A key concept we discuss in IML340 is compassion fatigue, about which students did this initial remix exercise during the second semester the course was run (2009). The video zooms in and out of continents across the globe (this was pre-Google Earth recording technology so they did this by hand using key frames in Final Cut Pro) as they identify issues that seem particularly thorny on each. The digital argument was feuled by their research and the statistics they uncovered.

Indeed one of the issues raised in Reporter, thedocumentary about Nicholas Kristof's work for the New York Times, centers onwhy people act when they see another person in need. And why they fail to actwhen they see many persons in peril. Examining research in cognitive studies,Kristoff examines the issue of psychic numbing and investigates the emergingresearch into how people act when faced with images of children in need.Studies show that when people are asked to contribute to help individualchildren, they will give money, but when exposed to a group of childrencontributions drop off considerably. Evidently people feel overwhelmed whenfaced with masses whose lives they can never really impact. But this is not thewhole story. Studies show that people will contribute in response to a littlegirl and a little boy separately; however when these two are pictured together,the contributions again drop. This led Kristof to write an Op Ed piece, "Save the Darfur Puppy."

Kristof refers to research by Paul Slovic who outlines a "psychophysical model" to explain why it is that genocide is recurring and people participate in it or simply allow it happen. In "'If I Look at the Mass I Will Never Act': Psychic Numbing and Genocide," Slovic maintains "the past century haswitnessed a remarkable transformation" in the ability to report on world events, and yet genocide is not stopped. Slovic believes that the human capacity for empathy has notkept pace with technological innovations that allow us to view the problems ofglobally diverse peoples, a point raised by Jerry Mander as well.

Invoking psychological and cognitive theory about affect, Slovic notes that:

Affect is a remarkable mechanism that enabled humans to survive the longcourse of evolution. Before there were sophisticated analytic tools such asprobability theory, scientific risk assessment, and cost/benefit calculus,humans used their senses, honed by experience, to determine whether the animallurking in the bushes was safe to approach or the murky water in the pond wassafe to drink. Simply put, System 1 thinking evolved to protect individuals andtheir small family and community groups from present, visible, immediatedangers. This affective system did not evolve to help us respond to distant,mass murder. As a result, System 1 thinking responds to large-scale atrocitiesin ways that are less than desirable.

The role of emotion and reason on learning is also an emerging area of study for neuroscience and educational theory, most notably by educational theorist Mary Helen Immordino-Yang and eminent neuroscientist, Antonio Damasio. They argue that current educational models, confined to the classroom space, are wrongheaded. They map the interplay of emotion and cognition as it bears upon learning.

As educators have long known, it is simply not enough for studentsto master knowledge and logical reasoning skills in the traditional academicsense. They must be able to choose among and recruit these skills and knowledge usefully outside of the structured context of a school or laboratory. Because these choices are grounded in emotion and emotional thought, the physiology of emotion and its consequent process of feeling have enormous repercussions forthe way we learn and for the way we consolidate and access knowledge. (9)

While further research is sorely needed, for now, this issue is addressed in class and it provides some fodder for students as they decide whether it's rhetorically effective to highlight a single human story before adding statistical evidence that might impact a viewer on both an affective and logical manner.

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