Posted by Jessica Kerry at 08:04 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

I haven't yet seen SOP, but I imagine it mirrors much of what Errol Morris and Philip Gourevitch discussed in a different medium last month:
http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2008/03/24/080324fa_fact_gourevitch

I'm particularly interested in the rapport Morris, a film director, must have built with "the woman behind the camera" at Abu Ghraib, Sabrina Harman for her to have spoken so candidly.

Posted by Kathleen Fleming at 07:03 PM | Permalink

Interviewees in David Hoffman’s new film, Sputnik Mania, compare the launch of the Russian satellite, Sputnik, to “the discovery of America,” “the first shot at Lexington and Concord,” and “the second coming of Christ.” Scott Hubbard, of NASA describes it as “one of those moments in history when all of a sudden all of your thought processes changed.”

When the Soviet Union launched Sputnik, “the first man made object ever to leave the atmosphere and successfully orbit the earth” on October 4th 1954, America reacted with fervor (Sputknikmania.com). It was the height of the cold war and this bold display of Soviet strength struck terror in the hearts of political and military strategists who saw in the rocket “an intercontinental ballistic missile that could potentially carry a nuclear bomb.” On the Monday following Sputnik’s launch, “political and military leaders appeared in print, on the radio and on TV, telling [the American people] that Sputnik was a threat to [their] security [and] that it was launched as an aggressive attack.” Sputnik, they said, was “the first shot in a cold war that could quickly become very hot” (Sputnik Mania).

The film, released as part of a year- long program commemorating the fiftieth anniversary of the satellite’s launch, draws upon archival footage and interviews with key figures from the Sputnik era, including individuals from NASA, The Jet Propulsion Lab and NPR. Key insights into the Soviet view are provided by Sergei Kruschev, son of the Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev, who lead the Soviet Union in the years after Sputnik’s launch.

Sputnik Mania deftly portrays the launch of the rocket and key events in the year that followed. The film’s emphasis however, is not upon historical detail. Hoffman is concerned less with relating the exactitudes of the technological and political developments represented by Sputnik, than by conveying the “spectacular” dimensions of this event and the transformative effect it had upon Americans’ worldview.

In Cultures in Orbit, Lisa Parks describes the ways in which vision has been transformed by the satellite. She uses the term “televisual” to describe not only “the technical apparatus or popular pleasures of broadcasting,” but also, and more significantly, the “different structures of the imaginary and/ or epistemological structures that have radiated from and taken shape around the medium over its history”(12).

The launch of Sputnik grossly undermined Americans’ sense of security and superiority. Life magazine described the launch as a “devastating blow to the prestige of the United States” and a man interviewed on a nightly news program expressed confusion, asking, “Where is our pride? Where are we? Why don’t we have a satellite up there?” Senator Lyndon B Johnson himself lamented, “Soon the Russians will be dropping bombs on us from space like kids dropping rocks from freeway overpasses.”

America hurried to catch up with the Soviets and launch its own satellite. It was like salt in a wound when a much-anticipated launch at Cape Canaveral in December failed. Sputnik Mania’s narrator Liev Schreiber relates, “It took just seven seconds to set back a nation’s pride.”

Hoffman depicts two distinct though not unrelated sides to the American reaction to Sputnik. Many were struck with fear, of annihilation or at least of the triumph of the “godless communists.” Hoffman explains that “fear changed people” and notes that “Hollywood and our office of civil defense fed this fear.” Montages in Sputnik Mania attest to the proliferation of apocalypse films, and clips from government advertisements include messages recommending that individuals “build shelters and build them right [away].”

However, Hoffman suggests that there was also a positive side to the post- sputnik psyche. He details the evolution of “space culture,” including the composition of “satellite songs” by popular musicians and the establishment of the Rocket Boys club. Hoffman suggests that there was a feeling of liberation (The New York Times announced, “Soviet scientists have launched a symbol of man’s liberation from the forces which have hitherto bound him to earth.”) and a renewed curiosity in the world beyond one’s backyard.

Parks provides a critical framework for understanding the two- sided and apparently contradictory nature of the emergent social and psychological state. She writes of the “dialectic of distance and proximity” which has emerged in the age of the satellite and describes the propagation of a “structure of feelings that enables an experience of simultaneous connection and separation”(174). Parks suggests that the satellite engenders an “anxious disorientation” and a feeling of “pleasurable remote control,” as well as a “desire for the presence of the absent other.”

Sputnik Mania arrives fifty years after the launch of Sputnik but only six years after the destruction of the World Trade Center towers on 9/11. Hoffman does not address parallels between the two historical moments explicitly. When asked about this choice he said, “Am I going to talk about the present? I’m never going to mention it. But I’m going to make a drama about 50 years ago that everyone of you is going to connect to today.”

Hoffman is successful in suggesting these connections without stating them plainly. One cannot help but think of George Bush warning America about the threat of Weapons of Mass Destruction as you watch a clip in which a 1950s political leader says to his constituency, “Lets not fool ourselves. This may be our last chance to secure the means to save our nation from annihilation.”

In an interview with San Francisco Chronicle reporter, Steven Winn, Hoffman reflected upon our reaction to 9/11 and made a distinction between the two moments in history. He said, “Recently its just been fear, fear, fear. I think that the more inspirational side that characterized the space race… has completely gone missing” (San Francisco Chronicle, October 3, 2007).

Reflecting upon Hoffman’s statement, I am led to wonder if there are in fact any “Rocket Boys” in the post 9/11 era. If there were, who would they be? Is there a still a possibility for a “structure of feelings that enables an experience of simultaneous connection and separation”(174) or does George Bush preclude the possibility of this dialectic as he “audaciously declares to the global community [and to the American people], 'you’re either with us or against us!'" (Parks,178)?

References:

Hoffman, David, Sputnik Mania, 2007.
Hoffman, David, Global Media Lab, Watson Institute, April 23, 2008
Parks, Lisa, "Cultures in Orbit (Satellites and the Televisual," Duke University Press, 2005.
Winn, Steven, "On the waves Sputnik I continues to make 50 years later," San Francisco Chronicle, October 3, 2007.

Posted by Megan Billman at 01:12 PM | Permalink

In the Introduction to “Worship at the Altar of Convergence,” Henry Jenkins defines convergence as the “flow of content across multiple media platforms, the cooperation between multiple media industries, and the migratory behavior of media audiences” (2). He mentions that media convergence is where “old and new media collide” and where “grassroots and corporate media intersect” (2). Walter Benjamin, in his 1936 essay “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction,” also discusses a sort of convergence between the old, more contemplative forms of art like unique paintings and sculpture and photography or the new, faster-paced media of the cinema. He sees the newer art form as a new mode of representation because of the technological advances on which it depends—particularly the advances in mechanical reproducibility—as well as the fact that it presents new ways of viewing and interacting with art. In the same way that Walter Benjamin considered photography and later, film, new stages in representation, the convergence of media is also a new stage in representation because it too relies on technological advances and mechanical reproduction, and it also changes the way that people view art.

Mechanical reproduction, in Benjamin’s view, makes art more about exhibition and less about a cult experience. Of course Benjamin does mention that this reproducibility diminishes a piece’s “aura,” or authenticity, by removing it from its original context. But he also discusses how it “emancipates the work of art from its parasitical dependence on ritual.” Accordingly, reproducibility means that one no longer needs to travel to a specific church to see a specific statue, new works of art such as photographic prints can be moved to a museum, and movies are even less limited to one location because they can be reproduced in multiple towns. Further, each of the distributed copies is indistinguishable from the original piece. Benjamin even claims that “mechanical reproduction is inherent in the very technique of film production.” In this way, film is the epitome of a type of art that is made to be reproduced, thus following his progression of art which claims that the “work of art reproduced becomes the work of art designed for reproducibility.” With mechanical reproduction, art in general becomes more about exhibiting and being seen by more people.

