Читать книгу Approaching Victimology as social science for Human rights a Spanish perspective - Gema Varona Martínez - Страница 33

On the topic of victims and media, we can also think of journalists as potential victims in war or violence contexts and in continuously dealing with violent victimisation. According to Sian Williams and Tina Cartwright (2021) in a study to examine PTSD symptoms, personal risk and posttraumatic growth in journalists, “those working in conflict areas experience significantly higher levels of post-traumatic stress and post-traumatic growth, than those who do not”. Beyond losing their own lives, this work highlights the need “to allow sufficient time for reflection and meaning-making for all those working in hostile environments”. According to various experts, the term vicarious trauma (Perlman and Saakvitne, 1995) describes the phenomenon generally associated with the “cost of caring” for others (Figley, 1982). It means the emotional impact of working with victims. It is an accumulative process that might produce a feeling of lack of meaning and efficacy in the work being done, of lack of trust in others and in the future, and also depression (Dubberlay et al., 2015; Dubberlay and Grant, 2017; Varona, 2021).