A Visual Analysis of Syrian and Ukrainian Displacements on Conventional and Social Media

In the nospan of a decade the world has witnessed mass displacements due to wars and other regional instabilities . The impacts of current humanitarian crises are multiplied by mass media, internet and incredible speed of social media . The impact works as the two sides of the same coin . On the one side, almost immediate spread of images of human suffering arose international public reaction and eventually forces states and other international actors to improve policies . On the other side, visualization of refugee populations on their way to asylum, triggers anti-immigrant sentiments in the receiving societies . Fake images, political manipulation and alienation are at work in both processes . Increased accessibility of camera broke down the monopoly of photojournalism but at the same time the connection between seeing and believing is highly eroded. Nevertheless, among numerous images flowing from several resources a few come to the forefront, centralize the public debate and settle in the visual memory .

This paper focuses on the illustrative photos of recent major displacements of Syrian and Ukrainian populations . The prominent images which have become the common visual memory of public will be analyzed with references to the actual social phenomena . The intention is to wove a cross-disciplinary path between sociology of migration and visual sociology . Mass displacements and refugee ‘crises’ are controversial and highly debated issues of current world politics . Comparative analysis of the two major displacements via visual material would be an attempt to give insights to both sub-disciplines . The perspectives of conventional mass media and social media, the interaction between the two are also questioned . The paper seeks to analyze how social phenomena effect the visual and how the circulation of visual materials/images shapes social phenomena with the multiplier power of current communication mediums .