With modern convergence of media on the web, even more people can view the art than could view the films that Benjamin describes in 1936. For example, as of April 26, 2008, 15,388,580 people have viewed the popular YouTube video “Shoes,” which was posted only two years ago (YouTube). Moreover, these works get even more exposure because of convergence of media, and the ability of major media companies either to republish or at least reference the artwork in another context. In the same way that mechanical reproduction spreads art to many more viewers, the technology that allows viewers to broadcast their art over the web also expands that art to many more viewers.

Not only can more people view art with the convergence of media on the web, but convergence of new technologies also represents a new form of representation because it allows more people to partake in art production. Starting with the 8mm Zapruder film of JFK’s assassination in 1963, now many people can capture news events on their cameras, cell phones, or on whatever recording technology they have. Moreover, web technology like YouTube allows people to share their art globally. Unlike news of the past, news channels are likely to broadcast an event as a composite of footage from many of these ordinary people who happen to capture an event with their personal technology.
***

For Walter Benjamin, film presents new art techniques that combine to make a totally new art form. He describes how the technique of montage allows filmmakers to put images together in a completely new way, thus conveying the artist’s point of view in a new manner. Close up and slow motion options expand viewers’ horizons. Furthermore, for the first time, worlds with which many of us have little practical experience are opened up to us. This “immense and unexpected field of action” includes every location from taverns to office buildings and allows many of us to explore and see them for the first time.

Benjamin discusses how film is a change in representation because unlike earlier art forms, it successfully creates “changes of place and focus which periodically assail the spectator.” One critic identifies the technique of montage, introduced with film, as the way through which film creates these changes. Specifically, he describes how montage “rips things from their original place in an assigned sequence and reassembles them in ever changing combinations” (Nichols).

The development of montage, according to Benjamin, affects how the viewer interacts with art. Whereas a painting “invites the spectator to contemplation,” the film moves too quickly for the viewer to meditate on one image. He claims that the images “cannot be arrested” and even quotes a radical thinker who posits that in watching movies, his “thoughts have been replaced by moving images” (Duhamel, quoted in Benjamin).

Montage is extremely important for the current artwork on the web because it allows an artist to take known things and splice them together to make a new meaning. An artist can take a speech (for example, Barack Obama’s 2004 national convention speech) and cut it down to what he or she thinks are its essential elements. This editing destroys the illusion of objectivity and enhances a specific point of view, along the lines of what David Hoffmann discussed recently in our class. So though it’s Obama’s speech from the 2004 DNC, it’s the parts that a filmmaker thinks are salient, and set to the music (in one case, the Gladiator soundtrack) that he or she chooses. He or she may not be painting a subject, but is still creating art with his or her message and point of view.

Of course, this technique is what film and montage introduced to the world many years ago. What’s new in the modern era is that people end up distributing their points of view widely over the web. YouTube’s tag line, after all, is “Broadcast Yourself,” which encourages people to do just that. Furthermore, because media corporations can also access the web, your information might reach an even larger audience if they choose to comment on it, either on TV or radio broadcasts or even in Op/Eds in newspapers. In conjunction with convergence of media on the web, montage becomes a much bigger player in the modern world because these point-of-view films can be broadcast much more widely.

Another way that film establishes a new form of representation is that it separates the actor from directly influencing the art. Benjamin comments that film separates the actor from the art because the cameraman inserts his or her point of view into the filmmaking. Whereas an actor on a stage has control over how he presents himself to the audience, in a film the cameraman can film the actor from different angles, or use B roll during the actor’s speech, and thus manipulate how audiences view the actor. Similarly, with convergence on the web, one media source (film) interacts with the publication on the web. As a consequence, viewers are even farther away from the actual event (behind the filmmaker, and then the publication site). They are seeing a YouTube video as a “YouTube Video,” not as a “film by so-and-so” or simply “such-and-such event.”

Moreover, convergence of media on the web allows a shift in how art interacts with reality. While art has always provoked thought and even controversy, with painting the provoked thoughts were more like personal reflections. Now, with widespread YouTube distribution, these thoughts become international discussion and debate. A very clear example is the Bert/Osama picture, which Jenkins focused on. What began as a simple image on a website from California made its way onto anti-American propaganda in Pakistan, which made later appeared on CNN. The convergence between Photoshop technology, worldwide distribution, and attention from news sources such as CNN fueled a very intense international debate. Even the author of the image claimed that his “Bert is Evil” site “has always been contained and distanced from big media. This issue throws it out in the open” and moves the image “too close to reality” (Dino Ignacio, quoted in Jenkins, 2). Convergence now means that art suddenly and acutely influences how we interact on an international level.

Along these lines, Benjamin saw that the evolution of art into mechanically reproduced cinema changed the way that art interacted with politics, in that cinema gave political leaders (and especially the cult of personality, Fascist leaders) more power over the people. Web publication similarly signals a shift in the way that art and politics interact because new and more available technology allows filmmakers to portray political figures in new and interesting ways. We already discussed the filmmaker’s control in broadcasting the salient elements of Obama’s 2004 Democratic National Convention speech. Certainly, that sort of montage means that political leaders are presented in radically new ways. However, the ‘Obamagirl’ video presents Obama in an entirely new way-mashing together song lyrics, pictures of him, and a video of a girl strutting around New York City. No longer is the political leader’s appearance restricted to the speeches that he presents to the crowds. New technology allows all of the separate elements listed above to be combined into a single (hilarious) video that portrays the presidential candidate in an entirely new light.

Moreover, the widespread video distribution on YouTube allows political candidates to get much more exposure. Now, Obama’s 2004 convention speech is all over YouTube (there are ~22 different videos of the speech), and one can see 378 videos of the recent Philadelphia presidential debate. In January, Facebook even broadcaster the New Hampshire debates and allowed people to comment on them. CNN later reported on those public comments, meaning that television viewers were bombarded with news information from many different angles and sources. Considering these effects of convergence, candidates are surely reaching wider audiences. But whereas Benjamin was afraid of increased political audience, this increased distribution results in a dramatic increase in voter participation. In California, 31% of the eligible voting population voted in the in 2004 primary and 41% voted in 2007. In Iowa 6% caucused in 2004 and 16% this past January 2008 (GMU Website).

Another intriguing aspect is that Benjamin wrote about the relationship between art and politics in 1936, before World War II. Considering his emphasis on the interaction between art and politics and war, Benjamin would probably find the following quote, by Hollywood producer William Harrison (Will) Hays in 1939, very interesting: “The primary purpose of motion pictures is entertainment—entertainment which will be effective as such, and entertainment which is, at its best, inspirational” (Cited in Koppes). Clearly, this producer does not see film as promoting a political position, or as trying to influence the public at all. Towards the end of Benjamin’s essay, he writes that “distraction as provided by art presents a covert control” over the masses. If he heard this quote, he would probably point out that though the film industry’s goal may be to provide entertainment, even passive entertainment can be influential. He would point to the masses’ ability to absorb architectural changes passively and thus aid in the evolution of architecture. In the same way, the masses can absorb political messages from film.

Film on the web is clearly a new art form. Suddenly, a video of a man who can fit himself entirely in a rubber balloon is a work of art, as is a compilation photo of Bert from Sesame Street with Osama bin Laden. Convergence of media on the web allows this new art form to exist. Moreover, convergence of media on the web changes the way that art interacts with politics, much like the creation of film changed the way that art interacted with politics in the early part of the 20th century. In this way, convergence of media on the web certainly does represent a new art form.

