感受他人的「痛苦」：「底層」痛苦、公共表達與「同情」的政治

Feeling Other's Pain: Subaltern’s Pain, Public Expression, and the Politics of Compassion

袁光鋒(Guangfeng YUAN)

《傳播與社會學刊》 40期 (2017/04) Pp. 203-236

https://doi.org/10.30180/CS.201704_(40).0009

摘要

「留守兒童」問題已經成為當下中國重要的公共議題。在一些公共事件中，這一群體的「痛苦」引發了「道德震撼」和公眾「同情」，推動了公共討論的進行。本文以兩起畢節留守兒童死亡事件為案例，以商議民主理論為框架，討論了大眾傳媒是如何塑造底層「痛苦」的，以及底層「痛苦」引發的公眾「同情」是如何在網路空間中被表達的。研究發現，傳統媒體通過「代理者語言」向公眾呈現了留守兒童的「痛苦」，並賦予「痛苦」以公共價值。「同情」推動了圍繞這一議題的公共討論，公眾的「同情」結構主要包含悲痛、憤怒、諷刺、羞愧、無力感等情感，在表達「同情」時，公眾會徵用現有文化資源和官方的話語資源。採用「我們－他們」的視角，將他者置於與「我們」不同的文化位置，是網民拒絕同情的主要策略。儘管在兩起事件中，媒體和公眾「同情」都引發了較多的公共討論。但政治權力的結構性不平等導致底層群體的「情感體驗」很難獲得進入公共空間的常規管道，「同情疲勞」是這一群體不得不面對的事實。

關鍵字

同情 ； 痛苦 ； 商議民主 ； 留守兒童 ； 公共空間

並列摘要

The problem of ＂left-behind＂ children has been an important issue in contemporary China. This group's pain aroused a ＂moral shock＂ and public compassion in some public events. Two case studies are used to examine the representation of this subaltern group's pain in mass media and the public expression of compassion in cyberspace from the perspective of deliberative democracy theory. Mass media represent the pain of left-behind children through the language of agency, and they play an important role in making their pain a public issue. The public compassion aroused by subaltern pain has been an important motivation for public expression, which is structured by emotions such as sorrow, anger, satire, shame, and powerlessness. Netizens use both official and cultural discourses to express compassion. These findings are valuable because they contribute to considering the moral and emotional dimensions in the formation of the public sphere. Subalterns' pain is rarely expressed in the public sphere because of the inequality of political power, which inevitably leads to compassion fatigue.

並列關鍵字

compassion ； pain ； deliberative democracy ； left-behind children ； public sphere ； subaltern