ABSTRACT
This chapter contests the compassion fatigue thesis in its own terms in order to clear the way for later developing a more robust account of how images impact upon people. Sontag's reversal has had little impact on the ubiquity of the compassion fatigue thesis, and that is in large part a result of arguments like those found in Susan Moeller's book Compassion Fatigue. The chapter dissects Moeller's claims to reveal how in her hand compassion fatigue is an empty signifier that becomes attached to a range of oftencontradictory explanations. It provides some reflections on the reframing of the problem of how photographs work given the preceding deconstruction of the compassion fatigue thesis. The dream of photojournalism is that when a crisis is pictured the image will have an effect on its audience leading to action.
