Research in the information age and the risks of researcher vicarious trauma

Abstract

Exposure to traumatic material during research may traumatize scholars, contributing to negative health outcomes and curtailing research work. This article argues the social sciences have been slow to address the challenges engagement with potentially traumatizing material pose to researchers. The article reviews key literature on vicarious or secondary trauma and outlines how it might affect scholars. It considers examples from the professions, and scholarly fields including the technology industry, international development, countering violent extremism studies, and genocide studies which have already begun to grapple with these challenges. A case study focused on Myanmar-focused social sciences research outlines how recent improvements in mobile phone camera technology, Internet availability, and international linkages enabled by social media increase researchers’ exposure to potentially traumatizing material. A description of Researcher Vicarious Trauma is proposed and suggestions for how scholars, institutions, and professional associations might positively tackle the contemporary challenges of Researcher Vicarious Trauma are made.

Facing the challenge of researcher trauma

Receiving a gory image of a severed foot, sent to me from Myanmar (officially named Burma until 1989) using the WhatsApp messaging tool, and my reaction to this, prompted me to write this article which calls for a greater acknowledgment of the challenge indirect trauma poses for researchers and for social sciences research. Recent advances in communication technology mean the volume of potentially traumatizing material being shared and experienced by researchers has increased significantly. This may particularly be the case for those undertaking engaged research, whose work often involves close interaction with potentially challenging source material including first-person testimony, photos, or videos from conflict zones. The greatly increased volume of potentially traumatizing material shared with researchers can exacerbate vulnerability to experiencing vicarious trauma (also often described as indirect or secondary trauma) and may also make more social science researchers vulnerable to trauma of this nature than might have been the case in the past. This leads me to propose Researcher Vicarious Trauma (RVT) as an appropriate label for the experience of researchers negatively affected by the potentially traumatizing material they are increasingly likely to be exposed to in the information age. Because of the nature of scholarly research, which has a heavy reliance on minimally supervised solo researchers whose work is routinely not regarded as traumatizing, and key differences with psychology where concepts like vicarious and secondary trauma originated, RVT is proposed as a category that can and should be understood as distinct from, although sharing similarities with, concepts including vicarious trauma as understood by psychology, burnout, and post-traumatic stress disorder (Eriksson et al., 2001; McCann and Pearlman, 1990; Pross, 2006).

This call for action is not intended to minimize the traumatic experiences of the victims whose traumas researchers may ‘only’ experience secondhand. Rather, this is an article whose primary intended audience is scholars, policy makers, and journalists whose professional lives may involve contact and interaction with material, including first-person accounts, photos and videos of atrocities, that can contribute to indirect trauma on the part of the researcher – challenges that can be particularly great for those undertaking engaged or action-oriented scholarship, policy development, or journalism. My view is that engaged scholarship, policy development, and journalism serve important societal roles and should be encouraged. Consequently, barriers that limit the possibility of ongoing engaged research should be removed where possible. RVT, particularly when unacknowledged or unaddressed, has the potential to severely curtail research by limiting researchers’ ability to continue with their work. However, researcher trauma has been under acknowledged within the social sciences, by academic institutions, and is infrequently discussed within our professional associations. This article aims to prompt discussion about RVT and address this significant research method lacuna within the social sciences. This is important because exposure to traumatic material during research may traumatize scholars, contributing to negative health outcomes, and curtailing research work.

The article argues that the social sciences have been slow to address challenges engagement with potentially traumatizing material poses to researchers. The article is structured to first describe the nature of vicarious or secondary trauma as understood by psychology, how it might affect scholars in the social sciences. It includes a brief consideration of examples from the professions, and scholarly fields including the technology industry, international development, countering violent extremism (CVE) studies, and genocide studies which have already begun to grapple with the challenges posed by engagement with potentially traumatizing material. Next it will be shown how recent improvements in mobile phone camera technology, Internet availability, and international linkages enabled by social media increase researchers’ exposure to potentially traumatizing material. As a case study to illustrate this, recent events in Myanmar and the way potentially traumatizing material associated with that country may frequently be communicated to researchers will be examined. Without seeking to universalize the research experience, the contemporary global communications environment will be shown as having created new challenges for many scholars whose experience of ‘being in the field’ can be effectively extended, by weeks, months, or potentially by years – well beyond the duration they, or their institutions, may have expected or prepared for. After this, based on the review of the literature and mindful of the contemporary research context, a description of RVT is proposed and some suggestions for how scholars, institutions, and professional associations might positively tackle the contemporary challenges of RVT are made.

What is vicarious trauma?