From this realization, the important question becomes: “what role will this new art form play in the world’s future?” This idea echoes the question that Benjamin put to art in 1936 when he titled his essay “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction.” Not only does work of art mean the piece of art, but it also means the job of art. In this way, Benjamin examines the role of art in his society. Film and photography certainly continued to play key roles in politics after his essay. Despite Will Hays’ comment, 2500 Hollywood films were released between 1939 and 1945, many of which had to do with the war (Koppes). War photography throughout the Vietnam War sparked a lot of controversy about America’s actions there. In a similar vein, we can discuss how the convergence of media on the web will interact with politics today. As I already mentioned, the convergence of media on the web will have a profound effect on political campaigns including the current presidential campaign because the candidates receive more exposure as well as different types of exposure. Moreover, as the Bert and Osama picture demonstrates, the convergence of media on the web will have a profound effect on how we view, enforce, or condemn freedom of speech internationally and internally. Finally, on a more basic level, convergence of media on the web means that individual human beings will be suddenly much more visible to the world, either by creating videos (or Bert/Osama pictures) or by being in videos that are distributed on the web. I believe that this increase in individual exposure will eventually affect how we live our public lives. Some will become fearful that anything we say or do may be broadcast, and some will be encouraged to pursue new and exciting artistic adventures that themselves push the limits of our new technology into the next form of representation.

Works Cited

Benjamin, Walter. “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction.” 1936. [Accessed April 23, 2008]. < http://web.bentley.edu/empl/c/rcrooks/toolbox/common_knowledge /general_communication/benjamin.html>.

Jenkins, Henry. Introduction. Worship at the Altar of Convergence. By Jenkins. New York: New York University Press, 2006. 1-24.

Koppes, Clayton and Black, Gregory. Hollywood Goes to War: How Politics, Profits, and Propaganda Shaped World War II. University of California Press 1990. viii, 21.

LIAMKYLESULLIVAN. 2006. Shoes [online]. [Accessed April 26, 2008]. Available from World Wide Web: < http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wCF3ywukQYA>.

Nichols, Bill. “The Work of Culture in the Age of Cybernetic Systems.” Screen. 21 (1): 22-46. Winter 1988.

Presidential Primary Turnout Rates. March 17, 2008. United States Elections Project at George Mason University. April 26, 2008 .

Posted by Julia Hellman at 11:45 PM | Permalink

Our last 'formal' class is tomorrow, as we go into the TerrorDome (2 men in, 1 man out..), but we have a room change to accommodate Honors Thesis presentations in the Joukowsky Forum. We will be two flights up, in Watson's McKinney Seminar room...

VTY
JDD

Posted by James Der Derian at 12:20 PM | Permalink

This New York Times article tells the tale of a 90 year old daily newspaper, The Capital Times of Madison, Wis, which stopped its printing to live online only. The Capital Times is a perfect example of the death of written press: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/28/business/media/28link.html?_r=1&th&emc=th&oref=slogin

The article itself does not address future steps of news media to incorporate blogging/ open-source news. Perhaps the most interesting section of the article is the link in the upper left hand corner which allows the reader to link up to BlogRunner- self described as "a service from The New York Times that automatically monitors news articles and blog posts and tracks news events as they develop across the Web." What are your thoughts on this attempt by the NY Times? Is this trangressive journalism or not at all? Perhaps BlogRunner keeps the blog peace but does not reach further towards an open-source news.

Either way, it is an interesting article and an interesting attempt by the NY Times to incorporate blogging on the issue of "dead news". I wonder if the NY Times put the link in this article on the death of one paper's printed life because they know that the life of the (future) news is in the hands of these bloggers. Your thoughts?

Posted by Meaghan Casey at 04:34 PM | Permalink

Greetings all:

First order of biz is the screening of EM's TPQ (using code to maintain operational secrecy): next monday, biomed, room 202, 5.30). That Wednesday we will stage with EM the final OpenSource, with Lydon as MC.

Second: 'Where in the World is OBL'? is showing at our very own Avon. Who would be game for a big-screening, this Tuesday (ie, tomorrow) of one of our favorite filmmakers? Let me add an incentive: a free screening. I have some loose discretionary change to host students for a social event - I think the powers that oversee had a tea party in mind - so anyone interested should meet up, say 8.30, Paragon/Viva, for 9.15 showing? Tea will be on tap.

Finally, we're getting booted out of the J-forum so the honors thesis students can do their IR thing, so we will be moving up two floors to the mckinney seminar room...and if people want to hear one or more of the presentations we can perhaps negotiate that (especially since I have three presenting this year).

VTY
JDD

Posted by James Der Derian at 04:31 PM | Permalink

Errol Morris Lit Review
New York Times "Zoom" blog, 3/3/08 and 3/10/08

“If seeing is believing, then we better be damn careful about what we show people, including ourselves – because regardless of what it is – we are likely to uncritically believe it.” – Errol Morris, Zoom, New York Times Online, April 3, 2008.

Three years ago, I found myself, heavily bandaged and bruised, sitting at the desk of a clinical psychologist. He took a miniature Hot Wheels car and a plastic toy cow and asked me to share my account of what had landed me in the office that day. With this information, he sped the toy car across the surface, swerved to avoid hitting the cow (deer), and over-corrected, sending the tiny vehicle rolling four times before falling off the edge of desk, crashing to the ground. “Yeah, I guess that’s about right,” I thought aloud. The experience of witnessing the reconstruction from the outside was quite eerie.

The April 3rd and 10th posts on “Zoom,” Errol Morris’ blog on the New York Times Online, address cinematic re-enactments and the justifications for using them in documentaries. Both discuss Morris’ film, The Thin Blue Line (1988), the ultimate effect of which involved the exoneration of a man from Texas who had been convicted of murder. Morris uses the attention to detail present in his investigation of the Randall Dale Adams case, as well as the tendency of the human brain to miss these often vital clues in the discovery of truth to argue for the validity of re-enactments in documentary films.

At any given time, our field of vision can include an enormous variety of objects, such as Chihuahuas, zombies, etc. Unless they are addressed specifically, however, the narrative remains unchanged. Through re-enactments, Morris aims to call attention to previously overlooked objects in order to show how their incorporation may result in drastically different narratives, as seen in The Thin Blue Line.

To fully understand Morris’ reasoning, a brief introduction to The Thin Blue Line is beneficial. In 1976, Randal Dale Adams accepted a ride outside of Dallas from a stranger driving a stolen car, David Harris. Shortly thereafter, the two were pulled over by Dallas police officers, Robert Wood and Teresa Turko, on a routine traffic stop. Wood approached the stolen vehicle and was shot to death. Originally, police investigators believed Turko’s statement that she had positioned herself at the rear of the vehicle as demanded by protocol. To Morris, however, this scenario appeared suspect. A milkshake, belonging to Turko, was found thrown 14 feet from the door of the police car. If she had in fact been standing at the rear of the vehicle when Wood was shot, she most likely would have A) not carried the milkshake with her or B) dropped it at the position where she was standing. The position of the milkshake suggests that Turko had in fact remained in the police cruiser until after the attack had been made on her partner and then threw the beverage out of the car. Consequently, her ability to identify the suspect(s) would have been greatly diminished. Nevertheless, she maintained there was only one person in the stolen vehicle, Adams, resulting in an inevitable conviction.

