Introduction

Photographs of killing fields, corpses, and war horrors have been circulating in the media since the Crimean War and the American Civil War. These testimonies of violence carry a high news value; they convey unifying messages to the nation and threatening messages to the enemy. These integrating and alienating media roles are amplified in a postdigital society where digital technology is woven into all aspects of social life (Jandrić 2022; Hoskins and Shchelin 2023). Embracing a postdigital approach (Jandrić et al. 2023a, b) to examining the consequences of horror videos in the public sphere can yield insights into the evolving nature of contemporary postdigital warfare (Crilly 2022).

This article examines the function of videos of atrocities from wars in the last decade distributed on social networks. The main argument is that visuals spread in the public sphere have become a significant player in conflicts. The postdigital realm has transcended the role of predigital news in representing and reflecting battlefield events, and it is no longer possible to separate the virtual from the solid, truth from lie (MacKenzie et al. 2021). Social network content functions as an integral part of the occurrences in the physical world. The messages that people are exposed to through digital media become part of their human experience, their knowledge and collective memory, and carry consequences.

Investigating the coverage of war and atrocities diachronically is one way to understand what warfare means in the postdigital era. Our investigation commences with an analysis of the alterations in media events within a multi-screen environment. Subsequently, we delve into the fragile state of facts in the realm of post-truth (MacKenzie et al. 2021) and the viral potential of digital media for widespread distribution (Peters et al. 2022a, b). War atrocities occupy the void between these two realms—wedged between the emotionally charged spectacle of a media event and the air of skepticism that lingers around every video on social networks. To complete the description of the atrocities in social network dynamics, we propose a novel and complementary concept, hyper-truth: an acute sense of unmediated testimony to the truth, with an urge to share it forward.

The Alteration of Media Events in the Digital Age

Before social networking, media events have been studied as ceremonial events tied to one-way media such as television. These events encompassed ceremonies like coronations, funerals, peace agreements, the Olympics, and rare moments labeled as ‘conquests’ (Dayan and Katz 1992). Dayan and Katz write about the unmediated experience provided by television: a feeling of being on-site that attracts large audiences. This experience is explained by television’s affordances: the provision of equal access to the site, to everyone, everywhere, and at once. Televised events are characterized as preplanned affairs initiated by non-media entities and broadcast live. Media events encourage audiences to participate as passive yet engaged spectators, and viewing television is described as a form of ritual participation (Dayan and Katz 1992).

The traditional media event stressed the influential role of official media producers in shaping and interpreting the occurrence. A closely related concept, the ‘CNN effect,’ describes global news networks setting the agenda and exerting influence on decision-makers in the political system (Gilboa 2005; Livingston 1997). In this view, media play a key role in constructing discourses with world-shaping implications; yet this line of thinking marginalizes the role of other parts of society (Robinson 2011).

The emergence of digital technologies has transformed the dynamic between television and its audience. This shift has given rise to multi-platform media events, delivering content across various channels such as television, the Internet, and mobile phones. In contemporary scenarios, spectators actively generate content, breaking away from the role of passive audience (Roscoe 2004). Since the 11 September 2001 attacks on the USA, the scope of media events has broadened to encompass disruptive occurrences like terrorist attacks and war coverage. The coverage of the World Trade Center attacks and the public executions conducted by Al-Qaeda and ISIS signaled a departure from traditional media theories (Katz and Liebes 2007; Scannell 2022).

The first point of difference is the multiplicity of arenas. In a traditional media event, such as the signing of a peace agreement or the inauguration of a president, the cameras are aimed at one central scenario. Journalists’ voices add narration to moving pictures, giving the viewers a sense of excitement. In contrast, disruptive media events are characterized by fragmented, ongoing broadcasts and are often captured by non-professional photographers (Hoskins and Shchelin 2023; Safronova et al. 2022). In the context of the Russia-Ukraine war and Hamas’ attack on Israel on 7 October 2023, viewers were presented with videos from different locations without narration or commentary. Within a widespread viewership, atrocity videos heighten intense emotions and concentrate attention. Watching these videos generates a sense of unity against evil and imparts a feeling of bearing witness to a historical event.