The terms vicarious traumatization (VT) and secondary traumatization are often used interchangeably including in the literature (see Chouliara et al., 2009; Devilly et al., 2009; Dunkley and Whelan, 2006; Makadia et al., 2017; Sabin-Farrell and Turpin, 2003). Alternative but similar models based around each label have been developed with a focus on the experiences of mental health professionals who have been exposed to client traumas. There is a great deal of overlap between the models of ‘vicarious traumatization’ (McCann and Pearlman, 1990) and ‘secondary traumatic stress’ (STS; Figley, 1995). Both models refer to negative outcomes that can be associated with indirect trauma exposure, and both identify the amount of trauma exposure as a contributing factor, with cumulative exposure to traumatic material contributing to symptoms of trauma for those exposed indirectly. There are, however, some differences of emphasis between the VT and STS models in terms of the consequences they attribute to indirect trauma exposure. The STS model emphasizes the development of trauma symptoms which parallel Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD; Figley, 1995), while the VT model emphasizes disrupted beliefs related to self, others, and the world (McCann and Pearlman, 1990). Because of the similarities between each model, notably their common recognition of a pathway toward traumatization that can involve indirect exposure to trauma, and the frequent interchangeable use of the terms secondary trauma and vicarious trauma within the literature, this article does not privilege either model. Instead, the terms and concepts are regarded throughout this article as interchangeable. However, for clarity, and to avoid unnecessarily implying that trauma experiences should be rankable (e.g. primary or secondary), the term vicarious trauma is preferred and used most commonly (although not exclusively) throughout the article.

A framework for understanding the psychological impact of vicarious trauma was developed by McCann and Pearlman and published in 1990 (McCann and Pearlman, 1990). Their study identified the profound psychological impact of working with trauma victims, and it was based on their work with mental health professionals who spent a significant amount of their professional time working with or studying victimized persons. McCann and Pearlman (1990) noted how, despite the mental health professionals in their study all having advanced degrees, specialized training, and professional supervision, they were nonetheless, ‘not immune to the painful images, thoughts, and feelings associated with exposure to their clients’ traumatic memories’ (p. 132). These reactions might be short-term like the disruptions associated with counter-transference while working with victims (Blank, 1985; Danieli, 1984; Lindy, 1988) or have longer lasting consequences involving changes to the therapist’s own ‘cognitive schemas, or beliefs, expectations, and assumptions about self and others’ (McCann and Pearlman, 1990: 132–133). This, they labeled ‘vicarious traumatization’ which they suggested followed an infection model where the therapist’s proximity to their client’s trauma, in a sense, gets rubbed off on the therapist such that the closer the individual comes to serious traumas, the greater the risk they themselves could experience traumatization.

McCann and Pearlman (1990) outlined how the literature identified exposure to the traumatic experiences of others can have deleterious mental health consequences for those close to the victim including therapists. They have been far from alone in presenting an infection model for therapists – their model has similarities with Jung’s (1959) identification of ‘unconscious infection’ that can come about from working with the mentally ill, and Chessick’s (1978) suggestion that depression and despair in one’s clients may be contagious. Similar observations were made by Danieli (1982) and Freyberg (1980) to explain how the children of Nazi concentration camp survivors were found to experience social and psychological difficulties, as were the children of the Vietnam combat veterans studied by Kehle and Parsons (1988). Schauben and Frazier (1995) noted too the relationship between personal contact with victims of trauma and increased levels of reported PTSD symptoms.

With a focus on victimization literature, Figley (1982, 1983) addressed what they described as secondary trauma to note how those close to victims, like family members, may show signs and symptoms that bear similarities with those of the victim. Ludick and Figley (2017: 112) described STS as having emerged from the concept of secondary victimization and suggested it referred to negative outcomes associated with ‘indirect trauma exposure, attributable to the process of vicarious traumatization’. Initially considered specific to trauma-work, Ludick and Figley (2017) explain STS is now a term widely applied, while the term compassion fatigue (CF) may often be used specifically with reference to the helping professions. Noting the importance of recognizing STS, they showed STS and CF as sharing features with PTSD, and they argued for a wide focus going beyond the helping professions when seeking to help those with STS. They advocate for the inclusion of, ‘anyone reading or thinking about traumatic materials, not just those working directly with traumatized mental health clients’ (112) and provided a non-exhaustive list of groups (including funeral directors, victim advocates, attorneys, jurors, court workers, journalists, researchers, and trauma curriculum teachers/students) that could readily be regarded as potentially at risk of STS.

There is a broad literature indicating exposure to another person’s traumatic material can have potentially traumatizing consequences for those close to them, including family members and therapists. Academic researchers whose work involves interviewing research participants or being exposed to potentially traumatizing material could too find themselves in this category. Researchers in the social sciences may well find themselves exposed to experiences analogous with those of the therapists upon which the McCann and Pearlman study was based, and as noted in more recent research from the CVE, and content moderation fields that will be examined below. As will be outlined through the Myanmar case study below, our contemporary global communications environment makes this situation increasingly likely for many academic researchers. However, before considering this, some of the ways other fields have sought to tackle the deleterious consequences of vicarious trauma will be briefly examined and some known risk factors noted.

Tackling trauma, a review of key literature

Writing of the mental health professions, McCann and Pearlman (1990: 136) asserted that whether vicarious trauma is ultimately destructive to the helper and the therapeutic process depends largely on the extent to which the therapist is able to engage in a parallel process to that of the victim client to transform their experiences of horror or violation. Leaning on a solution that involves therapy for therapists acknowledges processes of professional supervision long commonplace and considered mainstream within psychology. Colarossi, Heyman, and Phillips (2005), whose research examined stress among New York area community social workers in the immediate aftermath of the 9/11 attack, indicated stressors that predicted symptoms could include proximity, knowing a recovery worker, and directly witnessing the disaster. While they did not identify gender as a factor, they noted how women appeared more willing to report symptoms. As with other studies that examined proximity to traumas, Colarossi et al. (2005) noted proximity to ground zero contributed to the development of PTSD symptoms. This suggests scholars with greater exposure to traumatic material are likely to be at heightened risk of themselves experiencing trauma.

