Content, or trigger, warnings have become somewhat debated, but are an integral part of accessibility. However, there is some ambiguity when it comes to why, where, when, and how you should use them. Keep in mind that every person has different warnings they may need, so it is impossible to accommodate everyone on the first try, meaning it is important to be open to adapting and expanding the content warnings you use for different situations.
Before continuing, however, I would like to clarify the language used in this post. “Trigger warnings” originated from language commonly used for people with PTSD — certain things “trigger” their disorder and can cause a detrimental psychiatric reaction. However, the word itself is evocative, and can be harmful to gun violence survivors. As a result, you can often find the phrase abbreviated to “TW,” or changed to phrases such as “content warning/CW,” “content note,” etc. For this article, I will be using the phrase “content warning.”
Why are they important?
Content warnings are crucial for helping disabled people participate in an environment more fully. Yes, avoiding a topic forever is not only nearly impossible but not helpful to an individual, but without content warnings individuals do not get the chance to decide whether they can engage with potentially harmful media. Yes, exposure therapy is a method used for individuals dealing with or otherwise working through trauma, but that comes with informed consent, which content warnings help provide. Panic attacks and other reactions to content are not simply being upset, but can be debilitating, harming one’s capability to function for anywhere from a few minutes to a few days.
Content warnings aren’t new, either, even if the term is. From flashing light warnings to movie ratings, we are being given chances to decide whether or not a given media is safe for us to engage with.
What should you provide content warnings for?
As a society, we have slowly broadened our ideas of what should be warned for. It is not expected for you to have every potentially harmful topic tagged, but you can warn for what is considered generally disturbing content, like how some movie ratings include why something is rated R. Examples would be for suicide or suicidal ideation, graphic depictions of violence, rape, racism, drug use or abuse, and so on.
When warning for larger media, you can specify where the content can be found when possible. For example, you could write the following content warning for a book:
CW: [Book title] has themes of drug abuse, graphic violence, and domestic abuse. In chapter 7, there are graphic depictions of suicide and suicidal ideation.
One thing you might notice is the use of the word “graphic.” Many themes or topics have a spectrum of how explicit they are, and content warnings can be written to accommodate that. This is because different points of healing change what can be harmful. Mild mentions of suicide can be harmful to some, whereas others can tolerate it until it becomes moderate or graphic. Some good examples can be found on StoryGraph, where books can have user-submitted content warnings.
In this case, because they are user submitted there are repeats of warnings in multiple categories. If you’re unsure of where to put something, I personally recommend you mark it as more graphic than less graphic. Below is another example from StoryGraph in “summary” form, meaning they don’t list the amount of users submitting the same content warnings, but still provide the list of warnings.
If you aren’t sure of how to place themes or topics, it is fine to avoid the system of graphic, moderate, and minor and instead use the terms when you feel appropriate (for example, “mentions of death,” “minor abuse”).
Additionally, you should clarify when you are including fictional media in otherwise real topics and vice versa. Many people can watch graphic horror movies like Saw, but would be entirely disturbed if they saw real scenes of graphic violence and gore. This is why you may have seen title cards at the beginning of educational documentaries with “The following is a depiction of [insert event]” or “The following is real footage from the scene,” both of which generally advise viewer discretion.
For classes that revolve around discussion of sensitive subjects, providing a general warning in the syllabus or the beginning of the semester may be the best way to warn for it, with additional content warnings for media and when discussion materials become more graphic (real instead of a depiction, for example) or is different than the topics previously warned about.
TL;DR
Content warnings (which can be abbreviated as CW or TW) are a crucial aspect of accessibility that not only helps disabled people but are a relatively simple habit to adopt into everyday life and work. They have been provided to some degree for years under different names, such as “epilepsy warnings” or flashing light warnings and movie ratings.
You are not expected to warn for every possible kind of content or topic, but can warn for generally disturbing themes such as rape, violence, etc. You can implement a system to account for graphic, moderate, and minor depictions of topics, or you can use those terms as adjectives for some but not all warnings (graphic depictions of abuse, minor depictions of rape, etc.). You should also specify when content is from real-life events when the context is places in fiction, and vice versa.