In Morris’ view, the milkshake is symbolic of the often critical details we fail to notice when attempting to make sense of the world around us. Through the use of re-enactments, we are allowed “to see things that would otherwise be invisible.”[1] For me, the very crude re-enactment in the therapist’s office based on the highway patrol report allowed me to contribute to my own knowledge of “what really happened,” and thus begin coming to terms with a very traumatic event.

Unfortunately, according to Morris, humans are not naturally inclined to detect these “milkshakes” for a variety of reasons. In the April 10th entry, he and Dan Levin, professor of psychology at Vanderbilt University, discuss the idea of continuity errors in cinema, the science behind our inability to process them, and the related consequences they carry in the realm of reality. Levin cites the Kuleshov experiments involving a compilation of shots taken in different locations around Moscow ripe with discrepancies in lighting and background. Because the event was coherent, the audience believed the shots were continuous and unadulterated.

Ultimately, if an audience is not consciously searching for continuity errors, they will most likely remain unnoticed. Morris also addresses a film entitled That Obscure Object of Desire directed by Bunuel, because Bunuel succeeded in what seems at first glance to be an utterly absurd feat: He has two different actresses playing the lead role, Conchita, and switches them throughout the movie. The process begins slowly, gradually pulling them closer together, until by the end of the film, he’s alternating each actress in every other scene. Many who saw the film failed to notice the character was played by two women.

How is this possible? We generally place more emphasis on following the narrative of a movie, rather than hunting for errors. In fact, doing the opposite can be a sign of mental illnesses, such as ADHD. In order to retain the attention of mentally sound audiences, however, Levin notes that narratives must make an appeal to people’s “beliefs, desires, and goals.” [2] Morris adds, “Usually, the errors are in a faulty simulacrum of reality, a movie. But can’t a movie also point out that we have in our minds a faulty simulacrum of the world?”[3] In the realm of news media, therefore, we may be drawn to kinds of coverage that reassure us that with patriotic determination, our most pressing problems will be solved, even in the absence of critical analysis of the evidence at hand. In Wag the Dog, for example, the fake war may have been waged against Albania, but the real war fought by the cast involved the avoidance of incriminating continuity errors that would have had destroyed the entire operation.

When reading Morris and Levin’s discussion of That Obscure Object of Desire, the first parallel that came to my mind was the eloquently executed switcheroo made by the Bush Administration to convince Americans that Iraq had a major hand in the 9/11 attacks. Obviously, the term “continuity error” seems quite underwhelming in this particular phenomenon. Alternately, Morris also argues that “our mental narratives prevent us from seeing evidence,” resulting in “a discrepancy between how we see the world and the evidence we have at hand.” [4] Thus, as discussed in last week’s GML by Libby Anker, the very first few hours of coverage following the attacks on 9/11 were unique in that a narrative had not yet been formed. Accordingly, those critical early moments may be the best tease of a snapshot of truth we have, even seven years later.

Essentially, if something is not in our internal catalog of reasonable expectations (like doctored photos or two actresses playing the same character), we tend to relinquish our understanding of events to narratives that are familiar, oddities be unconsciously damned. Levin cites the example accidents called “tractor-trailer under-rides.” [5] In this kind of collision, a semitrailer jackknifes cross a highway and another vehicle or vehicles will drive directly into or under the trailer, often causing death by capitation. Not surprisingly, due to the gruesome nature of these accidents, litigation is a common result. Itsurprising, however, that the corresponding investigations often show no signs of evasive driving maneuvers. When driving late at night on a highway in North Dakota, deer are always a legitimate threat, and hence, the site of my accident was filled with swerve marks – the threat made sense and I processed it accordingly. The operators of the vehicles that collide with the trailer usually drive directly into it, however, without any signs of resistance. Levin explains that “Our awareness of visual information is heavily contingent on the kinds of things we know to look for. And if something isn’t in that category, and we’re not trying to find it, it’s possible that we won’t be aware of it, even if it takes up a huge percentage of our visual field.”[6] Also, in light of Jay Rosen’s analysis from GML #4, I believe it may be possible to apply Levin’s idea that concepts arising from “left field” have the possibility of leaving our fields of perception entirely, with dangerous consequences in the global arena:

As a polar opposite, we fail to notice any significance in some images, such as the Helvetica font, because they are so ubiquitous and therefore no longer carry definitive meaning.

Ultimately, Morris explains,

Re-enactment is not so much a visual activity, as it is a conscious activity. It is the process through which we imagine and re-imagine the world around us. The important thing to remember is that everything we consciously experience is a re-enactment. Consciousness, itself, is a re-enactment of reality inside our heads. [7]

Because the brain isn’t terribly competent in processing the unfamiliar, we must form realities on the context of what we think we already know. These realities are often established through the already existing narratives we have come to expect and the cycle of passive acceptance and even disinformation survives. Thus, Morris’ re-enactments aid the quest for truth by showing, visually, how alternative scenarios may in fact be logical. We acknowledge details judged to have importance and relevance, but how can we know what is actually important or relevant in advance of making the judgment? Morris addresses this seemingly inescapable circularity throughout the entry. ( In a similar vein, Deborah Scranton’s advocacy of multiple ground-level narratives may circumvent the problem, as multiple participants give weight to different details based on their own experiences, leading to a more complete picture.) Consequently, rather than asking viewers to follow Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s call for a “willing suspension of disbelief” when watching a film, Morris asks us to fight our natural tendency to accept automatically the contents of the screen and enter a deeper dialogue within ourselves about what we believe [8].

Morris has been criticized by critics who believe documentary images ought to originate in the present without interference from the director. For an event in the past, however, he maintains that re-enactments a valuable, legitimate method of relating a story, though one must always remain vigilant for re-enactments produced with dishonest intent. Additionally, Morris’ interpretation of the importance of objects as details leads me to conclude that if a re-enactment is used in a documentary, it ought to be stated as such. Even with the best intensions, a re-enactment will never be cinema vèritè. A police report stating “suspect was last seen wearing a white t-shirt and blue jeans” could be interpreted in several ways by a costuming department, for example. As trivial as it may sound, the effect of using Rock & Republic or Old Navy denim might have significance for people who notice such details, and therefore impact their own interpretation of the narrative.

In the April 3rd entry, he concludes by reminding us, “The brain is not a Reality-Recorder. There is no perfect replica of reality inside of our brains. The brain elides, confabulates, conflates, denies, suppresses, evades, confuses, and distorts. It has its own agenda and can even work at cross-purposes with our conscious selves.” [9] With our spotty memories, commonly misfiring synapses, and an innate desire for self-preservation, it would appear that those interested in seeking truth ought to use any ethically acceptable methods and resources available. Errol Morris’ use of re-enactment is a solid example of this. He does offer a warning however: “If seeing is believing, then we better be damn careful about what we show people, including ourselves – because regardless of what it is – we are likely to uncritically believe it.” [10] I uncritically believed what I saw the day at the therapist’s office, because at the very least, this possible component of “truth” didn’t involve broken glass or a flash of white light. It was a convenient detachment. When the stakes are higher, however, Morris’ insight into the matter is both timely and necessary.