Most ominously, Pross (2006) identified a high risk of burnout among caregivers exposed to traumatic material unless preventive factors were in place. A notable contributing factor indicated by Pross (2006) was the lower levels of social recognition that some professional roles may command. The preventive measures indicated included adequate self-care, solid professional training in psychology, therapeutic self-awareness, regular self-examination and collegial and external supervision, limiting caseload, continuing professional education, learning about concepts of traumas, occasional research sabbaticals, keeping a balance between empathy and proper professional distance from clients. Pross (2006) also suggested the existence of a separate institutional setting was an important preventive factor. Other protective measures suggested by McCann and Pearlman (1990) included the importance of taping into potential sources of support in one’s professional network and the importance of avoiding professional isolation by having contact with others undertaking similar work. They indicated how organizing professional support groups can be helpful, as can the facilitation of experienced professionals, and the importance of opportunities for emotional support beyond professional and intellectual support. Just as PTSD is regarded as a normal reaction to an abnormal event, McCann and Pearlman (1990) noted that there is no quick fix, and viewed vicarious trauma as a normal reaction to stressful and sometimes traumatizing work. They suggested replicating coping strategies that have worked – striving for balance between professional and personal lives; balancing clinical caseload with other professional activities like teaching or research; finding a balance of victim and non-victim cases; acknowledging and respecting boundaries like limiting evening work; giving ourselves the permission to fully experience the emotional reactions of which we are aware; finding ways to nurture and support ourselves; engaging in political work for social change; seeking non-victim related activities that might be able to provide hope and optimism. They contended that maintaining optimism in the face of tragedy is ‘an essential component of making our work with victims possible’ (146–147).

These suggestions have similarities with the work of Quitangon et al. (2016) who examined vicarious trauma in mental health professionals in the aftermath of the 9/11 terrorist attacks. They identified risk factors including personal trauma history, pre-existing symptoms of depression and anxiety, heavier trauma caseload, proximity to ground zero, but their study indicated protective factors. These included age and experience (there were greater challenges for younger and less-experienced clinicians, a point also echoed by Adams and Riggs, 2008), religion/spirituality (suggesting frequency of religious observance may provide a protective effect), marital status (this study found benefits for married mental health professionals, as did Adams et al. (2006), although they noted another study by Creamer and Liddle (2005) had found relationship status to be statistically insignificant), and regular supervision. While they did not specifically examine the role of engagement with volunteer activities, Quitangon et al. (2016) nonetheless noted how studies like that by Eidelson et al. (2003) did indicate some benefits associated with volunteer activities.

Examining trauma exposure among international relief and development personnel, Eriksson, Kemp, Gorsuch, and Hoke Foy (2001) drew upon literature on military combat which suggested the degree of combat exposure is significantly related to PTSD symptomology. This was similarly the case for emergency services personnel who were shown to report higher levels of distress associated with greater exposure to critical incidents (Marmar et al., 1996). Eriksson et al. (2001) suggested the need for personnel programs and pre-deployment training, risk assessments about exposure to trauma, and contingency planning can best prepare personnel for service. They noted too that social support after a traumatic event can be closely related to the development or avoidance of PTSD symptoms (Eriksson et al., 2001). This support can be beneficial even when it is informal – a point made by Fullerton et al. (1992: 276) whose examination of firefighters exposed to trauma noted the beneficial nature of ‘support by buddies’. Eriksson et al. (2001) noted too that social support may act as a buffer for those experiencing high levels of trauma exposure. They described how exposure to traumatic events can extract a price from individuals and they pointed to work by McCall and Salama (1999) and Smith et al. (1996) which challenge aid agencies to ensure appropriate selection, training, and psychological support during and following critical events. A similar challenge could easily be made to academic institutions as an encouragement to ensure appropriate psychological support for researchers before, during, and after their research engagement with material that might be potentially traumatizing.

There is an extensive literature too suggesting that potentially traumatizing material can take the form of atrocity-related material rather than requiring in-person contact with victims. For instance, through work with Vietnam veterans, Haley (1974) identified how intense emotions can be evoked by exposure to atrocity-related material. Similar experiences have been widely reported by journalists, a point highlighted by publication of a number of high-profile studies including research by Dubberley et al. (2015) and by the availability of professional guides, toolkits, and events aiming to address and mitigate the challenges of exposure to traumatic material (Bedei, 2021; Brayne, 2009; Osmann et al., 2021). Dubberley et al. (2015) studied the impact of viewing traumatic eyewitness material on the mental health of media and human rights staff, reporting ‘[. . .] distressing eyewitness media has had a negative impact upon their mental and physical health and their personal lives’ and found that more than half of journalists surveyed indicated exposure to traumatic content several times per week. In a 2019 legal case, an Australian court awarded damages for psychological injury to a journalist whose employer, the Age newspaper, required them to work on traumatic events including as a court reporter covering gangland killings (Ricketson and Wake, 2019).

