( CNN ) In 2014 , beheading a westerner proved to be a chillingly effective strategy for Islamic militants . The killings of James Foley , Steven Sotloff , David Haines , Alan Henning and Abdul-Rahman Peter Kassig were both barbaric and uniquely modern . The murderers acted with a key demographic in mind , knowing that millions of people would tune in to watch . So the camera has created a new kind of crowd in the course of our long history of public beheadings . Its entrance on the scene , in France , on 17 June 1939 , had a similarly immediate and unequivocal effect . That morning , the public guillotining of German serial killer Eugen Weidmann , outside the Saint-Pierre prison in Versailles , was filmed by a spectator -- unbeknownst to the authorities . You can see the footage online today . Photographers also recorded the action , and their pictures filled newspapers and magazines in the days after Weidmann 's death . As if the rowdy crowds on the day were not bad enough , now the action could be viewed again and again by untold thousands of voyeurs . After that , the guillotine was rolled away behind prison walls -- not because decapitations were too horrifying to watch , but because people will watch them no matter how horrifying they are . For centuries , public executions had been intended to terrify by example , when for many they were little more than light entertainment . The advent of film proved this beyond doubt.If the history of beheadings tells us anything , it is that there will always be people who want to see . Today the Internet offers us front-row seats , on the understanding that no one need know we have taken our places to watch . Murders can be `` nothing to do with us '' even as we click on the screen to play the film . In the 21st century , spectators experience a sense of detachment from the event -- which has already happened at some point in the past and in `` another world '' supposedly far removed from our own -- alongside an unprecedented sense of intimacy . Now we can watch close-up , but in private , in our own time and space . The recent ISIS beheadings were experienced by many viewers like a gruesome serial drama , and the murderers know we will tune in for the next episode . Even those who do not watch the ISIS `` show '' can hardly avoid the media analysis that accompanies each instalment . Producing these films requires relatively little organization , money or complicated technology . Compared to other terrorist offenses , it is low-tech and high-impact . The action can be carefully choreographed while retaining its ruthless authenticity , and the results are sensational . The camera has become a new stage for public beheadings , a new spike for displaying a trophy head . When pathological criminals behead innocent civilians , the murderers address their audience and present their spoils , drawing those who watch into their narrative . The entire spectacle denotes the powerlessness of the victim , and , by extension , the powerlessness of their countrymen to intervene . Spectators who watch beheadings online impotently fulfil the perpetrators ' desire to be seen . The ISIS murderers have relied on sophisticated manipulation of social media sites to ensure that their footage appears on our screens before we even know what we are watching . At the same time , a person 's reaction can reverberate through the cyber-crowd instantaneously , creating the kind of group mentality that mirrors the dynamics of a real crowd . When the footage of James Foley 's murder circulated via social media platforms like Twitter and Facebook in August 2014 , a Syrian activist named Hend Amry asked people not to share it and initiated the hashtag # ISISmediablackout . `` Pour water on their flame , '' she tweeted . The movement to boycott the film gathered momentum in the hours that followed , and Twitter responded by removing tweets that embedded the video or screenshots of it . For the first time since the death of Daniel Pearl in Pakistan in 2004 , the silent majority found a voice , and more and more members of the crowd refused to watch . A group of militants had tried to make an impact , in an appalling way , and their efforts were beginning , just beginning , to fail . When the victim of a beheading is bound and defenceless , he or she becomes a pawn in somebody else 's production . The power no longer derives from the act of decapitation itself , which may require a pathological perpetrator , but it does not require the luck and skill to win a fight . Instead , the power emerges from the reception the slayer receives as he plays his part on the stage . There is no triumph in the killer 's actions until we watch . Modern technology may offer a hiding place to voyeurs , but it can also give a voice to human decency . No good can ever come from murder , but if public opinion is able to neutralize the killers ' triumph by refusing to broadcast the graphic imagery they want us to see , then this is a step forward . Read : More barbaric ISIS video expected , analyst says .
This has created new types of fear in our long history of public opinion , says Frances Larson . Larson : ISIS beheadings were experienced by many viewers like gruesome serial drama . She says public opinion makers refuse to accept graphic imagery killers want us to see .