Notes
[1] Errol Morris, “Play It Again, Sam (Re-enactments, Part One),” New York Times 10 Apr. 2008.http://morris.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/04/10/play-it-again-sam-re-enactments-part-one/
[2] Dan Levin, “Play It Again, Sam (Re-enactments, Part Two),” New York Times 10 Apr. 2008.http://morris.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/04/10/play-it-again-sam-re-enactments-part-two/
[3] Errol Morris, “Play It Again, Sam (Re-enactments, Part Two),” New York Times 10 Apr. 2008.http://morris.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/04/10/play-it-again-sam-re-enactments-part-two/
[4] Errol Morris, “Play It Again, Sam (Re-enactments, Part Two),” New York Times 10 Apr. 2008.http://morris.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/04/10/play-it-again-sam-re-enactments-part-two/
[5] Dan Levin, “Play It Again, Sam (Re-enactments, Part Two),” New York Times 10 Apr. 2008.http://morris.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/04/10/play-it-again-sam-re-enactments-part-two/
[6] Dan Levin, “Play It Again, Sam (Re-enactments, Part Two),” New York Times 10 Apr. 2008.http://morris.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/04/10/play-it-again-sam-re-enactments-part-two/
[7] Errol Morris, “Play It Again, Sam (Re-enactments, Part Two),” New York Times 10 Apr. 2008.http://morris.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/04/10/play-it-again-sam-re-enactments-part-two/
[8] Errol Morris, “Play It Again, Sam (Re-enactments, Part One),” New York Times 10 Apr. 2008.http://morris.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/04/10/play-it-again-sam-re-enactments-part-one/
[9] Errol Morris, “Play It Again, Sam (Re-enactments, Part One),” New York Times 10 Apr. 2008.http://morris.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/04/10/play-it-again-sam-re-enactments-part-one/
[10] Errol Morris, “Play It Again, Sam (Re-enactments, Part One),” New York Times 10 Apr. 2008.http://morris.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/04/10/play-it-again-sam-re-enactments-part-one/

Posted by Anne T Krapu at 03:15 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Verónica Cortez
Global Media
Thematic Essay
April 22nd, 2008

…there is a shame as well as a shock in looking at the close-up of real horror. Perhaps the only people with the right to look at images of suffering of this extreme order are those who could do something to alleviate it – say, the surgeons at the military hospital where the photograph was taken – or those who could learn from it. The rest of us are voyeurs, whether or not we mean to be (Sontag, 42).

CNN and Al Jazeera are understood as peculiar developments, news networks that operate 24-hours a day 7 days a week and continually provide their audiences with breaking news. News networks like these have gained quite a following amongst audiences that want to know what is happening around the world in real time. Cable News Network was started in the 1980s while the Al Jazeera network much more recently, in the late 1990s. Both of these networks have different methodologies in presenting the news while also giving importance to different events throughout the world based on their location and core audience. The two networks’ differences ultimately define the audiences they gain favor with and those with whom they do not, but are they truly that different?

To understand what is happening today in Iraq many Americans rely on CNN to give them the facts on the goings on both in the United States and the rest of the world. The CNN effect is the idea that with images the media is controlling the responses of the government and citizens of the U.S. Susan Sontag in her book Regarding the Pain of Others argues that images is one of the only ways we learn and experience war. “The understanding of war among people who have not experienced war is now chiefly a product of the impact of these images” (21). Americans in essence are using the pictures and images that are displayed 24-hours a day via these types of news networks to understand and sympathize, or not, with the soldiers that are fighting the war or another such story.

Al Jazeera has had its own effect with its development. This particular news network was originally understood to change news because of its willingness to show images and videos that other stations would not. One of the network’s most striking and/or controversial moments, the Osama bin Laden and Al-Qaeda videos during the aftermath of September 11. “Conscripted as part of journalism, images were expected to arrest attention, startle, surprise” (Sontag, 22-23). These videos, images, etc are what Sontag is talking about, they startle and surprise, but most importantly they achieve the goal of getting people’s attention. The Al Jazeera network is accused of promoting anti-American sentiment; it also garnered the U.S. government’s notice in an episode where President Bush reportedly considered bombing one of their stations. It is arguable whether attention like this is good or bad, but stations that are critical of governments expectedly create animosities between themselves and those that they are criticizing.

Which is more powerful the Al Jazeera effect or the CNN effect? Professor Yaron Ezrahi, during the April 16th lecture spoke about the role of the media and how it controls and shapes our reality, both of these networks shape the realities of those that use it for information. Sometimes images presented by television news networks create a different message than the one that governments and important players are trying to present. No other news format can compete with television and the images it has the ability to show. Al Jazeera is an autonomous network, politically and economically, and therefore has no reason to abide by government rules, although, recently, under pressure from many different countries and their governments has “become civilized.” Does this mean that its power will diminish? The pressures that these other governments are putting on this news network revolve around the images they show, and if that is where real power lays will the agree?

Sebastian Kampf also made some interesting points during this same lecture. Those that want to win today’s media wars must use the media as a part of the military. By controlling the media, governments can make it appear that it is a “costless war” and through this continue receiving support. Invariably, other networks are able to present a different side of the story and through this create support on that side of the war. The visual framing of wars is no longer only granted to one side of the conflict, but has become more accessible and more prominent on all sides. The CNN effect is that which is used as a part of the military that which causes governmental responses that the general population can agree with because of the images they see. The Al Jazeera effect does not necessarily create governmental responses but creates a response amongst its audience nonetheless that can then be harmful to the U.S. or to another governmental body.

Images are the ones that create these responses. Susan Sontag gives a sort of explanation:
It seems that the appetite for pictures showing bodies in pain is as keen, almost, as the desire for ones that show bodies naked…No moral charge attaches to the representation of these cruelties…There is the satisfaction of being able to look at the image without flinching. There is the pleasure of flinching (41).
The audiences cannot turn away from images like these; they cannot turn off the television when a news reporter is presenting the exact same gruesome footage over and over again. People have even come to seek out these types of images in movies like SAW which desensitize them to the brutality of certain images. Human beings want to be able to look at these pictures and videos and be able to flinch or not do so presenting their own humanity. The melodrama of movies like this with victim, villain and hero exist only to later be passed on to the real world. During the coverage of September 11th there was not just news reporting, but a story itself unfolding about the evil villains, the fallen victims and the incredible heroes that would come to the rescue. The coverage was no longer just unbiased coverage, but came with adjectives and descriptions of people that elicit certain responses from those that hear them.

Which is most powerful the Al Jazeera or CNN effect? There is no real answer for that, but there is something else, the media is the most influential and most powerful in the end. No one network or one type of news reporting wins, they all do because of the impact they have on their audiences. When there are thousands or millions of people recurring only to the media for their news and information whatever comes out on that news network, with whatever spin they put on it, has an effect. Media in general has the most powerful effect.

Posted by Veronica Cortez at 12:02 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Errol Morris – Literature Review

This literature review of Errol Morris's New York Time blog, Zoom, is one of three. I will be looking at entries from July 2007 through October 2007.

In his first blog entry with the New York Times, “Liar, Liar, Pants on Fire,” Errol Morris opens with a line of skepticism running throughout Zoom: “Pictures are supposed to be worth a thousand words.”[1] It is the first instance in which Morris takes up an everyday cliché and brings the reader to pause upon it. The technique resonates with the act of photography itself—a methodical dissection of an environment to make what appears, at first, banal, challenging and provocative.

