One humanizing war photograph shifted US public opinion more than reportage

Evidence

A Pulitzer Prize was awarded for a powerful photograph that captured the anguished cries of a girl whose clothes were burned off by the napalm bombing of her village in Vietnam. This single humanization of inflicted destruction probably did more to turn the American public against the war than the countless reports filed by journalists. The military subsequently banned cameras and journalists from battlefield areas to block the publication of images of death and destruction. — Albert Bandura, Moral Disengagement, 450

Categorization

Category: Causal Relationships

• SEED: Essay angle: the power of singular visible suffering versus abstract statistics in turning public sentiment — and why regimes restrict imagery.

Related

• One visible image of civilian suffering outweighed all war reporting (similarity 0.93)