The Transformation of the Right to Report: Between Market Logics, Symbolic Distance, and the Ethics of Responsibility
Abstract: The contribution examines the phenomenon of the spectacularization of pain in contemporary media, questioning the gradual shift from the right to report toward forms of exposure that risk assuming voyeuristic traits. Drawing on a recent case of medical news coverage, the article analyzes the dynamics through which private suffering is re-elaborated according to logics of visibility, emotional engagement, and the monetization of attention. It critically addresses the role of digital media in constructing a symbolic distance between the event and the individual involved, as well as the shared responsibility between information professionals and the public. The analysis offers a critical reading of communicative practices that transform pain into content, highlighting their ethical, social, and cultural implications within the framework of global mediatization.
Keywords: #Spectacularization #Pain #DigitalMedia #CommunicationEthics #RightToReport #Audience #SocialResponsibility #Empathy #Mediapolis #SocialSciences #ElhemBeddouda #ethicasocietas #ethicasocietasjournal #scientificjournal #humansciences #socialsciences #ethicasocietasupli #italianlocalpoliceunion
Elhem Beddouda, professional educator with a degree in Sciences of Education and Training Processes from the University of Parma, with a thesis entitled “Islam and the Educational Function. Perspectives on Religious Assistance in Prison”. She is currently enrolled in the degree programme “Global Studies for Sustainable Local and International Development and Cooperation” at the same university.
From the Society of the Spectacle to the Mediatization of Pain
Within the paradigm outlined by Guy Debord (1967), contemporary society takes shape as a society of the spectacle, in which reality is progressively replaced by representation. The spectacle is not merely a collection of images, but a social relationship mediated by images. From this perspective, pain too becomes representation, and private suffering is transformed into a narrative event to be observed and consumed.
News reporting, traditionally oriented toward an informative function, risks being absorbed into this mechanism of spectacularization, in which the tragic event is fragmented into serial updates, emotionally charged headlines, background details, and digital commentary. The concrete experience of suffering is thus transfigured into a continuous communicative flow.
Roger Silverstone (2007) defined the mediatized public sphere as the mediapolis: a moral space in which the exposure of the other entails ethical responsibility. Yet in contemporary digital culture, such responsibility often appears subordinated to the logics of visibility.
Liquid Modernity, Transparency, and Emotional Consumption
Zygmunt Bauman (2006) describes liquid modernity as a condition marked by relational precariousness, identity fragmentation, and the immediate consumption of experiences. Within this context, pain too risks being absorbed into the logic of symbolic consumption: emotion becomes rapid, shareable, and replaceable.
Byung-Chul Han (2012; 2014) further emphasizes how the society of transparency and performance produces a permanent exposure of the individual, transforming every dimension of experience into communicable data. When pain enters the digital space, it loses its interior dimension and becomes an object of visibility. Hypercommunication does not necessarily generate understanding; on the contrary, it may produce emotional saturation and moral anesthetization.
The case of the child who could not undergo a heart transplant represents an emblematic example. The media repetition of terms such as “therapeutic obstinacy” or “pain management,” if not adequately contextualized, risks trivializing complex medico-legal categories, reducing them to narrative elements functional to emotional intensification.
Emotion generates attention; attention generates traffic; traffic generates profit. Within this circuit, suffering can be converted into economically valuable content.
Symbolic Distance and Collective Responsibility
The construction of a symbolic distance between event and individual constitutes one of the most problematic effects of spectacularization. The real subject is replaced by his or her media representation; the person becomes a character.
Thompson (2000) highlighted how media visibility transforms relations of power and responsibility within the public sphere. In the digital ecosystem, the active participation of audiences—through comments, shares, and judgments—contributes to the diffusion and valorization of content. A diffuse responsibility thus emerges: not only of the media, but also of consumers.
Curiosity is a natural human trait; however, the reiteration of dramatic content may generate a form of habituation that weakens empathy. The risk is not only the spectacularization of pain, but its normalization.
Freedom of Information and Italian Journalistic Ethics
The right to report constitutes an essential component of the democratic order, grounded in Article 21 of the Italian Constitution. However, this right encounters limits in the protection of personal dignity and the safeguarding of vulnerable subjects.
The Consolidated Text of Journalists’ Duties (National Council of the Order of Journalists, 2016) explicitly recalls the principles of truthfulness, restraint, and respect for human dignity. Article 5 emphasizes the obligation to avoid forms of spectacularization of pain and to protect individuals involved in tragic events.
The Charter of Treviso, in particular, establishes enhanced protection for minors, prohibiting any form of identification that may harm their dignity or that of their families.
The narration of medical cases involving minors therefore requires particular linguistic prudence and a rigorous balancing between public interest and respect for private life. The risk of transforming pain into media content conflicts with the principles of proportionality and responsibility enshrined in professional ethical standards.
Toward an Ethics of Narrative Moderation
Restoring empathy does not mean restricting freedom of information, but exercising it according to criteria of narrative moderation, proportionality, and contextualization.
Within the theoretical framework of Debord, Bauman, and Han, the contemporary challenge lies in removing pain from the pure logic of spectacle and reinserting it within a framework of ethical responsibility. Journalism can and must inform, but without transforming suffering into a product.
In a society that aspires to define itself as democratic and pluralistic, the analysis of the mechanisms through which pain is mediatized becomes indispensable. Only through critical awareness of communicative dynamics is it possible to preserve the centrality of human dignity in public discourse.
NOTES
[1] Constitution of the Italian Republic, Art. 21.
[2] National Council of the Order of Journalists, Consolidated Text of Journalists’ Duties (2016).
[3] Charter of Treviso (1990, updated in 2006 and 2016).
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Bauman, Z. (2006). Liquid fear. Polity Press.
Debord, G. (1967). La société du spectacle. Buchet-Chastel.
Han, B.-C. (2012). The transparency society. Stanford University Press.
Han, B.-C. (2014). The burnout society. Stanford University Press.
Silverstone, R. (2007). Media and morality: On the rise of the mediapolis. Polity Press.
Thompson, J. B. (2000). Political scandal: Power and visibility in the media age. Polity Press.
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