‘I’m afraid that the whole world will forget about us while we remain isolated in our long-term conflict.’ When I read these reflective words, freshly written by Olena Myhashko, editor-in-chief of Gwara Media, sitting beside me on a one-week residency at Eurozine in Vienna, they transmitted a sense of urgency. Her piece, which fears the inevitability of audience fatigue, begins with a comment from one of the Gwara’s partners abroad: ‘We can no longer accept so many texts on Ukraine. Our readers are tired.’
Since war broke out in Ukraine, much reporting has followed the standard blow-by-blow formula. Reporting conflict is necessary. But how affective can it be at keeping audiences alert to the plight of others at distance? On-the-scene reporters, those faces we recognize for always being close to the action, keep us up to date but not present.
Metaverse wars
John Keane recognizes that this is not a new phenomenon. Much reporting, rather than being objective, aligns with a history of persuasion, now in overdrive: ‘In the age of metaverse wars, elected governments and their armed forces, with the help of loyal journalists and state-of-the-art tools of communication, transform war into multi-media entertainment,’ he laments. And fatigue has become the buzz-word bandwagon of many a politician and commentator looking for absolution from a war that is carrying on without much sign of resolution.
Making sense of the war
Title: The Explosion of Gunboat No. 2, under Command of Jan van Speijk, off Antwerp, 5 February 1831. Date: 1832. Institution: Rijksmuseum. Provider: Rijksmuseum, Netherlands. Public Domain
Photo via Europeana from Unsplash
In anthesis to ‘churnalists’, there are those who recognize when public discourse turns from shock to reflection. Tatiana Zhurzhenko looks to the past, present and future of the Ukrainian situation, asking when Russia’s war on Ukraine started, what is it doing to society and how it will end. War has led to a rethinking of Ukraine: ‘intellectuals have commented that the country should be seen as an asset rather than a liability for the EU, as a possible solution to the crisis of the European project and as a source of inspiration,’ she writes.
Facing trauma
Olena Myhashko knows a personal angle can reawaken attention: ‘here I am, the bilingual child of my Soviet-born, Russian-speaking parents, hiding from these Russian rockets in the corridor, listening to Politics Weekly America, staring at Soviet wallpaper in the dark.’ We empathize with others more readily when they become genuinely individual, not just for show, and when something of their otherworldly experiences retains a universal element.
As a journalist listening in to other journalists, she describes an existential crisis: ‘Their voices were so unflappable, their reporting style so plastic that it made me think, one of our countries is simply not real. “Do they live in reality?”, I asked myself. “And if so, where am I? What is this place called where gas prices, clothes, goods and amenities don’t matter?”’
Indeed, the fatigue exists in more than one direction and is not always a simple case of a lack of attention span. War ostracizes those under attack from engaging with their own lives: ‘I discovered that everything I’ve ever read and learned had completely lost its appeal. All of them – from Baudrillard to Pulitzer winners – couldn’t respond to my reality. They just have nothing to say to that; they don’t belong here.’
Being briefly in Vienna seemingly gave Olena time out from the war. And yet, perhaps, it also highlighted just how far apart these parallel realities are: ‘It seems like something essential has been simply withdrawn from the people of Ukraine and that is the very basic idea that the world could be a safe place. … I’m afraid that every war – no matter where it was unleashed – will be somehow my war. … I’m afraid this war paused the person I’ve become.’
Those of us who are living a privileged existence beyond war, whose lives haven’t been suspended, can afford to keep our attention focused. ‘Why is it important?’, asks Myhashko. ‘Because this tendency of forgetting something that is no longer viral and alluring is one of the reasons why wars are becoming acceptable.’
