Empathetic Witnessing: Strategies for Breaking Through the Numbness of Viral Traumas

• In Event: The "Real World" struggle, unplugging or tuning in to our resistance and resiliency"

Abstract

This paper proposes methods for consuming images of Black pain, wounding and death in mediated
environments. Based off of my research on viral video consumption this paper begins with an
examination of the frictive possibilities inherent in citizen witness journalism and expands to suggest
strategies Black and brown media citizens can deploy to synthesize the dissonance between what digital
media shows us of ourselves and what we know. In doing so, this paper acts as a jumping off point for a
discussion of digital resistance, and the need for a broader, more nimble field of Black feminist media
scholarship.

Presenter

• Kalima Young, Towson University