In the following entries, Morris engages the reader not with a crash-course in the aesthetics of the photograph—its framing or lighting of a scene—but rather, calls into question the implications of relying upon aesthetics. The frame may capture an engrossing image, but what truth does it leave out in the act of framing? The contrast between black cannonballs and a sun-bleached road may be strikingly beautiful, but isn't there truth in the strategic posing of that scene as well? What about the content that the image excludes—in focusing on this slice of time, are we focusing on a truth or looking right past one? The context in which artistic expression takes hold is critical for gleaning meaning from a photograph; context creates truth in photography. This is not an entirely surprising position for Morris, who is in “the business” of moving pictures, to take:

In discussing truth and photography, we are asking whether a caption or a belief - whether a statement about a photograph — is true or false about (the things depicted in) the photograph. [...] The issue of the truth or falsity of a photograph is only meaningful with respect to statements about the photograph. Truth or falsity “adheres” not to the photograph itself but to the statements we make about a photograph. Depending on the statements, our answers change. All alone — shorn of context, without captions — a photograph is neither true nor false.[2]

The truths Morris takes from photographs of his youth relate directly back to memories he has—the context out of which his present arises, perhaps. He may remember, as a child, playing a game against the wall upon which he is seated in one of the photographs; he may remember the day on which he received the bicycle which sneaks into the frame on another picture. These memories verify the meaning behind the photographs: they are photographs of Errol Morris the filmmaker, and Errol Morris was a boy at a time in the past. Additionally, the context in which Morris received the photographs is indicative of the truth behind them; they hold value, as they are shots taken by his father, fifty years after the man's death. With the multiplicity of contexts surrounding the image, numerous truths emerge, as the photographs are equally Errol Morris and the relationship between father and son.

To better understand why a photograph without context does not have meaning, we may consider Morris's consideration of photographs as data: “Photographs preserve information. They record data. They present evidence.”[3] In this instance, the filmmaker has stripped the photograph of all aesthetic sensibility and reduced it to a means to an end (that end being the truth(s) which the photograph lends itself to). The photograph of Errol Morris sitting on a brick wall as a boy has no inherent truth, it is simply evidence of a statement or question which has been formulated through contextualization in the viewer's mind (e.g. Morris contextualized the image relative to his past; the reader will contextualize it differently). The reader absorbs the language of the article on the website to contextualize the photograph before him (e.g. I, the reader, am reading an article written by Errol Morris, and so I contextualize the image as the boy, Errol Morris). The relationship between language and the world holds the truth Morris notes,[4] and the image is merely present to corroborate the language (unless the image is intentionally deceptive—this is the concern of Sontag and others in their consideration of Fenton's “Valley of the Shadow of Death.”)

The example of multiple truths can be extended to the images that Morris includes in his entries. The Lusitania, a ship which predates the first World War, has a historical context written into our texts. It is dry and factual—more data. For those of us who were not alive when the Lusitania sunk, this historical context is largely all we have in pursuing the truth of the image of the Lusitania. My guess would be that many of us view the truth of the photograph similarly: that was the ship that brought the United States into WWI; it was a large ship and could hold 1,000 people (per the caption). The context for the event is provided in writing and in other images which Morris provides for us, all of which are meant to make the initial image of the ocean-liner more truthful. To an extent, the filmmaker and the photographs succeed. After viewing the New York Times image of the coffins, conceptualizing the loss of life in viewing the original photograph becomes easier. The role of sequence becomes critical in contextualization, as the coffins only hold resonance in so far as they correlate to the original image (the ship); naturally, this correlation is dependent upon the coffin image dating after the photograph of the Lusitania chugging along.

As we find out in Morris's later entries, the filmmaker obsesses over the sequence of images. He does so because the sequence lends itself to the truth behind that data (the photographs). Roger Fenton's photos of “Valley of the Shadow of Death” speak to the photographer's personality, and Morris's project determining which comes first—OFF or ON—has little to do with the aestheticism of the photographs and everything to do with assessing the truth of who Roger Fenton was. The “Which Came First” entries depict one image producer trying to understand another, and the truth of Fenton's photographs revolve around the ethical implications of posing, for Morris. The caption under the photographs is not simply: “Valley of the Shadow of Death,” but also “Roger Fenton poses the ON Scene.” Both are “truths” which the photographs verify.

This distinction between a photograph as the truth and a photograph as evidence of the truth is emphasized in Morris's description of the photograph as a simulacrum: “[...] photographs are nothing more than coarse-grained screens laid over reality, revealing nothing more (about what is photographed) than a certain size. They provide an imperfect simulacrum of the surface of things.”[5] If one takes Morris's point to be valid, the sequence of images forms its own language which can complement the images themselves. Perhaps many imperfect simulacra find coherence in an order that lends itself to truth. The possibility arguably makes film, if not a more truthful medium, a medium providing more pathways to the truth. As Morris notes, “In every photograph something is absent. Someone has made a decision about what time-slice to expose on the emulsion, what space-slice to expose on the emulsion.” That being the case, the same can be said for film—something is always out of the frame, always missed just before the lens opens and after it shutters closed.

Moving forward, one might apply Morris's observations regarding the context in which representations emerge to our production efforts. In particular, I wonder what the filmmaker's insights offer in the realm of documentation. Documentation suggests that the medium acts to represent a truth evolving before us; theoretically, we are not producing that truth, we are capturing the data to corroborate it. Clearly, this is not the case.

How can the act of gathering (photographic) data be possible? When Morris suggests that “believing is seeing,” he notes the difficulty, if not impossibility, of objectivity. This should not be considered only in the realm of consumption, but in production as well. The photographer begins a communication with the subject of his photograph, and the photograph itself is data produced not as a documentation of what is as it is, but of the truth as it is found by the producer (It is interesting to note that only when Errol Morris and Dennis Purcell look outside the truth which Fenton sought to capture do they derive meaning (some semblance of truth) from the movement of the seemingly inconsequential rocks slipping down the slope of the valley).

A possible solution to this predicament may be found in Part II of Morris's “Which Came First” series. He closes the entry with an abrupt transition: “One last thought. I imagine a counterpart to Fenton.”[6] Morris offers no explanation for the shift, but it is instructive. Another producer is introduced. Tolstoy's truth enters the dialogue. Perhaps where Fenton's and Tolstoy's truths overlap, and where we the readers too find the truths we have been looking for—perhaps that is where meaning resides. If that is the case, we need as many images of the Valley of the Shadow of Death as we can produce, and we need them from as many contexts as possible.

Notes
[1] Errol Morris, “Liar, Liar, Pants on Fire,” New York Times 10 Jul. 2007. http://morris.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/07/10/pictures-are-supposed-to-be-worth-a-thousand-words/
[2] Errol Morris, “Liar, Liar, Pants on Fire,” New York Times 10 Jul. 2007. http://morris.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/07/10/pictures-are-supposed-to-be-worth-a-thousand-words/
[3] Errol Morris, “Which Came First? (Part Three): Can George, Lionel and Marmaduke Help Us Order the Fenton Photographs?” New York Times 23 Oct. 2007. http://morris.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/10/23/which-came-first-part-three-can-george-lionel-and-marmaduke-help-us-order-the-fenton-photographs/
[4] Errol Morris, “Liar, Liar, Pants on Fire,” New York Times 10 Jul. 2007. http://morris.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/07/10/pictures-are-supposed-to-be-worth-a-thousand-words/
[5] Errol Morris, “Will the Real Hooded Man Please Stand Up” New York Times 15 Aug. 2007. http://morris.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/08/15/will-the-real-hooded-man-please-stand-up/
[6] Errol Morris, “Which Came First? (Part Two)” New York Times 4 Oct. 2007. http://morris.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/10/04/which-came-first-part-two/

Posted by Michael Dupuis Jr. at 12:50 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Albert Huber, Alan Johnson, Maria Mahler-Haug, Josh Sargent

Posted by Alan Johnson at 11:49 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

re-Gary Hustwit's visit and the discussion involving Obama and fonts: McCain's Optimum Look

and from the NYT article on the Pentagon and the news cycle... follows the inevitable Q & A with David Barstow, the author of the article

Posted by Christina Kim at 10:10 AM | Permalink

Kathleen Fleming
Global Media – Al-Jazeera Review
April 21, 2008

The Image has a unique power to turn abstractions and hearsay into reality for any audience in some way displaced (e.g. spatially, temporally, socio-economically) from the object. An Abel Gance character understood the hold of images over public incitement to action when he cried (in a pre-WWII context), “Fill your eyes with this horror. It is the only thing that can stop you!” (Montag 16). The Image connects the uninvolved, un-inflicted, though still opinionated masses to the sufferers and makes the “suffering of others” believable. Vietnam, as explained by Montag, gave the American public a “tele-intimacy with death and destruction” (21), which turned popular sentiment against the military machine. In 2006, with the launching of Al-Jazeera International and in a context of live feeds and “new media,” the largely uni-directional international news coverage (by the West; of the developing world) began to get feedback sourced from within the core developing region.

