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Media and aid

This paper discusses the content and nature of the messages and images that are being communicated by development organisations to public in the West in fund raising posters.

Special attention is given to evolving representations of the 'other' and the 'self' in this material. In addition to the poetics of imagery, the author also discusses the issues of power that are associated with the institutionalised production of images and information on both the 'other' and the 'self'. The central question addresses whether messages and images in fundraising campaigns have changed over time, or can one determine certain discourses and dogmatic images that continue to dominate the nature of these fundraising campaigns.

The paper specifically considers the annual '11.11.11 action' campaign run by the Belgian NGO the National Centre for Development Cooperation (NCOS). Conclusions drawn include:

• fundraising posters usually present simplified explanation or poor representations of poverty
• in many cases there is a picture of a figure representing the 'other', mostly children, the 'other' is defined as innocent, vulnerable, ignorant, passive and helpless
• these images can assert that there will at any time be a legitimate reason for this NGO to exist and to keep on working
• NGO's have the power to make discursive knowledge claims about themselves, the people they. In other words, NGOs are institutions with considerable powers

The paper finally notes that in their efforts to raise vital funds development organisations may become blind to the indirect, and often unintended consequences of fundraising. The images and slogans we may see in the streets or in the popular media contribute to a pre-existing dominant discourse of poverty that feeds 'structuring dichotomies' and maintain boundaries between the West and the Rest.

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