The traumatization of those working with online content including images, has in recent years drawn the attention of scholars in the Countering Violent Extremism space (see Allam, 2019; Baele et al., 2017; Conway, 2021; King, 2018; Reeve, 2020; Winter, 2019), and been a key concern for those focused on the experiences of investigators of Internet child exploitation (ICE; Brady, 2017; Burns et al., 2008; Krause, 2009; Powell et al., 2014). The health consequences of their work on content moderators, often engaged at a distance as contractors by technology companies have also drawn considerable attention in recent times (Beckett, 2018; Newton, 2019). This has especially been the case when content moderators have undertaken high-profile legal actions against current or former employers such as Google (Alphabet), Facebook (Meta), Microsoft, TikTok, and YouTube (BBC, 2020; Drootin, 2021; Duffy, 2022; Levin, 2017; Lieu, 2018; Newton, 2020). These studies and lawsuits commonly note how repeated exposure to potentially traumatizing content can result in serious health consequences.

Technology company content moderators are routinely exposed to material that includes hate speech inciting violence or even genocide, child exploitation imagery, adult sexual content, racism, and violence that includes harm to people and animals, self-harm, and suicide (Fritts, 2022; Newton, 2019, 2020). Content moderators have no direct contact with victims, but there is a growing body of evidence pointing to widespread and serious negative health consequences for content moderators associated with the work they are required to undertake (Drootin, 2021). Investigative journalism like that of Newton (2019, 2020) has identified numerous content moderators engaged by major technology companies suffering PTSD, chronic anxiety, and other serious long-term mental health conditions.

Google (Alphabet), for instance, has studied allowing content moderators to view blurred content or see material in greyscale. This study found,

reviewing content in grayscale improved positive affect of reviewers while reviewing the most violent and extreme images in a statistically significant manner. Blurring the content, however, entirely had a further negative impact on emotional affect of reviewers, and in particular increasing the irritability of reviewers. (Karunakaran and Ramakrishan, 2019: 57)

Discussing low-cost changes like providing material in greyscale, Google’s researchers concluded, ‘We find that simple stylistic transformations can provide an easy to implement solution to significantly reduce the emotional impact of manual content reviews’ (Karunakaran and Ramakrishan, 2019: 57). Google’s researchers suggested future research might consider ‘interventions such as masking specific colors (for example, changing all red to green), selective blurring, artistic transformations, different shades of greyscaling’ (Karunakaran and Ramakrishan, 2019: 57). Facebook already provides options for content moderators to blur faces, use greyscale, as well as to mute the sound in videos (Newton, 2019). It is unsurprising that technology companies have lent heavily on low-cost technology-based solutions, but these may be coming at the expense of costlier non-technology-based options like providing content moderators better pay or improved overall working conditions including allowing them to more readily step away from the monitor when they feel the need to.

There are aspects of the work of content monitors that has overlap with CVE scholarship – at least as regards the viewing of potentially traumatizing material. Understandably, scholars in the CVE field have been among the most vocal advocates for addressing the challenges posed by research within the contemporary communications environment (see Baele et al., 2017; Conway, 2021; Krona, 2020; Reeve, 2020; Winter, 2019). This is perhaps because of the specific challenges CVE work may pose for researchers. For instance, Conway (2021) outlines the safety challenges to researchers in the CVE field include potentially serious physical risks, risks associated with exposure to potentially traumatizing material, and the risk of online harassment (Conway, 2021).

Conway (2021: 370) called for attention to an emergent literature from the CVE field that recognizes the importance of ‘researchers mental and emotional wellbeing’ and pointed to Winter’s (2019) work as, ‘the first online terrorism researcher to comment in writing on the potential damage to researchers of a steady diet of hateful and often violent content’ (Conway, 2021: 369). Winter (2019) acknowledged that while ‘even the most violent content is deserving of study’ much of the material CVE researchers may be exposed to can be distressing in its nature – ‘Videos of mass executions, captive torture, and pre-teen suicides are routine in this sphere, as are close-up photographs of rotting and defiled corpses’ (p. 11). A recent study by Lakomy and Maciej Bożek (2023) examined how exposure to terrorist propaganda may lead to research trauma, finding ‘most surveyed terrorism researchers have experienced mental harms from exposure to violent extremist content at least once in their careers’ (p. 1). A 2023 study by Pearson et al. (2023) highlighted the ongoing challenges CVE researchers face, cataloging ‘for the first time the range of harms they [CVE researchers] have experienced, the lack of formalized systems of care or training, and their reliance therefore on informal support networks to mitigate those harms’ (p. 7).

