Hierarchy of death is a phrase used by journalists, social scientists, and academics to describe disproportionate amounts of media attention paid to various incidents of death around the world.

Themes

Definitions of the hierarchy of death vary, but several themes remain consistent in terms of media coverage: domestic deaths outweigh foreign deaths, deaths in the

developed world A developed country (or industrialized country, high-income country, more economically developed country (MEDC), advanced country) is a sovereign state that has a high quality of life, developed economy and advanced technological infrastruct ...

outweigh deaths in the

developing world A developing country is a sovereign state with a lesser developed industrial base and a lower Human Development Index (HDI) relative to other countries. However, this definition is not universally agreed upon. There is also no clear agreem ...

, deaths of whites outweigh deaths of darker skinned people, and deaths in ongoing conflicts garner relatively little media attention.

Explanations

The phenomenon has been linked to a variety of factors, including stereotypes about different groups of people, familiarity with the deceased, and several psychological theories, such as

collapse of compassion Collapse or its variants may refer to: Concepts * Collapse (structural) * Collapse (topology), a mathematical concept * Collapsing manifold * Collapse, the action of collapsing or Telescoping (mechanics), telescoping objects * Collapsing user ...

psychic numbing Psychic numbing is a tendency for individuals or societies to withdraw attention from past experiences that were traumatic, or from future threats that are perceived to have massive consequences but low probability. Psychic numbing can be a respons ...

, and disaster fatigue.

Commentary

British media commentator

Roy Greenslade Roy Greenslade (born 31 December 1946) is a British author and freelance journalist, and a former professor of journalism. He worked in the UK newspaper industry from the 1960s onwards. As a media commentator, he wrote a daily blog from 2006 to ...

has been credited with coining the term while writing on the newsworthiness of those who died during

the Troubles The Troubles ( ga, Na Trioblóidí) were an ethno-nationalist conflict in Northern Ireland that lasted about 30 years from the late 1960s to 1998. Also known internationally as the Northern Ireland conflict, it is sometimes described as an "i ...

. Greenslade also critiqued the phenomenon in media reactions to the Boston Marathon bombings.

NPR National Public Radio (NPR, stylized in all lowercase) is an American privately and state funded nonprofit media organization headquartered in Washington, D.C., with its NPR West headquarters in Culver City, California. It differs from other ...

discussed the disparity in media coverage between the

2015 Beirut bombings On 12 November 2015, two suicide bombers detonated explosives in Bourj el-Barajneh, a southern suburb of Beirut, Lebanon, that is inhabited mostly by Shia Muslims. Reports of the number of fatalities concluded that 43 people died directly from t ...

and the

November 2015 Paris attacks The November 2015 Paris attacks () were a series of coordinated Islamist terrorist attacks that took place on Friday, 13 November 2015 in Paris, France, and the city's northern suburb, Saint-Denis. Beginning at 9:15p.m., three suicide bombers ...

, which happened within a day of each other. Scottish journalist

Allan Massie Allan Johnstone Massie (born 16 October 1938) is a Scottish journalist, columnist, sports writer and novelist. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. He has lived in the Scottish Borders for the last 25 years, and now lives in Se ...

has also written on the topic.

Similar phenomena

The hierarchy of death has been compared to

missing white woman syndrome Missing white woman syndrome is a term which is used by social scientists and media commentators in reference to the media coverage, especially on television, of missing-person cases involving young, attractive, white, upper middle class women o ...

Themes

Explanations

Commentary

Similar phenomena

References

Further reading