The Pornography of Poverty: Reframing the Discourse of International Aid's Representations of Starving Children

Canadian perceptions of developing countries are often dominated by images of starvation, despair, and crisis. The result is that people see not solutions to development challenges, but perpetual problems. One cause of these perceptions may be fundraising messages that present distorted portrayals of the developing world. Images of buzzing flies, begging eyes, and bloated bellies flood television screens and print media in an attempt to pull at heartstrings and garner donations. This article examines the problems of representation in development advertising and explores its evolution over a six-year time period using an ideological analysis of select communications materials produced by three child sponsorship organizations. It then proposes framing theory as one possibility for developing more balanced representations and asks whether current advertising practices are more in line with its propositions.