The Dissemination of Horror and the Erosion of Truth

Concepts such as ‘post-truth’ and ‘fake news’ scrutinize reality put forth by political actors, scientific studies, educational textbooks, and official reports. The emergence of these concepts has been linked to the interpretation of Donald Trump’s rise to the US presidency and the Brexit movement (MacKenzie and Bhatt 2020). The utilization of post-truth discourse attracted the masses as well as the elites. Popular examples of post-truth include the flat world theory and the debate for and against vaccines during the COVID-19 pandemic (Peters et al. 2022a; Terracciano 2023; Valladares 2022). The fundamental claim within the post-truth framework is that the testimony of experts holds no inherent superiority over the testimony of an average person, as truth is considered relative and contingent upon individual perspectives (Wagener 2020). The persuasiveness of appeals to emotions, identity, and national pride is deemed equal to or even greater than other forms of evidence (Malcolm 2021; Terracciano 2023). In this paradigm, the decisive significance of facts has diminished. The rise of Artificial Intelligence (AI) has further heightened the potential for creating apparently credible events, creating various pushback initiatives including propositions for AI regulatory frameworks (Peters et al.  2023).

Unsurprisingly, the politics of post-truth is evident among both sides in the Israel-Hamas war. On the one hand, the Israeli Defense Forces face accusations of killing thousands of Palestinians and at least some of the Israelis who were taken hostage on 7 October (Frankel and Bernstein 2024). On the other hand, Israel rejects the reported number of Palestinian civilian casualties, asserting that the allegations are exaggerated for propaganda purposes (Robinson and Sardarizadeh 2023). It is noteworthy that there exists considerable forensic evidence for both events—the killings of 7 October 2023 and the extensive artillery and aerial strikes causing the deaths of thousands of Palestinians (Nierebnerg 2023; United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs 2024). However, utilizing ‘post-truth’ has become a readily accessible option, particularly in cases involving crimes against humanity.

The decentralized nature of social networks increases the challenge of misleading, biased, and uncensored news. Therefore, the pattern of information movement has been compared to a biological epidemic (Kertcher and Turin 2020). The metaphorical application of the concept of virality, drawing parallels from biology to the network society, relies on a shared contagious mechanism. Viral contagion requires a host body that reproduces and generates its replicants, and the spread of pathogens increases with the density of interactions (Peters et al. 2022a, b). War atrocity videos follow a similar pattern, originating in an individual video capture and broadcast, evoking shock and anxiety, and rapidly spreading to millions of viewers. The more harrowing the video, the wider its spread (Artrip and Debrix 2018; Semati and Szpunar 2018), confirming the known tendency of social network participants to circulate more news with negative sentiments (de León and Trilling 2021).

In the past, ‘truth’ and its interpretation were framed and served by official broadcasting entities, websites, and news applications. In recent years, social networks have been increasingly used to obtain news (Walker and Matsa 2021). Crises such as earthquakes, pandemics, and wars have highlighted an increased dependence on social networks as a primary source of information (Reuter et al. 2020). In the capacity of news sources, social media platforms offer real-time information that is apparently free from censorship and governmental influences. For example, a Syrian girl Bana al-Abed gained widespread recognition on Twitter (Chouliaraki and Al-Ghazzi 2022). Originating from a family opposed to the regime, she documented her experiences during airstrikes, offering an alternative narrative to mainstream media outlets.

Embracing such news as authentic voices could mitigate some criticisms regarding digital manipulations and the absence of editorial oversight. However, it is hard to discern if and when the voices are really authentic. Known examples include the fabrication of non-existent events and the misappropriation of images and scenes from historical contexts (Pavlik 2022; Ptaszek et al. 2023). Notably, in the Russo-Ukrainian war and the initial stages of the 7 October attack, numerous users shared screenshots from a popular video game on social networks, falsely presenting them as real-life encounters with soldiers (France 24 2023).

Drawing on Baudrillard, this phenomenon constitutes the intensification of simulacra—the adoption of fictional images as a substitute for authentic representations (Baudrillard 1995; Kolinko and Petryshyn 2022). Baudrillard (1995) posits that, in the process of erosion between reality and representation, images can become more significant than reality. In such a symbolic environment, truth becomes exceptionally fragile.

