Humanitarianism and Media: 1900 to the Present - Paperback

by Johannes Paulmann (Editor)

From Christian missionary publications to the media strategies employed by today's NGOs, this interdisciplinary collection explores the entangled histories of humanitarianism and media. It traces the emergence of humanitarian imagery in the West and investigates how the meanings of suffering and aid have been constructed in a period of evolving mass communication, demonstrating the extent to which many seemingly new phenomena in fact have long historical legacies. Ultimately, the critical histories collected here help to challenge existing asymmetries and help those who advocate a new cosmopolitan consciousness recognizing the dignity and rights of others.

Author Biography

Johannes Paulmann is Director of the Leibniz Institute of European History at Mainz (Germany). He was Richard von Weizsäcker Fellow 2014-15 at St Antony's College, Oxford, and he edited Dilemmas of Humanitarian Aid in the Twentieth Century (2016).