Images of Fear   

"Carne, carne!" shouted an 8-year-old Salvadoran boy in 1982 as he pointed at a pound of unrecognizable flesh. Bystanders stared at the ghastly remains of five people killed by a homemade bomb that exploded inside their car. As the San Salvador bureau chief for United Press International, I considered the event unremarkable; rebels sped through town almost nightly on bombing sprees.

Yet, at another level, the event stayed with me. Passersby had every reason to look away; why were they compelled to stare? Now in academia, I have found that this phenomenon accompanies nearly every scene of human calamity – consider the transfixing images presented by television of famine-striken Ethiopia, the Vietnam War and, more recently, the Los Angeles riots.

My research offers insight into what happens to a TV news viewer who sees these images. When faced with danger, dramatic changes take place in an instant that make us more adept and alert: Our hearts race, adrenaline shoots through our veins, our nostrils flare to allow more oxygen-rich blood to our brains, our sight and hearing become sharper. In the case of the Rodney King videotape, this helps explain why violent motions such as swinging police batons so necessarily command our attention. It also explains why if you clap your hands in a crowded room people will at least flinch and turn briefly towards you – the modern-day reaction to a tiger in the brush. For the TV viewer, the physical changes of fear take place whether the threat is from a real riot in your living room or only an image on the television screen.

More important for journalism, fear affects memory and interpretation of events – people more readily remember images that elicit negative emotions, such as riot footage. Although many viewers don't remember much of the information presented in TV newscasts, they are adept at remembering images – even those flashed on the screen for only 400 milliseconds. I've also found that jarring images such as those from an air show in which flaming jets cartwheeled into the crowd can easily displace both visual and narrative information that directly precede them. Violent footage, apparently, gets the front row; less compelling information takes time to set.

Viewers often retain generalized memories based on such footage even after forgetting most details about the event itself – what might be seen as the root of stereotyping. For example, the perceived relationship between street violence and race likely grew stronger among many viewers each time brutal attacks on motorists were shown. Critics have argued that because footage was aired so often and because viewers don't readily absorb voice-overs that put isolated images in better context, the brief videos weighed too heavily in the viewers' conclusions about L.A. and America's social realities.

Los Angeles community leaders voiced that criticism repeatedly, and CBS anchor Dan Rather seemed to have it in mind when he cautioned during one riot newscast that cameras can only reflect a small part of what's going on. Similarly, NBC's Garrick Utley a few years ago provided details about the air show disaster before showing the graphic footage. My research suggests that these admonitions didn't make much difference; both men probably should have aired the images immediately and saved their narratives for the end to provide viewers with a context they would remember.

No matter how such images are presented, few journalists argue that compelling or disturbing footage should be withheld altogether from television news. Would we have been fully informed of the events around Tiananmen Square without news cameras? Would we have been as moved by a printed description of the L.A. police officers' 56 baton swings in 81 seconds? Yet the generalized memories created by the repetition of King's beating and the violence on L.A.'s streets may in the long run foster antagonistic attitudes about both the police and young black Americans that have little to do with reality. Reporters who argue that the public has a "right to know" also should acknowledge that television has redefined "knowing."

Newhagen is a professor at the University of Maryland College of Journalism.