*Originally published in 2023 and preserved as part of our archive project. E-International Relations is free to read. We rely on reader support to make this possible.

Stijn Joye is an Associate Professor at the Department of Communication Sciences of Ghent University (Belgium) where he teaches and conducts research in the field of international communication. His main areas of research and publications concern international news reporting with a focus on the representation of suffering and crises alongside issues of domestication, colonial heritage and the practices of seriality and artistic imitation in screen culture. In 2006, Joye was awarded the ‘IAMCR Prize in Memory of Herbert I. Schiller’ for his work on the alternative global news agency Inter Press Service. Together with the late Jan Loisen of Free University Brussels, he co-authored a Dutch and English handbook on the theoretical foundations of communication sciences. Joye is also an Associate Editor of International Communication Gazette and book review editor of Communications: The European Journal of Communication Research. He is also an active member of several international academic associations and was a lecturer at Erasmus University Rotterdam (the Netherlands) as well as a Visiting Fellow at LSE (UK) and at Sichuan University (China).

Where do you see the most exciting research/debates happening in your field? 

When looking at the field of mediated distant suffering I believe this young strand of research has currently developed into a stage of consolidation accompanied by thematic expansion. Following two waves of research that laid the groundwork, the field is now welcoming and opening up for more diversity in research approaches, foci and actors. While the initial work has focused on the textual and normative dimension of the representation of distant suffering through, by and via the media, a second wave of research delved empirically into audience engagement. Up until today, scholars from different disciplines are continuously contributing to this body of knowledge, but now do so from new and refreshing angles. 

Colleagues are currently putting the basic findings to the test in new contexts, rapidly expanding our knowledge of, for instance, how non-Western media report on distant suffering or how people from diaspora communities or authoritarian countries relate to the suffering ‘other’ represented by the media. This tendency of de-westernizing the field was very much needed to gain a more comprehensive understanding of the role of media, audience (dis)engagement, or discursive strategies of representation, in very different contexts with regard to the central notion of distant suffering. Concerning the latter, adjacent topics of research have grown in importance as well. Take for example the increasing interest in humanitarian communication by non-media actors such as political organisations, advocacy groups or NGOs. Of course, technological developments have spawned a plethora of new gateways for research. For one, think about ethical questions surrounding the ubiquity of graphic images of suffering in our digital age.

How has the way you understand the world changed over time, and what (or who) prompted the most significant shifts in your thinking?

When I started off with my own PhD research under the guidance of one of the most brilliant people I know, Daniël Biltereyst, I was going through the vast literature on international news. Although very helpful in understanding the history, context and practices of foreign news reporting, it felt like something was lacking. It was not until I came across The Spectatorship of Suffering by Lilie Chouliaraki that my project took the right direction. Impressed by her seminal work and critical spirit, I decided to go deeper down the proverbial rabbit hole, both theoretically by reading into critical media studies, as well as methodologically with the exploration of Critical Discourse Analysis. This allowed me to think differently and understand the world in a significantly different way, urging me to be aware of and actively look for concealed power........

© E-International