Few fields of study can be expected to be as emotionally challenging as genocide studies. Scholars undertaking this work can be exposed to images, videos, and firsthand accounts of mass atrocity including mass murder, sexual violence, war crimes, life in apartheid conditions, and forced migration. In calling for the genocide studies field to better address the challenges posed to researchers by exposure to potentially traumatic material, Bischoping (2004) alarmingly argued of genocide studies, ‘the field may be better described as “designed” to traumatize rather than as “destined” to do so’ (p. 560). To address this, Bischoping (2004) proposed widening the scope of what might be identified as genocide studies to dilute scholars’ concentration on emotionally challenging material. Bischoping (2004) also noted the ‘shock’ that can often be experienced by students when first undertaking genocide studies and being exposed to the emotionally challenging material that is central to it. In highlighting Jonassohn’s (1994) assertion that ‘distraught students tended to drop his genocide studies class’, Bischoping (2004: 545) indicated there could be a great number of potential genocide scholars who dropped out of the field early having been unable to surmount the emotional challenges of engagement with potentially traumatizing material. It is unlikely genocide studies is the only field where students or researchers struggling with the emotional burden of difficult material might leave the field entirely. This points to a need for those engaged within all fields where emotionally challenging material might be common, to be mindful that the seeming absence of individuals negatively affected by their work does not mean the work has not negatively affected scholars in that field – but may only mean that traumatized researchers have dropped out and ended their research.

As well as the emotional trauma that might be associated with the nature of the material genocide scholars engage with, Bischoping (2004: 559) presented three compounding factors, aspects of which may have application to social sciences research more broadly: ‘the isolation in which many genocide instructors work, the discourse of obligation prevalent in the field, and the lengthy history of genocide’. Bischoping (2004) suggested feeling ‘alone in the trenches’ (559) was a warning sign of VT and noted many studies (including Burke et al., 1996; Greenglass et al., 1996; Greenglass et al., 1998) that highlighted the importance of social support from colleagues as a protective against burnout. To address this, Bischoping (2004) advocated for self-care, therapy, and peer consultation, and for reducing the discourse of obligation that can sometimes prevent those in the genocide studies field publicly admitting to difficulties with the emotionally challenging material they can be frequently exposed to. As will be outlined through the Myanmar case study in the next section, the modern communications environment makes such exposure increasingly likely.

Research in the information age: Traumatic material widely shared online

Worldwide, most people experienced the Internet revolution incrementally beginning in the 1990s, although this was certainly not a uniform experience (Internet availability in the Global South continues to be markedly less than in the Global North). Prior to 2012, Myanmar had one of the world’s most restricted communication landscapes (Lee, 2021). Military rulers had actively blocked Internet and mobile telephone access meaning Myanmar had largely avoided the Internet revolution. Mobile telephones were luxury items well beyond the financial reach of most and consequently Myanmar’s mobile phone use was so low as to be comparable only with that of hermit state North Korea (Motlagh, 2014). The overwhelming majority of Myanmar’s population had never experienced an accessible Internet and endured a severely restricted news media environment with military appointed censors greatly influencing published news content. Myanmar’s communications landscape changed dramatically from 2011 with the mobile phone market opened to international carriers contributing to a significant reduction in the price of SIMs and increasingly widespread connectivity. From a very low base, mobile phone penetration reached 80% of the population by the 2015–2016 fiscal year (Matsui, 2015) and by 2021, there were more mobile telephone connections than people and a connectivity equivalent to 127% of the population (with many people having more than one mobile telephone connection; Kemp, 2021). Concurrent with new Internet and mobile telephone accessibility, the authorities ended pre-publication press censorship (Pidd, 2012) and unblocked access to exile media. These government decisions ensured mobile telephones became widespread among Myanmar’s residents, who could access foreign media and use previously blocked social media and messaging platforms. The heavy reliance of Myanmar’s residents on social media channels to access news has been widely documented (Lee, 2021). By 2021, a key consequence of these policy and societal changes was that most people in Myanmar had access to mobile telephone technology with Internet connectivity and often with inbuilt camera and video recording capabilities.

One Sunday morning during April 2021, almost 3 months after Myanmar’s military seized power in a coup, I awoke to a WhatsApp message from a contact who often shared material sourced from their extensive networks within Myanmar. Throughout my time undertaking research associated with Myanmar, the material they shared had been consistently reliable and a valuable source of real time information from within the country. Since the 1 February 2021 coup, the material they shared had frequently included graphic images illustrating the country’s badly deteriorating security situation. Without thinking about the likely content, I opened the message and saw a series of graphic images illustrating the brutality of that country’s military junta and its attempts to dominate a civilian populace resistant to military control – the bloodied corpses of murdered civilians, severed limbs, and badly injured people described as torture victims.

Digital material circulated in the aftermath of Myanmar’s coup was routinely confronting. On one day, engaged observers might see images of soldiers using sniper fire to kill peaceful protesters (Al Jazeera, 2021; Human Rights Watch, 2021), on another, it could be military fighter jets attacking poor mountain villagers to collectively punish them for reversals inflicted on the military by armed groups with which they shared an ethnicity (Min Ye Kyaw and Ratcliffe, 2022; Reuters, 2022). Sometimes, the footage was less bloody, but no less challenging to experience, like when soldiers forced a resident to porter for them, making him crawl like a dog along a city street (Reuters, 2021), or images of soldiers using power hoses to wash protesters blood off the streets (McPherson, 2021). Unlike professionally filmed news footage which can sometimes have a movie-like feel that allows the viewer to maintain some distance from disturbing subject matter, many of the images and videos being sent from Myanmar were obviously amateur productions. Material like this was also frequently reproduced in the media, and can still be readily accessed online, particularly on platforms like Twitter at the #whatshappeninginMyanmar location. Often, multiple videos or photos of the same event taken by different people (and from different angles) would be received. While this could make verifying the authenticity of material relatively simple, it also made it more difficult to maintain emotional distance from the material – its amateur feel contributed to a sense of authenticity which greatly increased its emotional impact.