Given the channel’s vast access to local sources of information and experience with dominant cultural logics in the Middle East, Al-Jazeera had been since its inception in 1996, “the most sought-after news resource in the world” (Faisal Bodi of The Guardian). Since being broadcast in English, the network’s role as a non-state force of reckoning in the Middle East is undeniable. Surprisingly, in a region with an at-best-spotty record for free speech, this network asserts that very freedom without the foundation of full political rights (i.e. democracy) for its audience. In so doing, Al-Jazeera has become a voice for the voiceless.

Al-Jazeera’s focus is foremost on issues of interest to the developing world, with the Middle East at its center. Its news reports range from democracy in Zimbabwe and Paraguay, refugee camps in Sudan and death tolls in Somalia, to outlines of U.S. presidential primaries, questionable use of military planes by Britain’s royal family, and Mobil’s unprecedented sales (apparently exceeding the GDP of 120 nation-states). While Al-Jazeera notably has shows focused on political debate and critiques of governments both big and small, and appears to balance these debates with representatives from different sides of the discussion, what is most interesting about its programming are the shows that give voices to the politically underrepresented and socially marginalized demographics of developing society: women and children.

In Everywoman and Children of Conflict, two popular Al-Jazeera programs, we see exactly what Libby Anker warned about: melodramatic narratives conceptualizing the news. In the individual cases presented in these programs, however, meta-narratives do not preclude an understanding of the “complexity and horror of events.” Rather, by including the human face and individual drama of suffering I believe we more clearly see the situation. Granted, Ms. Anker’s comment was made in reference to conceptualizing 9/11, a single-event, whereas with sex trafficking and child soldiery the media must tackle much larger, ongoing social patterns of destruction, and so are required to organize around a narrative. In these cases, Al-Jazeera has done a tremendous job of acknowledging its role as a filter for the presentation of people’s stories and opinions while still retaining its journalistic objectivity.

It is worth noting that in order to get at the heart of these programs and not have to wake up at 3:30 a.m. EST to catch live feeds, I watched a few episodes of these programs on Al-Jazeera’s website and YouTube. As far as Western news media go, not even CNN posts its programs for free viewing on either its website or YouTube. Al-Jazeera has done an exceptional job of making its programs available to viewers well after their airdate. This is important because the issues being discussed are perennial; as one host said of filming a special on Egyptian women’s lack of sexual education, it was the hot topic for social conversation for months to come. How you measure the episode’s effect in terms of tangible social change is questionable; however, that there is conversation, and better still, that it has originated not as criticism from without but as a repeated call to arms from within the Muslim world is of paramount importance.

In an Everywoman segment on the absence of sexual education and profusion of male sexual “frustration” in Egypt, the show’s guest, a therapist and marriage counselor, referred to the “hush-hush style that we use to deal with sex in the Middle East” and the local media’s refusal to cover incidents of sexual assault throughout the Muslim world. Both host and guest are Middle Eastern; such internal criticism and subsequent cry for Anker’s heroism were unprecedented in the pre-Al-Jazeera world. The images of the girls’ suffering not only demonstrate the courage and changing attitudes of people within the Arab world, but also create a sense of global camaraderie and shared purpose between Arab women and their western counterparts. Al-Jazeera taps into the sensitive issues and makes a forum of itself for their transmission to a wider audience.

Other episodes of the program call out Thai and Cambodian governments for a lack of political will to organize against human trafficking; the British government for being ill-prepared to respond to honor killings; and the U.S. Army for refusing to allow a Muslim female chaplain into its services. Al-Jazeera is an equal-opportunity critic; while its focus is certainly on issues relevant to the Middle East, it also covers the developing world and Western powers by extension of the core region’s diplomatic, social and economic relationships.

Children in Conflict sears the images (and so the realities) of children caught up in violent conflict and post-conflict situations into the conscience of a global audience. “I know what death means, what blood means,” says a twelve-year-old Gazan to an Al-Jazeera reporter. In the same segment, the reporter questions a fourteen-year-old girl who says, “If you look at [suicide bombing] from the view that life is just a passage, it’s not a bad thing.” This same girl hopes to persuade her younger cousins to also make martyrs of themselves. The reporter replies, shocked, “Do you ever think about the kids in Israel? Do you ever think that they might be suffering too?” to which the girl responds, “Just like our children live under constant fear, their children should also experience the same fear and terror…I refuse to accept that the other children of the world can live in peace and security while the children of Palestine live under terror.” The calm belief in what she’s saying and the fatalistic attitude with which she describes a violent order of retribution and of society holding itself to the lowest common condition are irreconcilable with the image of the girl’s young face. The audience cannot help but be confused: her world understanding is mired in hatred and reciprocated misery, just as is the fourteen-year-old Congolese soldier who in a different episode of Children in Conflict says that “I am young in age, but I know so many things about the world now,” and the Afghan child who says “kids in other countries have parks and schools” and then leads the camera crew to his begging post. It is clear that these children understand their situation in the context of a bigger picture; but their situation has adulterated their understanding of world order. The coverage of these human narratives show that violence breeds violence and there is a new generation caught in the cycle. And, the situation must be real, for we see it in their faces.

Susan Montag says, “For the photography of atrocity, people want the weight of witnessing without the taint of artistry,” which is just as true of news coverage (26) – the audience doesn’t want their news mediated through a biased lens. Still, that Al-Jazeera presents the tone and opinion particularly of the Arab world, which the West seems to so inadequately comprehend, is in fact a tool for U.S. strategists. Al-Jazeera is the West’s means of understanding the on-the-ground realities and perspective in the developing world, and it welcomes the West’s power players to represent their positions in relation to these concerns. These power players, both as collectivities and individuals, must invert their perspective. Using Al-Jazeera as the [as far as I can tell] objective amplifier for the myriad voices in the Middle East, the U.S. stands a far better chance in the war for hearts and minds. Such usage elevates Al-Jazeera into an even more powerful global position; not only is it, as stated above, an influential non-state actor in the Muslim world, but its longevity and objectivity are in fact in the best interest of the global powers.

The global public, in the meanwhile, has a “camera-mediated knowledge of war” (Montag 24). And as a senior producer for Al-Jazeera International said in a YouTube mini-documentary, “History is written by the victors…Life will continue, will go on, there will be other problems, other things to think about. There is one single thing that will be left: victory. That’s it.” This echoes Yaron Ezrahi, who said that the “life expectancy of reality in our time is very short; short lived realities influence the way we experience the world.” Because reality is moderated by the image and by the melodramatic narrative, Al-Jazeera’s reach ought to be of serious interest to the history writers.

