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Today, almost anyone can upload and disseminate newsworthy content online, which has radically transformed our information ecosystem. Yet this often leaves us exposed to content produced without ethical or professional guidelines. In Graphic, Alexa Koenig and Andrea Lampros examine this dynamic and share best practices for safely navigating our digital world. Drawing on the latest social science research, original interviews, and their experiences running the world's first university-based digital investigations lab, Koenig and Lampros provide practical tips for maximizing the benefits and minimizing the harms of being online. In the wake of the global pandemic, they ask: How are people processing graphic news as they spend more time online? What practices can newsrooms, social media companies, and social justice organizations put in place to protect their employees from vicarious trauma and other harms? Timely and urgent, Graphic helps us navigate the unprecedented psychological implications of the digital age.
List of contents
Introduction: Taking in Trauma from Our Newsfeed; 1. A Short Summary of a Long History of Graphic Witnessing; 2. Images and the Brain; 3. Images and Identity; 4. Agency and Control; 5. Community as a Protective Force; 6. Meaning in our Online Lives; 7. Policy and Practice: What Next? Conclusion: Lessons on Resilience from San Miguel.
About the author
Alexa Koenig is co-Faculty Director of UC Berkeley's Human Rights Center and an Adjunct Professor at UC Berkeley School of Law. She co-founded the Human Rights Center Investigations Lab and is an author of Hiding in Plain Sight (2016) and Digital Witness (2020).Andrea Lampros is the Communications Director at the Berkeley School of Education. She is the former Associate Director at the Human Rights Center, co-founder of the Human Rights Center Investigations Lab, and the Resiliency Manager of the lab.
Summary
Today, almost anyone can upload and disseminate newsworthy content online, which has radically transformed our information ecosystem. Yet this often leaves us exposed to content produced without ethical or professional guidelines. In Graphic, Alexa Koenig and Andrea Lampros examine this dynamic and share best practices for safely navigating our digital world. Drawing on the latest social science research, original interviews, and their experiences running the world's first university-based digital investigations lab, Koenig and Lampros provide practical tips for maximizing the benefits and minimizing the harms of being online. In the wake of the global pandemic, they ask: How are people processing graphic news as they spend more time online? What practices can newsrooms, social media companies, and social justice organizations put in place to protect their employees from vicarious trauma and other harms? Timely and urgent, Graphic helps us navigate the unprecedented psychological implications of the digital age.
Foreword
Explores our growing global exposure to distressing imagery, offering science-based ways to maximize connection and minimize harm from time online.
