VISUAL ETHICAL ANALYSIS: COVERAGE OF THE YAZIDI WOMEN ENSLAVEMENT CASES IN IRAQ
Abstract:This study provides a review and mapping of
the academic literature of journalists' coverage of the ISIS militant group
attack on the Yazidi community in 2014 and the Yazidi women survivors. It
explicitly discusses the ethicality of a video broadcasted by Al-Iraqiya news
of a Yazidi woman confronting her kidnapper and sexual abuser. The paper
analyzes the video through both a visual ethical analysis, where the video is
analyzed frame by frame, and an ethical analysis with respect to previous
ethical approaches. The study concludes that the broadcast of the confrontation
was unethical as it discounted both the code of ethics and the ethical duties
and values of a journalist. Overall, the paper believes that the Yazidi women's
media coverage was unethical, subjective, and disrespectful, and undermining
towards the Yazidi survivors.