If the images being circulated were graphic and confronting, that was because they represented the brutal and confronting reality for people living in Myanmar and experiencing the military coup. These were the kinds of images journalists routinely viewed but generally chose not to publish – there was often too much gore for newspapers or television news services that could find themselves restrained by regulatory frameworks like the United Kingdom’s watershed (Royal Television Society, 2015). Throughout the months after Myanmar’s military launched their coup, I had received thousands of similar messages sent by trusted contacts in Myanmar, and increasingly from people unknown to me using encrypted messaging applications. Messages and images arrived too through my public social media channels which I have routinely used as research conduits and to keep in touch with contacts. Academic colleagues and human rights researchers whose work also focused on Myanmar reported similar experiences, a point that has been noted as well by journalists working in the region (Fishbein, 2022). It was not only images and videos that were being shared, but also graphic and compelling requests for assistance that researchers and journalists had little chance of being able to fulfill. I found the large volume and seemingly unrelenting nature of the digitally shared material unexpectedly jarring and shocked me far more than anything I would have previously experienced as a researcher.

When I described this situation to a colleague whose research was centered on Myanmar, they shared their strong reaction to the equally confronting content they had also received since the time of the coup. They told me that in the days after they had worked analyzing and verifying video images of military brutality against peaceful civilian protesters, they had experienced anxiety and nightmares, both experiences they described as new and unusual for them. During the months following the Myanmar coup, I spoke regularly as well with colleagues working in academia, media, and for human rights organizations, many of whom similarly noted the confronting nature of the material they were viewing from Myanmar, its large volume, the frequency with which it was forwarded to them, and the challenges they had experienced dealing with it. Our individual responses to engaging with this confronting material might well be characterized as exhibiting elements of vicarious trauma, although this was not a term that colleagues ever raised with me – they more often used the term burnout to describe their emotional state. Consistent too with my own experience was that those I spoke with universally noted what they considered to be the unusually large volume of traumatic material being shared with them and that this material would arrive to their handsets or computers on a seemingly unrelenting 24/7 basis.

For me, this represented a noticeable change from previous experiences of undertaking academic research that involved working with potentially gory and confronting images and subject matter. I had previously undertaken considerable research examining the genocide, crimes against humanity, and war crimes committed against Myanmar’s Rohingya minority and documented first-person testimony from Rohingya victims of the brutally violent forced deportation of Rohingya from Myanmar to Bangladesh during 2017 (Lee, 2021). On that occasion, I had prepared to enter a challenging research environment and had a clear sense of when I would subsequently be leaving the field. During 2017, I had of course received and viewed challenging material online, but in the aftermath of Myanmar’s 2021 coup, I found the seemingly unrelenting nature of the material arriving to my handset and inbox and its volume was significantly greater than I had expected or previously experienced. While this occurred in a context where I was not undertaking fieldwork research, because the material was very often being circulated by informants known to me, and was closely related to my research focus, this replicated many of the stresses I have come to associate with being in the field. For those whose fieldwork was concurrent with the launch of the coup, their experience of being in the field was likely significantly more prolonged than they expected, by their interaction with potentially traumatic material from Myanmar being shared with them using online communication platforms.

There are, of course, some notable differences between the media and information technology context of the Rohingya’s 2017 forced deportation and Myanmar’s 2021 military coup and its aftermath. The events of 2017 were more strictly delimited geographically (directly affecting the northern portion of Rakhine state rather than the entire country) and demographically (affecting a Rohingya community of around 1 million people). Pre-existing limits on Rohingya access to SIM cards and mobile phones contributed to a relatively limited access to images and videos of Rohingya victims of atrocity crimes – until the forcibly deported Rohingya reached the relative safety of Bangladesh refugee camps and could access the Bangladesh telecommunications network (Human Rights Watch, 2013). Myanmar’s soldiers also made efforts to limit the Rohingya’s ability to document the crimes against them, by targeting for arrest or murder, people seen taking photos or making videos of soldier’s crimes. The Myanmar military also severely curtailed the ability of the domestic and international media to access locations where Rohingya civilians were being targeted for violence (Head, 2017, 2018).

