Gillian Schutte
Witnessing the news about the devastating flooding in black informal settlements located in Cape Town’s low-lying areas, I felt a familiar sense of despair.
Listening to the affected individuals narrate their struggles in these terrible conditions, it struck me that the way these disasters are portrayed in the news seems like the same narrative repeated across multiple communities facing similar issues.
These problems are rarely properly contextualised, with news reports often failing to make connections between climate change, big industry, and their impact on vulnerable communities. The repetitive, decontextualised storytelling makes even me, as an activist, feel helpless and inept when confronted with the insurmountable injustices that economically poor communities face daily.
Reflecting on this problem, I considered that this may not be the only reason the troubles of the poor are overlooked by most news consumers. It occurred to me that humans, within the framework of capitalism, are inherently unable to feel empathy for anything that does not affect them directly. This lack of empathy for the other, I concluded, is encouraged by shallow news reports that contribute to lacklustre responses from the comfortable middle classes to the hardships faced by economically poor communities, even in the face of disaster.
Desensitisation of suffering: a sociocultural malaise
In the South African context, the persistent inequality rooted in the apartheid legacy continues to shape societal structures and public consciousness.
Repeated exposure to stories of hardship without substantive change or intervention cultivates this desensitisation.
The media’s portrayal of black communities enduring flooding and countless other disasters has become background noise to many South Africans.
This predictable cycle – disaster, media coverage, fleeting public sympathy, and subsequent inaction – breeds a sense of impotence and detachment.
It is this superficial approach often adopted by mainstream media outlets that exacerbate this cycle. Headlines and sound bites, designed to capture immediate attention, rarely uncover systemic issues perpetuating inequality and vulnerability.
This reductionist approach results in a populace that is aware yet unengaged, informed yet unmoved. The complexity of human suffering is trivialised, transforming profound experiences into transient content.
The question then becomes: Is it the media’s role to ensure justice is served to vulnerable communities?
I would argue that it is not possible in the neo-liberal system because mainstream media outlets are driven by the imperatives of profits, ratings and readership for their survival. For this reason, they frequently succum to sensationalism. This results in the commodification of suffering that reduces stories of disasters in black areas to mere segments, stripped of the context and depth necessary for encouraging true understanding and empathy.
The nuanced human experiences behind these stories are lost, overshadowed by a narrative that prioritises spectacle over substance.
Because of the lack of context and depth, the media’s portrayal of marginalised communities often reinforces flattened-out stereotypes by focusing predominantly on victimhood.
In this way the media fails to highlight the resilience and agency within these communities or the systemic factors that entrench their plight.
This one-dimensional representation denies news consumers the chance for deeper comprehension of the multiple social dynamics at play in each disaster narrative. It is an approach that, by default, perpetuates a cycle of misunderstanding, marginalisation and often malicious conjecture aimed at shaming the communities.
Going back to coverage of the recent flooding in Western Cape, I was shocked to hear what I consider deeply problematic statements made by Cogta Minister, Velenkosini Hlabisa, on SABC, when visiting a number of areas in Cape Town affected by the extreme weather.
While he acknowledged that climate change is a reality, he goes on to say that all political parties have a duty to dissuade people from erecting informal settlements in wetlands and low-lying areas.
This is emblematic of malformed discourse that somehow places the responsibility at the feet of people who have no choice but to erect shacks wherever scant land is available. Such remarks ignore the socio-economic constraints that limit viable housing options for impoverished individuals, echoing the neo-liberal mantra of self-reliance and personal responsibility.
This perspective, suggesting that victims can simply “pull themselves up by their bootstraps and move to safer areas”, fails to acknowledge the systemic barriers that maintain their vulnerability.
Commodification of the cycle of suffering
This month, it is the flooding, next month, it will be shack fires, young children tragically disappearing down pit-latrines in schools, taxi accidents, or striking miners shot down by the security apparatus.
Black African life in South Africa is precarious for the majority in the neo-colonial system that they are forced to inhabit. Each tragedy that befalls marginalised communities garners brief media attention but fails to sustain public empathy or action.
The notable exception is reportage on corruption, violence and xenophobia, topics which seem to provoke a more visceral reaction from the public than disaster and suffering.
Accuse black South Africans of being the most violent people in the world and the middle and upper classes are quick to agree and respond. This reaction, I posit, alleviates their guilt or provides a reason to dismiss the suffering of the poor, writing them off as savage through a notable display of lack of empathy.
All of this makes me question if, in reality, it is humanly possible to feel genuine empathy for suffering that does not directly affect us? For me this question is central to understanding the media’s impact – or lack thereof –in fostering empathy.
Reflecting on the Marikana tragedy as an example, one might also question whether empathy itself can be commodified given the emergence of an industrial complex of NGOs, human rights organisations and self-proclaimed media heroes writing books and making films et al, benefiting from the tragedy. Within the constraints of capitalism, empathy may only be truly possible when we are stripped of the material security we covet, thereby experiencing the pain felt by those oppressed by colonialism and capital.
Beyond the didactics of weaponised 21st century media
Twenty-first century mainstream media has evolved into a weaponised tool wielded by the ruling class.
Through selective outrage, melodrama, and shallow reporting they employ a new form of didacticism aimed at dumbing down and pacifying their audience, diverting attention away from activism and fostering a blanket disapproval of all things that do not fit their neo-liberal propaganda.
This strategy promotes individualism over communalism, ensuring the ruling class remains secure within their insulated bubbles. Journalists must engage with communities not as mere subjects of stories but as partners in the storytelling process, ensuring their voices are represented in all their complexity and authenticity – not merely in sound bites.
Media consumers must be educated to cultivate a more active engagement with the stories they encounter. This means moving beyond passive consumption to critical reflection and action, questioning the narratives presented, seeking out diverse perspectives, and recognising the shared humanity in every story of suffering.
Let us remember too, that the flooding in Cape Town’s low-lying black areas is an exacting reminder of the persistent inequalities within South African society.
While the media plays a role in reporting on the issues, it is independent media platforms that we must look to as those that strive to do more than inform; that actively inspire empathy and action through in-depth and sensitive reporting. Only there will we transform news fodder into a catalyst for social justice and true societal transformation and drown out the hegemony of mainstream media’s neo-liberal ideology.
The stakes are high, and the cost of continued settler avarice and apathy will one day, as Frantz Fanon said, probably ignite a violent uprising. This will not relent until the profound pain of the “othered” and marginalised is acknowledged and rectified.
* Schutte has a degree in African politics, an MA in creative writing and a film director’s qualification from the Binger Institute, in the Netherlands
Cape Times