Cries From Syria tells the story of the Syrian uprising against the regime of Bashar al-Assad. It arose in Dara’a after a group of children were detained and horribly tortured because they painted on a school fence. The regime justified their acts by saying that these children illustrated anti-Assad drawings. The documentary started and ended with the dilemma of Syrian refugees, their tries to flee the country, and the famous picture of the dead child washed up on a beach in Turkey. The footages used throughout the documentary were also very graphic and sickening to any sane person. This shows a big attempt to use the image events to reach people and the public opinion as DeLuca mentions them in Images Events. Seeing all the harmed children, …show more content…
Which is another concept mentioned by Leenders about digitalizing these events through social media. The rise of ISIS and the Syrian Army were the violent extremism resulting from social networking amongst the protestors. Framing the documentary around the ethnicity of these people - Sunni–Shia struggle- is another example of how framing the conflict can benefit some groups at the expense of others. Each party’s goals and aspirations were framed based on the side they’re serving. Furthermore, the Syrian conflict was in the Syrian frame, them moved to the Arab frame, and once Russia got involved, the issue was placed in the international and humanitarian frame and people from all over the world started joining the case and advocating for it. This concept was also mentioned in Donald Holbrook’s article about Al-Qaeda using the same communication and framing concepts in Afghanistan. The documentary also presents the concept of diffusion that has been mentioned in Leeder’s article. Where one event starts and causes other events to follow. In this case, it was the Arab Spring that started and caused revolutionary movements all over the Middle East, and what happened in Syria was one example that ended up very