Passivity in the face of distant others’ suffering: an integrated model to explain behavioral (non-)response

ABSTRACT

When media users are exposed to the suffering of distant others, they are often deeply moved and feel the urge to help. Yet, they tend to stay passive. Communication scholars have not produced a sufficient and succinct understanding of this gap between media-induced awareness and behavioral non-response. Our knowledge is dispersed across (a) interpretative audience reception studies on mediated distant suffering and (b) post-positivist media effects research on persuasion processes and attitude-action-gaps. By synthesizing work from both traditions, I develop an integrated model and provide an explanation for passivity despite media-induced awareness. I demonstrate how cross-fertilization between these two bodies of literature can instigate theory development within both fields. Finally, my model can catalyze future interdisciplinary research on the subject.

KEYWORDS:

• Attitude-action-gap
• audience reception studies
• distant suffering
• media effects research
• motivation and opportunity as determinants model (MODE)
• reasoned action approach (RAA)

Acknowledgements

I thank Nancy Rhodes, Eline Huiberts, Dominik Neumann, Ellen Linnert, Viviane Clemens, and Kayla Roux for comments on earlier versions of this manuscript.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 For example, person A watches the TV show and tells her friend about it. The friend watches the show and decides to buy exclusively fair-trade fashion. On their next shopping spree, person A follows due to peer pressure and buys a fair-trade T-shirt despite the fact that she does not see the working conditions as problematic.