Virality and Global Debate

The dissemination of videos depicting civilian casualties in Syria and war crimes in Ukraine has sparked intense debates over their trustworthiness and interpretation (Pavlik 2022; Semati and Szpunar 2018). The pressure to align with one of the factions in these conflicts is on the rise. Choosing a side to support, beyond being an act of identity building, is closely linked to humanistic attitudes toward those perceived as the underdogs (Goldschmied et al. 2018). In this context, atrocity videos from the Israel-Hamas war are a double-edged sword.

The pendulum of global legitimacy began with sympathy for Israel, which lost nearly 900 civilians—including elderly people and babies—in brutal acts of murder on 7 October. International organizations rushed to console and condemn (The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights 2023; United Nations Secretary-General Spokesperson 2023). A week later, the pendulum swung to the Palestinian side as images arrived from devastated Gaza, presenting a wasteland of concrete rubble, refugee convoys framed as images of the Nakba (the 1948 deportation), along with bleeding children and Palestinian mass graves (Lurie-Pardes 2024; Seidemann 2023). The photos of Gaza victims provoked a wave of protests against Israel and there was a sharp increase in manifestations of anti-Semitism (Reuters 2023). The global media’s focus on the Middle East diverted all eyes; atrocities in Ethiopia, Sudan, and Ukraine were pushed out of the public consciousness (Stein 2023).

From Post-Truth to Hyper-Truth

The US involvement in Afghanistan was in part attributed to the effect of bin Laden and Al-Qaeda’s videos that proselyted radical Islam and called for a global jihad. Similarly, the photograph of the lifeless body of 3-year-old Alan Kurdi, found on the shores of Bodrum, played a role in Germany’s decision to welcome Syrian refugees (Duncombe 2020). In each instance, a violent event documented and shared through digital networks has influenced (and sometimes harmed) many others (Pinchevski 2019).

What is the role of video atrocities of the 7 October attack in shaping Israel’s response? While the number and nature of casualties cannot be disregarded, an analysis of past events may provide some insight. Unlike previous Hamas attacks, in response to which the Israeli army responded by constrained actions (Kober 2015), the 7 October event created widespread public endorsement for a more extensive deployment of artillery and ground operations (Hitman and Kertcher 2023).

Considering the importance of atrocity videos in the process of legitimizing war, we would like to propose a new concept—hyper-truth. Developed in the last decade or so, hyper-truth refers to an acute sense of truth which arises when watching the testimonies of atrocity videos. This feeling is amplified through the encapsulating ritualistic mechanism of a media event, which holds the capacity to generate a potent collective emotional response, fostering a profound identification with the subject.

Differences between post-truth and hyper-truth exist at all stages of communication process.

  • The producer. Post-truth conspiracism is attributed to expert teams in global media, while hyper-truth grows out of ordinary people’s use of smartphones.

  • The message. Post-truth message is preplanned and edited, while hyper-truth consciousness is fed by authentic photography. In the Russia-Ukraine war, some of the extrajudicial executions were filmed surreptitiously, with limited perspective, poor visibility, and no sound (Bartle 2022; Bergengruen 2022). These characteristics created a quality of unedited rawness and therefore the appearance of truth. In Hamas’ attack on 7 October, some of the photographs were taken by body cameras such as GoPros or smartphones and were broadcast live (Gunther 2023). This perspective increases the viewer’s feeling of participation.

  • The audience. Hyper-truth diminishes people’s skepticism towards fake news, as the sheer magnitude of the media event surpasses any uncertainties. The audience is encouraged to actively participate in the event by sharing videos to make it go ‘viral.’

  • The participants. From participants’ perspective, disseminating information becomes an act of political activism.

Conclusion

Hyper-truth is a postdigital (Jandrić 2023) phenomenon. The construction of hyper-truth events may have harmful effects such as the blurring of boundaries between civil society and the military, between the fictional and the real. Balanced journalism is sacrificed in favor of horror videos, and these, in turn, lead to trauma and one-sided compassion for the side with which the viewer identifies. Viewers are left, by and large, without the ability to feel any compassion for the other side (Ducharme 2022; Hoskins and Shchelin 2023). What is to be done?

A large part of the answer lies in new reconfigurations of postdigital (media) literacy (Jandrić 2019; Bhatt 2023), with an accent on reflective awareness of emotional responses to news media. This implies a synergy between education systems, governments, technology makers, media organizations, civil society, and other key stakeholders.