A heavily pregnant woman with a bloody face, babies left behind in a hospital and the lifeless body of a young girl: a selection of images from an AP report, published in NRC. The war in Ukraine has now been going on for three weeks and news consumers are inundated with images of war. On social media, TikTok dances alternate with videos from air raid shelters. What is it like for news consumers to be exposed to these war images on a daily basis?
NRC spoke to a number of news consumers in recent days and they agree on one thing: the war in Ukraine is overwhelming. Especially since it’s so close. “You are more likely to be in Ukraine than in Spanish Seville,” says Marek van den Oever (36). He has a travel agency, focused on traveling in Poland and part of his family lives in Warsaw. As a result, he gets a lot of news images forwarded and he feels the fear that dominates there. He also has a girlfriend who lives in Kiev: “She can leave, but she doesn’t want to. Many Ukrainians feel it is all or nothing. They want to fight to the death.” Van den Oever sees many images of the war, especially on social media. “Every half hour I see a video of a rocket raid, and that makes me anxious because I’m afraid of what Putin would eventually do and my family is so close.”
According to media psychologist Mischa Coster, the war images generally evoke a lot of emotion in people. According to him, many people can feel angry or anxious. “Especially when people are exposed to negative news for a longer period of time, this can have consequences. For example, it is possible that people get depressed feelings from the news and eventually lose their perspective.” According to Coster, people who are exposed to negative news images for a long time can develop stress problems.
This is also apparent from research by psychological scientist Roxane Cohen Silver, affiliated with the University of California. She has conducted research into the psychological effects of media images of the 9/11 attack and the subsequent war in Iraq. She concludes that images of war in the media can lead to negative health consequences, including acute stress, heart complaints and a compromised immune system. People who look at these images for several hours every day for a longer period of time may even show symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) such as after a trauma that has not been processed properly. This can manifest itself in feelings of anxiety, sleep disorders and stress reactions. Even when people have not experienced a war themselves, the images can give them nightmares.
“I cried for days when I saw those rotten images,” says Jolanda Gooiker (47). Especially the image of the pregnant woman who was taken away on a stretcher after the children’s hospital in Mariupol was destroyed by Russian air raids, made a big impression on her. “Because I kept getting spontaneous crying spells as soon as I saw the war images, I put myself on a kind of media diet.” Now she only follows the news via text and tries to avoid the images and videos. She tries to read the news on Twitter, but that is difficult because there are a lot of videos on her timeline. She also sets a ten-minute alarm a few times a day to read the news. “I want to be informed, but it affects me too much when I read the news all day long. As soon as the alarm goes off, I put my phone away.”
Van den Oever, who has two young children of her own, finds it especially difficult to see fleeing families and images of children having to say goodbye to their father. He therefore tries to distance himself from the news, but he is very concerned about his family. “It is impossible to go on with everyday life when you know that there is a war raging and your friends and family are in danger.”
According to media psychologist Mischa Coster, it would be wise for people to distance themselves a little more from the news. According to him, a media diet could be a good idea. “In addition, it is good if people watch some positive programs in addition to the news, so as not to be too busy with the war images.” He also believes that the media should be a little more careful with the images they show. Some videos really require a warning.
Even though Gooiker tries to keep his distance from news images, he doesn’t always succeed. “I recently saw a video on Twitter of someone playing a Chopin song on a piano in the middle of a ravage in Ukraine. I was totally impressed and taken aback and watched through to the end. Then I quickly went to do something else to find distraction.”
A version of this article also appeared in NRC on the morning of March 21, 2022