Type of Document	Thesis
Author	Kurniawan, Saputro Adi
Author's Email Address	kurniawansaputro@yahoo.com
URN	etd-04272009-093841
Title	The Pitying Witnesses: An Exploratory Study of Indonesian Audiences' Reception of Listen to Our Voice and Operation Fine Girl
Degree	Master of Arts
Department	Communication, Department of
Advisory Committee	Advisor Name Title Stephen McDowell Committee Chair Jeanette Castillo Committee Member Jennifer Proffitt Committee Member
Keywords	Audience Reception Human Rights Media Indonesia
Date of Defense	2009-03-19
Availability	unrestricted
Abstract This study aims to examine audience’s reception of ethical claims in human rights documentaries. Since the nature of human rights campaigns is international, audiences’ responses will have to deal with the distance between themselves and the people in the video. In this study, two groups of Indonesian audiences were shown two human rights documentaries; one is about torture cases in Indonesia and the other one is about rapes in war in Sierra Leone. To examine how the Indonesian audiences received the ethical claims, the study uses a discourse analysis approach to unpack subject positions constructed by the audiences. The findings indicate that the pain shown in the documentaries invokes the Indonesian audiences to align themselves with the sufferers. They sympathize with the sufferers based on their preexisting, or inexistent, knowledge about them. Their ability to receive the transfer of responsibility from the documentaries’ world to their real world is determined by the structure of the stories and their knowledge of Sierra Leone and Indonesia. The audiences’ intention to act is influenced by the setting of the screenings and the resources provided to them.
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