TY - JOUR
TI - #Humanity washed ashore. Visual metaphors and emotions in social media
AU - Hodalska, Magdalena
TI - #Humanity washed ashore. Visual metaphors and emotions in social media
AB - 
	In 2015 almost 3000 refugees died trying to cross the Sea to Europe. 3-year-old Alan Kurdi was one of them. Together with his mother and brother, the boy drowned when a boat carrying migrants sank at dawn of September 2, 2015. His body was found on a Turkish beach, where Nilüfer Demir took memorable pictures of the boy and a policeman  cradling Alan in his arms. The photos appeared on front pages around the world, in news and social media. The toddler has become a tragic human face of the humanitarian crisis, a symbol, an icon, an emblem, and emotional vehicle allowing thousands of Internet users to express their grief and outrage and manifest their compassion through sharing the dramatic images of Alan and creating their own stories about the boy’s afterlife. Visual metaphors generated in this unprecedented way provide us with insight into the sentiments of media consumers, who watch the evening news and create their own narratives refl ecting their feelings about Europe’s refugee crisis. Extremely strong  emotional response of social media users who shared and disseminated the images of Alan, hash tagged #Humanity Washed Ashore, is the focus of my paper which demonstrates how Internet users manifest their views and express what words cannot express, resorting to metaphorical representations that can be discussed in terms of  storytelling. My study investigates how the stories created by media audiences go beyond the narratives prevalent in traditional media and what it tells us about Compassion 2.0, fear, grief, anger and other emotions in the digital age.
VL - 2018
IS - Volume 61, Issue 2 (234)
PY - 2018
SN - 0555-0025
C1 - 2299-6362
SP - 209
EP - 223
DO - 10.4467/22996362PZ.18.015.9110
UR - https://ejournals.eu/en/journal/zeszyty-prasoznawcze/article/humanity-washed-ashore-visual-metaphors-and-emotions-in-social-media
KW - social media
KW - emotions
KW - visual metaphors
KW - narratives
KW - media coverage
KW - refugees
KW - humanitarian crisis
KW - grief
KW - compassion
KW - anger
KW - Internet