busy and constantly moving at such a fast pace, that we may see these images and display shock and outrage at the time, yet as soon as we finish viewing our attention is caught with something else, and we have already moved on. Sontag elaborates on the idea of repeated exposure to traumatic images, by using a quote by Mort Rosenblum of the Associated Press to strengthen her point. He says “A basic problem is that no human drama stops the moving eye any longer unless correspondents find some new angle that tugs heartstrings in a new way. And each tug stretches them
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