The Ironic Spectator Solidarity in the Age of Post-Humanitarianism

This path-breaking book explores how solidarity towards vulnerable others is performed in our media environment. It argues that stories where famine is described through our own experience of dieting or or where solidarity with Africa translates into wearing a cool armband tell us about much more than the cause that they attempt to communicate. They tell us something about the ways in which we imagine the world outside ourselves. By showing historical change in Amnesty International and Oxfam appeals, in the Live Aid and Live 8 concerts, in the advocacy of Audrey Hepburn and Angelina Jolie as well as in earthquake news on the BBC, this far-reaching book shows how solidarity has today come to be not about conviction but choice, not vision but lifestyle, not others but ourselves turning us into the ironic spectators of other people's suffering.

Lilie Chouliaraki is Professor of Media and Communications at the London School of Economics.

Detailed Table of Contents
List of Figures
Acknowledgements
Chapter 1: Solidarity and Spectatorship
Chapter 2: The Humanitarian Imaginary
Chapter 3: Appeals
Chapter 4: Celebrities
Chapter 5: Concerts
Chapter 6: News
Chapter 7: Theatricality, Irony, Solidarity
Conclusion: On being good
Notes
References
Index