Is the misrepresentation of an Entire Continent Worth International Aid?

Africa the Homogenous Country (Continent)

A common phrase we hear from caretakers around the United States. is “eat your vegetables, there’s hungry kids in Africa”, or “Now, you behave or I’ll send you to Africa”. What is truly puzzling about these idioms is why, despite most adults knowing that hunger is not only an issue in Africa, why parents are never saying, “eat your vegetables, little Timmy down the block is not getting enough to eat”. Why is Africa a place where you would send a child to punish them? This self projection of ourselves onto a pedestal is due to the misportrayal of Africa is western media, the idea that the only thing an entire continent is dictated by is crippling poverty, hunger and disease. This false representation has been coined in the advertisement industry as “poverty porn”. (Roennigk) The effects that it has have been evident in both the U.S and Africa.

To begin with, poverty porn empowers the wrong person. While empathy is a poignant human emotion, it leads to donations out of pity, not activism. These advertisements don’t properly inform the viewer of the true cause or effect of the issue on the African population. If a problem is to truly be solved, the donations need to be long term, from a true belief in the cause and fight against the issue. For example, a CNN informative article about fistula, a devastating condition that affects women in Africa, attracted more than half a million views, which raise awareness of the disease.(Meikle) When people are given the opportunity to learn and truly know  know how devastating what they are donating to can really be, they are more likely to tell their friends about it, bringing in more money long term. This use of only pathos adverts also affect the Africans that they are trying to help, It essentially teaches them that they are unable to bring themselves out of a problem; that they must wait for the white man to come and help them. This results in a spread of low self confidence among Africans, the belief that international aid is the only way they will ever rise above some of the issues of their continent. (Roennigk)  While the original goal of these pathos advertisements was to raise money for those who needed it, many say that poverty porn has spiraled into something completely different within itself. With it being such a large market now, many companies are now competing to see who can find the “saddest” picture. The belief is that the sadder, the story the more money the organizations will bring in. This leads to unhealthy competition between organizations, trying to find the worst of a continent has shown not to be the most effective aid strategy. Best put by reporter Glendora Meikle, “With each drab answer to my prying questions, I was scanning the room for other girls with better sob stories”. (Miekle) This cherry picking for the worst conditions just result for even worse misrepresentation of the people of Africa. If a country were to only air advertisement showing the worst conditions of any continent, it would a horrible misportrayal of said continent. So why do we continue to allow organizations to inaccurately portray an entire continent?

One of the most common arguments for poverty porn is that the ends justify the means. Studies have shown that when organizations use advertisements with sad children, they make about 50% more money. (Ahern) Furthermore, the professionals who are hired specifically to raise more money for the charity strongly believe that: “Empathy is a pre-condition to giving, so if you can stimulate an empathetic response in someone, then you're more likely to get a gift”. (Steesing) Obviously, the more money an organization makes, the more money will go to charity. The real question is, does the money trump the negative sociological effects of telling only one of the many stories of an incredibly diverse continent? We are already seeing the adverse effects of this kind of pity advertising in both parties, the advertisers and the advertised. Unfortunately, whether or not we will see these misrepresentations in our daily life beyond threatening misbehaving children with a trip to Africa will completely depend on just how far people will go for money.