‘The Hungrier the Better’? – A commentary on Save the Children’s Poster

Like many other fundraising campaigns, Save the Children uses images of people suffering from humanitarian crises to elicit financial support from the general population. On the surface, this practice seems practical and effective due to its appeal to emotions combined with easy-to-follow instructions. Yet, upon deeper analysis, ethical issues regarding consent, privacy, consolidation of stereotypes and lack of transparency arise. 

Using images of people suffering is a common practice among NGOs. Inherently, humans are emotional beings. Studies have shown that altruism is ‘hardwired’ into our brains, making it pleasurable when we help others [1]. Save the Children exploits this psychological fact by showing images of malnourished children against a dark and ‘sad’ background, invoking a strong empathetic response, driving people to donate out of pity, sympathy, and guilt. One could argue that this is highly beneficial from a utilitarian perspective, as it harnesses the power of emotions to garner more money for the NGO, benefitting a larger population in the future.

NGOs also understand that potential donors see images of crisis victims in all sorts of campaigns. To make it more appealing to specifically donate to them, Save the Children uses a white textbox, in contrast to the black backdrop, to emphasize a clear, simple message: just text us and you can help people. This extremely simple instruction capitalizes on the public’s love for convenience and increases the chance of people taking a short moment to contribute to the cause. This theoretically leads to more funds and more humanitarian action.

Although done in good faith, Save the Children’s campaign is not perfect. First, there may be a problem of consent and infringement of privacy. The humanitarian sector has grown to respect individuals more by using photography consent forms to ensure those, or at least their family members, captured on camera understand and agree to what the pictures are used for. Yet, even if photographers did so, there is no recognition or appreciation of the children and their families mentioned in the campaign. Moreover, consent forms may not be sufficient to ensure that people know what, exactly, will be done with photographs. For example, in areas with a lack of internet, even if they say yes to you posting on social media, do they really know what that entails? Do they know external parties may potentially screenshot, share and comment on the pictures? Do they know their pictures may stay on the internet forever? If people from developed countries are so conscious about uploading pictures of themselves onto the web, then under-resourced populations should be owed the same respect. Unfortunately, the pictured children are shown in full, with their entire face exposed to everyone. Methods such as pixelation or blacking out the eyes could perhaps be a more ethical and respectful way of using these images. 

There is also an issue of transparency in the campaign. As mentioned previously, the instructions are concise and simple. Yet, this comes at the cost of detailed explanations of how the collected fund would be used. Does Save the Children have a robust, ethical, and feasible plan to help malnourished people? Are the funds even going to benefit the specific children captured in the campaign advertisement? These are some important questions that are not addressed, suggesting an exploitative use of the images just to appeal to conscience rather than thorough thought and understanding of the humanitarian work. 

A final criticism to the campaign rests on its reinforcement of stereotypes. One key ideal of humanitarian work is to bridge the gap between developed and underdeveloped societies through empowering locals to develop capacity and sustainable changes. Yet, the images of malnourished children precisely plays into the weak and hopeless stereotype people have of the Global South. Indirectly, they further the notion of underdevelopment and consolidate the notion of western superiority, which goes against the aim of humanitarian work.

In the future, NGOs could consider shifting images used in campaigns from ‘needs’ to ‘solutions’. For example, instead of showing malnourished children, show images of the NGO working together with locals to provide food to communities. Upon seeing such images, the general public would still be emotionally inspired to lend a helping hand, have a better grasp of how the NGO operates and strengthens the idea of capacity-building. It is vital for NGOs to start approaching fundraising campaigns from a ‘bottom-up’ view.

References 

1. Christov‐Moore L, Iacoboni M. Self‐other resonance, its control and prosocial inclinations: Brain–behavior relationships. Human Brain Mapping. 2016;37(4):1544–58. doi:10.1002/hbm.23119