Obsession With Madeline Shows Our Self Obsession

Since the disappearance of Madeline McCann in May of this year the media and general public has remained gripped by the convoluted twists and turns in the case.

Initially attention was entirely devoted to a huge awareness campaign ensuring that Madeline’s face will remain familiar to millions of people for a long time to come. Recently attention has turned from interest and hope for Madeline’s safe return to speculation and endless ill informed debate on whether or not her parents had anything to do with the disappearance.

One way or the other it can be said that this case has remained to the front in newspapers, on radio and on television since the day the story broke. The question is, why? Why is it that the disappearance of one child should receive the volume of attention that it has?

This question is usually greeted with impassioned replies about how beautiful Madeline is, how heartbreaking it must be for her family, followed perhaps by some reference to the cruelty of it all happening whilst the family were on holidays.

All these answers are indeed valid. But, only to a point. Madeline McCann is one child, the disappearance of whom is undoubtedly a tragedy for her family. However some sense of scale is surely needed. For example the humanitarian crisis in Darfur has continued with only moderate attention from the world at large.

A newspaper feature on Darfur will not come close to attracting the same readership as a front page headline on Madeline McCann. UN estimates put the number of people killed during the protracted difficulties in Darfur at 200,000 with over 2 million people displaced.

There is a definite imbalance here. But this is not an imbalance that can be simply placated with a criticism of the media world and their priorities. The bare fact of the matter is that the stories that get reported are stories that pay to get reported. Ignore all talk of social conscience and responsibility, money drives the media.

Most of that money comes from advertisements, the most successful media companies are the ones that can attract the most advertisements and the companies that can attract the most advertisements are the ones with the highest customer base.

It is an unavoidable conclusion then, that the ultimate control of what goes into to newspapers or what appears on current affairs programmes lies with the consumer. We decide where our priorities lie and then go about reading, listening and watching the information that satisfies our priorities.

So it is us, not the media that has decided that the Madeline McCann case is more important than the Darfur crisis, or indeed more important than any number of other tragedies, crimes and crises that go unreported and unnoticed every day.

If we acknowledge this fact then we are left with a very uncomfortable question. Why do the general public, you and me, think that the disappearance of one child is a more important than an issue like Darfur or human rights abuses in China or military coercion in Burma?

Is it simply that we are not capable of sympathising with anything that we can’t apply to our own lives? A large amount of parents in Ireland have been on holidays with their young children, a large amount of parents in Ireland have not seen their house, belongings and loved ones burned to the ground by a ruthless militia force.

Presented with the evidence as it is it is hard to come up with a basis for our preferences that isn’t distinctly suspect. Can it be that we are only capable of being concerned with that with which we identify? I’d like to think not. Unfortunately there doesn’t seem to be huge amount of evidence to support my optimism.