When the Tatmadaw launched its 2021 coup, the communications and media context throughout Myanmar was different. While the military certainly limited Internet connectivity – daily Internet blackouts were documented in real time by groups like NetBlocks (2021) during the early days of the coup there remained periods daily when the Internet was connected and images and videos could be shared domestically and transferred outside the country. Anti-coup activists, and it appears clear, the vast majority of Myanmar’s population are opposed to military rule, and in an effort to attract support from international actors like the United Nations were keen to communicate this, and accounts of military atrocities against civilians to as wide an international audience as possible. Domestic and international media, for a time, also retained some ability to document events within Myanmar, particularly from its two largest urban centers, Mandalay and Yangon (Chau, 2022; Ebbighausen, 2021; Fowle, 2021; Padang, 2022). Activists and media commonly described military atrocities in the aftermath of the 2021 coup as continuing a pattern of military violence against civilians that had long-existed within Myanmar, and had been periodically more severe during instances of popular resistance to military rule like the 1988 Uprising (often identified as the 8888 Uprising because its key events occurred on 8 August 1988), or 2007’s monk-led Saffron Revolution. But in 1988 and 2007, the Myanmar and global communications environments differed markedly to the situation in 2021. Real time news, photos, and videos of previous crises in Myanmar were not only scarcer but methods of dissemination like email, social media, and messaging platforms were either rare or unavailable both within the country and internationally. The 8888 Uprising, for instance, played out in an overwhelmingly analogue communications environment with severe restrictions on journalists’ and activists’ ability to share material, and academic researchers’ ability to access material in real time. International news reports of the 8888 Uprising relied heavily on short-wave radio broadcasts, telephone reports from within Myanmar and video tapes smuggled out of the country (Head, 2021; Min Zin, 2003).

With the public overwhelmingly opposed to the military’s 2021 coup, and military atrocities widespread (UN Myanmar, 2021; UN News, 2021, 2022), it is understandable that large numbers of ordinary people documented military crimes – and, in an effort to encourage international support for their collective efforts to resist military rule – shared, often graphically violent material widely, using platforms including Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, TikTok, Line, Signal, Viber, and WhatsApp. Public figures, journalists, and researchers whose contact details were publicly available or those who had pre-existing links with people within Myanmar were often inundated with material, much of it potentially traumatizing, produced by witnesses to events taking place in real time. This created a high likelihood that researchers focused on Myanmar would receive much larger volumes of potentially traumatic material than would have been the case for researchers focused on the country prior to the Internet age.

This Myanmar case study has been used to highlight how researchers are today more likely to be exposed to traumatizing material through their work, but globally, there are many other similar examples. These might include the health and economic consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic, impacts of climate change, or conflicts in Myanmar, Syria, Ukraine, and Yemen. To help address this, it is proposed that the social sciences more readily recognize the challenges indirect trauma can pose to researchers in our field, and the next section will briefly describe RVT, and propose some specific steps that researchers and institutions can take to help address this.

Researcher vicarious trauma as normal and foreseeable

This article has outlined how a considerable literature identifies the ways exposure to others’ traumatic experiences can have deleterious consequences for those close to the victim, and notes that this is both a normal reaction and entirely expected. Both the VT model proposed by McCann and Pearlman (1990) and Figley’s (1995) STS model refer to negative outcomes that can be associated with indirect trauma exposure and both identify the amount of trauma exposure as contributing factors, with cumulative exposure to traumatic material contributing to symptoms of trauma for those exposed indirectly. Academics whose work involves interviewing traumatized research participants or being exposed to potentially traumatizing material could too find themselves in this category. However, since the expectations and supports available to scholars are different to those available to the therapists the VT and STS models were based upon, it is appropriate that the experience of indirect trauma among scholarly researchers be labeled and addressed differently. I propose RVT as an appropriate label for the experience of researchers negatively affected by the potentially traumatizing material they are increasingly likely to be exposed to in the information age.

RVT is a normal and foreseeable reaction to the stressful and sometimes traumatizing material researchers can be exposed to indirectly through their research. As shown through the Myanmar case study, the contemporary global communications environment increases the likelihood of such exposure for scholarly researchers. Technology can now place us indirectly in contact with traumatic events and material from almost any part of the world on a 24/7 basis. For scholars, the period of time experiencing emotions akin to those of being in the field may now frequently be greatly extended. The need for measures to protect against RVT has rarely been greater, but the impact of RVT can likely be mitigated by adopting best practice from fields that have already engaged more thoroughly with the consequences of indirect trauma.

An important first step must be for researchers, institutions, and our professional associations to more readily acknowledge RVT as a normal and foreseeable reaction to indirect exposure to traumatic material encountered during the research process. Taboos around discussion and disclosure of RVT that have plagued discussion of mental health more generally within academic settings, need to be removed. Institutions must commit to actively providing support for researchers to avoid and reduce the impact of RVT, and to support the necessary professional counseling and psychological services for those who need it. This commitment should ideally be accompanied by public acknowledgment from senior university figures of the challenges RVT may pose for their staff and a commitment to tackle this by embracing successful strategies identified in the literature, including enabling a balance between professional and personal lives, limiting demands for emotionally taxing work to be regularly undertaken on weekends and out of hours, and by acknowledging that RVT may pose greater challenges for junior employees.

