Murder as propaganda: Should we be watching barbaric Islamic State videos?

This week, hundreds of thousands of people watched a man being burned alive.

If you made the decision not to watch this video, you gave the victim dignity in death. But in doing so, did you also let his murderers off the hook?

This week a video was released by the militant terrorist group known as Islamic State or Isis or Isil (among other names).

That video showed a man being burned to death in a cage and then crushed by a bulldozer. That man was Jordanian pilot Muadh al-Kasasbeh, who had been held captive by Islamic State since his F-16 fighter jet was shot down over Syria during a US bombing raid on Christmas Eve.

This is the latest in a series of videos of Islamic State militants killing hostages. Each video is shot, curated, choreographed and edited to shock world leaders and frighten viewers.

But they also serve another purpose. These videos are vital propaganda for Isis. A second video was released yesterday of the pilot’s death being shown on a huge screen in Raqqa, the de facto capital of Isis in Syria. The video shows a cheering crowd watching the footage and the smiling face of a child (no older than eight) who says, “If he was here, I’d burn him by my hand. I wish to capture pilots and burn them”.

Read more: Islamic State use baby pictures as propaganda.

So, the murder videos are both internal and external marketing material for Islamic State. They tell the world about Isis’s actions and demands and give their supporters a rallying point.

The question is: what are Australians supposed to do with these videos?

Do we show them on our TVs and websites? As viewers, do we watch them or take a principled stance and refuse? Should the media show the footage, narrate the act, report on the fact of the death or just not mention it?

Unfortunately, the answer isn’t cut and dry.

Some people say: Let’s just turn away – let’s not give Islamic State air time, because notoriety is what they want.

Yes, turning away is an option. We simply refuse to watch. In doing so, we deny Islamic State the oxygen they so desperately crave.

The videos they are releasing are designed to shock. They are designed to elicit a response. If we refuse to give that response, then we undermine the video’s purpose.

In addition, in not watching the videos, we return to the victim the dignity that was stolen from them by their captors.

We can show our respect for the victims by not watching their final agonising moments and remember them for their work and their contribution to the world.

But there is a risk in turning away.

If we don’t watch each video, there is a chance that we can allow ourselves to become distant from the horror. We are able to more easily forget the atrocities that are being committed.

It is one thing to be told that someone has been murdered. It is another thing to be brought face to face with the barbarity with which it was done. We need to associate this group with its extraordinary brutality. They are not killing combatants in a theatre of war. They are executing innocent people and basking in the cruelty of it. They are serial killers and rapists.

For more: ISIS is not just a death cult. It’s a rape cult.

If we forget that, if we become too desensitized to the barbarism, if write it off as “another beheading” or “Isis has killed again” then we do the victims no justice.

We aren’t just shutting out the face of the killers, we lose the victim too.

We need to be shocked. And if watching the video is what it takes to shock us, then so be it.

We need to know that these things exist in the world because, without the images and the imagery, it is far too easy to look away. Think for a moment about the atrocities committed by Boko Haram in Nigeria. They have massacred entire townships of people and yet their crimes have barely rated a mention in international media – perhaps because there was no footage and no first person accounts. Like it or not, having footage allows us to relate to a story. Without it, we can too easily switch off.

So, for our own good, should we be watching?

To this point, there has been a lot of talk about what the media should be showing and what it shouldn’t. Whether they have a duty to communicate the atrocities or a responsibility to hold them back.

The media needs to report the news. They need to tell us what is happening across the world. If people are being brutally murdered then they need to say so. Showing the videos is not necessarily essential to that task. Communicating Isis’s demands is definitely not.

But this is 2015. So, what the media does or does not do with Isis video footage is not really the main game. If you have a phone, if you have access to the internet, then you can watch the footage any time you like.

In many respects, what the media should do with the footage is not the right question.

The real question is a more personal one.

This a conversation you need to have with yourself.

If you hear that someone was burned alive in a cage and that is enough for you to understand the atrocity involved, then don’t watch. For the majority of people this will be enough.

But if you can’t believe it is true. If you can’t believe that someone can be so cruel, then by all means, watch it. If you need to watch it in order to understand why action against this group is necessary, then watch it.

If you want to watch it because you’re curious about what it looks like when someone dies that way, then you can watch it too. But if this is the case, don’t pretend that this is anything other than what it is – the most puerile of instincts.

But whatever the reason, know that when you watch it, you will be left with a decision.

In consuming that video, there is no one to tell you what to think and how to feel – you must decide that for yourself.

And then you must make a decision – to reject a vile regime of brutality. Or to go back to your own life and ignore what is happening.

That is the responsibility of watching. And only you can decide whether you are up for that.