Screen, War, and Emotion

Despite the nonstop frontline coverage, the demonstrative speeches of the leaders from both sides, and the global condemnations delivered by protesters and UN ambassadors of many countries, the current war between Israel and Lebanon's Hezbollah guerrilla group makes no sense. Because people in those two countries are losing lives, loved ones, and homes. Mothers are losing their children. Fired missils have turned community space with blocks of buildings utterly into ruins. All because of human ignorance and intolerance. Some may argue that life has always been this way in that region. There was never real peace. But, do people there need more wars to perpetuate that hostility and misery? Isn't true that violence breeds violence?

Why are we touched by the images of civilians caught up in the war? The power of the television screen makes us caught up ourselves. Our senses are connected to the image, sound, and motion of the screen. In perceiving, we are no longer the subjects nor they the objects for our gaze. We become participants in the conflict. On screen, war zones of Beirut, Haifa, Hermel switch back and forth in front of our eyes, and time and history of the Israel-Lebanon clash are explained in spacial terms. It is the nature of constant motion in the television image that moves us viscerally and emotionally. As Kaha Waite writes, "The dynamization of space and spatialization of time capture and transport the viewer, creating a sense of motion that is kinesthetic, visceral, felt. The term motion is related to emotion." She also draws on the work of Erwin Panofsky, who studies the medium of motion pictures, arguing that the movies have the power to communicate psychological experiences by directly transmitting the content to the screen, replacing the eye of the viewer for the consciousness of the character. Similar to the movies, then, television images also have the "emotional quality of that kinesthetic motion," and this motion substitutes our eyes for the experience and consciousness of the people who are now fleeing their homes and living on the verge of their fatal destinies.