Common within the literature was an acknowledgment that risks of indirect traumatization are greater for those lower in professional ranks or with lower social recognition making it important to acknowledge they will likely need greater support than those with more experience or in more senior roles (Pross, 2006). Describing clinical settings, Quitangon et al. (2016) identified protective factors included age and experience, with greater challenges for those who are younger and less experienced (a point noted too by Adams and Riggs, 2008). In an academic context, this points to the importance of acknowledging that doctoral and early career researchers may need more support, including more regular supervision than senior scholars. Institutions should ensure senior scholars have an awareness of RVT and are provided with the training necessary to provide this supervision. A helpful step would be for institutional research ethics processes to mandate addressing RVT, ensuring that researchers, their supervisors, and their institutions commit to maintaining researcher well-being throughout the research process. This would provide researchers and their supervisors with a clear institutional endorsement of the importance of maintaining researcher well-being and could help clarify for researchers that consideration of their own well-being throughout the research process need not come at the expense of research participants. It may be helpful too for institutions to include consideration of the risks of RVT, and how well it is addressed by its researchers, within institutional researcher well-being metrics.

Lessons from the literature on international relief workers strongly indicate the value of good planning and of training before and after deployment, which again points to the need for an awareness of RVT, quality supervision, and the development of strategies to tackle RVT before and after engagement with potentially traumatizing material (Eriksson et al., 2001). The literature also notes there can be risks to some, associated with their own pre-existing trauma histories. The literature does not suggest such histories should prevent research involving exposure to traumatic material, but rather called for a greater acknowledgment that our personal histories can have an impact on our ability to undertake particular work and can alter our support requirements. Creating barriers to entry into those fields of research that might involve interaction with potentially traumatic material would reduce the diversity of these fields and risk adding further pressures on those who remain to carry a greater burden (a point of concern raised by Bischoping (2004) about the genocide studies field). An awareness of how personal histories or characteristics may affect individual researchers is important and, as with the extra supports that more junior scholars might need, should be acknowledged and addressed by researchers, institutions, and academic associations.

Academic associations have important leadership and support roles to play as well. These bodies occupy an important space in the professional lives of scholars and by better acknowledging RVT can help remove taboos about discussion of researcher health and encourage the normalization of discussing and addressing RVT. Academic associations, as membership-based organizations, can provide important platforms for the peer support that can be an important protection against RVT. While academic associations usually combine conferences with limited social activities, more frequent opportunities for informal peer support should be encouraged and organized by academic associations. Eriksson et al. (2001) noted exposure to traumatic events can extract a price from the individual and pointed to the importance of social support, which can be beneficial even when it is informal. McCann and Pearlman (1990) similarly indicated the importance of avoiding professional isolation by having contact with others undertaking similar work and suggested support from within one’s professional network can be a protective measure for those undertaking emotionally taxing work. Being mindful of this, and considering how the modern communications environment increases the risks to researchers of RVT, peer support activities should be regarded as core business for academic associations. This call is especially important for associations whose memberships are known to be routinely engaging with potentially traumatizing material such as those engaging with subjects related to violence, poverty, or climate catastrophe. A focus of this peer support should be on addressing and reducing the discourse of obligation, noted by Bischoping (2004) that may pressure researchers in some fields to stay in closer and longer contact with traumatic material than they might otherwise feel comfortable.

For individual scholars, their supervisors, and institutions, managing the extent of exposure and their proximity to traumatic material is crucial, as these can contribute to trauma. Academic researchers should be mindful of the hazards associated with both exposure to traumatic material indirectly (for instance, through images or videos), and close proximity to trauma (for instance, through interviews or fieldwork visits to or near disaster sites or conflict zones). Researchers, supervisors, and institutions should be aware of the need to manage both the extent and proximity of researchers’ exposure to traumatic material and must be prepared to limit pressures on researchers to stay close to traumatic material. The literature noted how the separation of stressful work activities from home settings can assist with this, with a separate institutional setting identified as helping prevent trauma (Pross, 2006).

Separating emotionally taxing material from domestic settings became more challenging for many researchers during the COVID-19 pandemic when government lockdowns and institutional practices made working from home a routine practice. For many, this unhelpfully blurred boundaries between personal and professional lives and removed an important protection against RVT. The reopening of institutional workplaces once again provides institutionally affiliated researchers with greater opportunities to separate their professional and personal lives. However, if there are widespread requirements to work from home in the future, we should be mindful that the blurring of boundaries between personal and professional lives may again increase the risks of RVT for researchers whose work involves engagement with potentially traumatic material. Independent scholars and other researchers who undertake work outside of institutional settings and commonly work from home or utilize temporary/precarious public workspaces like public libraries, co-working spaces, or coffeeshops should be especially mindful of this. This may necessitate a heavier reliance on other protective measures like increased supervision, peer support, or in the case of engagement with digital material, the use of technology-based solutions.

Conclusion: The urgency of recognizing and addressing RVT

This article has argued for more discussion about researcher welfare and a more open acknowledgment about the challenges indirect trauma pose for researchers in the social sciences. Proposing RVT as a label for the experience of researchers negatively affected by the traumatizing material they have been exposed to, it described RVT as a normal and foreseeable reaction to this. The Myanmar case study demonstrated how the contemporary global communications environment has increased the chances of such exposure. Modern communications technology can now place us indirectly in contact with traumatic events and material from almost any part of the world on a 24/7 basis. The need for measures to protect against RVT has rarely been greater. This article has not sought to be alarmist, but it does seek to jolt our field toward action.