Retorica imaginii: copiii în conflict
The Rhetoric of the Image: Children in Conflict

Summary/Abstract: Children and notions of childhood remain a central pillar upon which contemporary representations of are formed to seek support for efforts of relief and development work. This paper presents the research findings of a case study on a unique charity campaign titled Children in Conflict which was a response to sensationalistic narratives often depicted in charity advertising and to combat audience ‘compassion fatigue’. The campaign was a collaborative project with a large UK-based charity, Christian Aid, and the Wolverhampton Art Gallery which made use of art to promote political action. This case study examined the ways in which visual discourses were utilised to persuade audiences into political action and what, if anything made an image an ‘advocacy image’. The study used visual discourse analysis to deconstruct the way contemporary issues of war, child soldiers, AIDS and childhoods within them were depicted. The findings show how the notions of non-ideal childhoods are referenced to construct the Other in order to overcome the ‘politics of pity’ and transform it into a politics of action. The analysis shows how visual and textual discourses manipulate distance between the represented participants and the viewing participants creating pity to encourage action.

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