“Like armed robbers”. Effects of Italian textbooks’ images accompanying a historical narrative of self-censored colonial crimes

This paper explores effects of images siding with historical narratives on previously self-censored in-group war crimes. The case study refers to Italian crimes committed during the colonial invasion of Ethiopia (1935-1936) that, denied at first, are still now self-censored in the social discourse. The marginal importance attributed to the Ethiopian group, as well as the fugitive Italian colonial power, quickly gained and quickly lost, are some of the many reasons accounting for the fact that knowledge about these colonial crimes could only recently be traced in Italian History’s textbooks. Together with Italian historians we analysed these recent narratives, finding that two main rhetoric strategies (vague vs. straightforward) were used and that only straightforward narratives enabled students to grasp a clear gist of self-censored past. Building upon these data, effects of images siding with a same straightforward historical text were explored. Before reading the text, 180 Italian university students were exposed to 1. A snapshot of a massive killing committed by Italian soldiers or to 2. A propaganda image, taken from archives of Italian press during Fascism, glorifying the positive effects of Italian colonization. In a third control condition, no image was shown before the text. Both images and the text were taken from currently used textbooks. Results show that images change readers' reactions, suggesting that, when words are finally narrating previously self-censored in-group crimes, the images' impact can, “like an armed robber”, unexpectedly divert the readers' attention from the text. Suggestions for better coordinating text and images are discussed.