Strategies for creating social advertising related to violence against women and considerations on denunciation

insights from Luc Boltanski´s theories

Abstract

The objective of this article is to examine social advertising that focuses on domestic violence against women having the work “Distant Suffering” from the sociologist Luc Boltanski as a theoretical guide. In it, the author develops reflections on politics of pity which deals with the suffering of others and its relationship with the media and the spectator. Our investigation is based on four audiovisual pieces produced between the years 2019 and 2022, two of which are from Brazil, one from Peru and one from United Kindgom. While the Brazilian productions seek to engage the spectator in denunciation, the Peruvian one has an educational purpose and the British one aims to raise funds for the NGO that supports the campaign. Each piece was subjected to the internal analysis instruments mentioned by Jacques Aumont and Michel Marie for the analysis of film productions, that is, descriptive and citational. And, to consider the potential to incite pity in the spectator for each of the causes presented, we developed an analysis methodology based on the formula outlined by Boltanski for the production of expressive forms, which combines universal and particular aspects of the representation of situations and victims of violence. This allowed us to conclude which pieces would have greater or lesser potential to engage the spectator to the pity and within the objectives of each one.