What human rights researchers need to know about vicarious trauma

Why is it important to know about vicarious trauma as a human rights researcher?

While the increased availability and rapid dissemination of content in the digital era have the potential to transform human rights fact-finding, it also presents new challenges for the researchers tasked with gathering and analysing this content.

Stress, compassion fatigue and vicarious trauma are some of the effects viewing graphic content can have on open source investigative researchers. 

With more than 500 hours of footage uploaded every minute just on YouTube alone, open source researchers have access to more audiovisual content than ever before, including the types of traumatic images often encountered pertaining to human rights abuses.

Researchers may also find themselves balancing multiple investigations at once as they seek to make the most effective use of this wealth of information to expose the numerous human rights abuses taking place across the globe at any given time.

This creates a whole host of challenges unique to open source research and the modern social media landscape.

In this video, Sam Dubberley of Amnesty International outlines what vicarious trauma is and why human rights researchers should take note. 

Want to learn more? Sign up for Amnesty International’s free 2-part course on Advocacy Assembly.