Humanitarianism & Media

For as long as humanitarianism has been understood as a distinct human endeavor, mass media have helped to shape its forms, strategies, and contexts, whether mobilizing public sentiment over suffering in distant lands or influencing perceptions of heroism and villainy during periods of conflict. From early Christian missionary publications to the BBC's approach to charities, this interdisciplinary collection explores commonalities and novel developments in the interactions of humanitarianism and media across the long twentieth century, revealing that many seemingly new features of this relationship in fact have long historical legacies.