Posted by Kathleen Fleming at 01:11 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Hope you guys got a chance to check out the Sunday NYT's review of Standard Operating Procedure to keep in line with his arrival in early May... (more details to follow)

Posted by Christina Kim at 12:03 PM | Permalink

"Tension Over Sports Blogging"
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/21/business/media/21bloggers.html?hp

In light of the "new media/old media" divide, and the proliferation of access points to information, where should the line be drawn between "owenership" of news (i.e. which tv stations, bloggers, youtube posters, etc have the right to report on a story first) and the responsibility of the media as a general entity to simply deliver information to the public? or the First Amendment/freedom of press?

While this article is specifically about ownership of sports coverage and the relationship between journalists and professional sports leagues, it also mentions tensions in other realms of the news media (i.e. last week ABC limiting other stations' use of video clips from the presidential debate to just 30 seconds)

As the playing field is leveled and more and more individuals enter the mix, tensions seem inevitible. But who then becomes the objective arbiter in the situation? The Supreme Court, as a hockey executive suggested in the article?

Posted by Julia Stern at 11:35 AM | Permalink

Extra Credit Thematic Essay
Megan Billman

Director Deborah Scranton has pioneered a new method of filmmaking: directing from a distance, or "virtual filmmaking". She created her documentaries, "The War Tapes" (2006) and "Bad Voodoo's War" (2008), by giving cameras to soldiers deployed to Iraq and directing them via e-mail and instant messenger. Footage captured by the soldiers was sent to Scranton's home in New Hampshire where it was edited. In this essay I will relate the practice of "virtual filmmaking" to existing theories of virtualization, in an attempt to shed light upon the significance of this methodology in the context of critical film studies. In Virtuous War, James Der Derian asserts that while virtualization enables the effects of proximity (the ability to attack) through unprecedented perceptual mobility, this transformation also enables the denial of death. I assert that in film- making as in war- making, virtualization has the potential to enable virtual mobility and the effects of unprecedented proximity, and yet may also encourage denial (in this case denial of the cinema apparatus) and result in misguided claims to objectivity and realism. I will conclude by relating Scranton's responses to these challenges, which is, appropriately, to remain loyal to the local and specific, to the personal and the subjective.

Of our newly mobile mode of war- making, Der Derian writes, "Virtual war is the ability to choose [any] spot on a map and effect damage upon it or the people residing there." This mobility is crucial not only to offensive attacks but also to military training. Reflecting upon a trip to the US military training camp at Fort Irwin, Der Derian describes the efforts undertaken to "take American troops as close to the edge of war as the technology of simulation and the rigors of the environment will allow."(3) Our virtual mobility enables the effects of proximity. It "collapses the distance between here and there, near and far" (10).

Mobility and proximity have been crucial concerns for filmmakers and critics since the evolution of the medium in the late nineteenth century. The camera enabled a revolution in perception, offering the average individual the chance to 'see' events and places far from her everyday reality. Dziga Vertov wrote of the transformation effected upon him by film. "Starting today," he wrote, "I am free forever of human immobility” (Virilio, 20).

In making "The War Tapes" and "Bad Voodoo's War", Scranton was more mobile that Vertov could have ever imagined. Twenty-one soldiers filmed for her and cameras were "mounted on gun turrets, inside dashboards and [on] POV mounts on their Kevlar helmets and vests" (thewartapes.com). Thus Scranton was (virtually) able to participate in raids, make dangerous night passages across mine-laden roads, and spend time in the unit's barracks.

Der Derian identifies the ways in which virtualization enables the denial of the traumatic dimensions of war. He writes, "virtuous wars promote a vision of bloodless, humanitarian, hygienic wars" having the "power to commute death, to keep it out of sight, out of mind" (xv-xvi). In drawing parallels between this theory of the virtual war, and dominant frameworks in critical film studies, I am struck by the relation between the denial of death by the soldier and the denial of the cinema apparatus by the spectator. In the same way that the virtualization of war facilitates the denial of the traumatic fact of mortality, the virtualization of filmmaking encourages the spectator's denial of the cinema apparatus and her mistaken identification with the look of the camera. The relation between denial, misrecognition and cinematic identification is not new. However, it seems to me that in the age of virtualization it is easier to suspend disbelief than ever before.

The virtualization of filmmaking facilitates the denial of the director to such an extent that, during a recent Global Media Lab, Prof. Der Derian was led to wonder whether Scranton was in fact, “showing the path to [her own] disappearance” (GML 4/9). Scranton replied that her methodology in no way diminishes the significance of the director. She sees it as her task to “amplify the voices of the soldiers” and to provide a context and framework for the audience to understand their stories. Though she does not appear in "The War Tapes," her intervention is foregrounded in "Bad Voodoo's War," which includes shots of her seated at her computer messaging with the soldiers, and collecting tapes from her mailbox.

Der Derian asserts that virtualization has rendered the relationship between reality and representation highly ambiguous. He writes, "virtuality collapses the distance between fact and fiction" (10); It “represents a convergence of the means by which we distinguish the… original from the reproduced” (xx). In the field of literary criticism, academics have, for many years, gone to great lengths to articulate the degree of proximity between the filmic text and reality. In his seminal essay "The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction" Walter Benjamin describes the promise that mechanical reproduction holds for the individual "to get closer to the original by way of its likeness, its reproduction"(2). Claims to realism have been particularly contested in relation to documentary whose very name expresses an ontological assumption that film can show the truth in a transparent way (Silverman).

If we equate proximity with access to objective reality it would seem that virtual filmmaking, which enables the spectator to get ‘closer’ to the subject than ever before, might enable unparalleled access to the real. Scranton, however, staunchly refuses the possibility of objectivity in film, asserting that the notion of critical distance is "an incredibly egotistical construct" as "everyone brings their life experience" to their work. She is hopeful that we might catch glimpses of reality in “"contrasting ground-level narratives" but maintains that "it is only when we are human beings first that we approach that truth."

Virtual war- making and virtual film- making represent manifestations of the "urge to expand the range of vision and detection," to “push back… the limits of investigation, in both time and space " (Virilio, 75). At this moment in which “the surfaces of the globe are [effectively] directly present to one another”(Virilio, 46) it is more crucial than ever that we remember that war does kill and that representations are mediated.

References:
Allen, Tim. "Perceiving Contemporary Wars," 1999
Appadurai, Arjun. "Disjuncture and Difference in the Global Economy," 1996
Benjamin, Walter. "The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction," 1935
Aufderheide, Patricia."Your Country, My Country: How Films About The Iraq War Construct Publics" in The Journal of Cinema and Media - Volume 48, Number 2, Fall 2007, pp. 56-65
Der Derian, James. Virtuous War, Westview Press, Oxford 2001
Jenkins, Henry. "Worship at the Altar of Convergence," in Convergence Culture, New York University Press, New York, 2006
Musser, Charles."Film Truth in the Age of George W. Bush" in The Journal of Cinema and Media - Volume 48, Number 2, Fall 2007, pp. 9-35
Silverman, Michael, class notes, Cinematic Coding and Narrativity.
Virilio, Paul. War and Cinema, Verso, London, 1989

Posted by Megan Billman at 12:11 AM | Permalink

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/20/washington/20generals.html?_r=1&hp=&adxnnl=1&oref=slogin&adxnnlx=1208700696-yNdmtBfygcUfPpUSu6sjAQ

This article from today's NY Times talks about the Pentagon's deliberate shaping of public opinion in favor of their military actions, through the "expert commentary" on TV of retired generals...here is an excerpt:

"Hidden behind that appearance of objectivity, though, is a Pentagon information apparatus that has used those analysts in a campaign to generate favorable news coverage of the administration’s wartime performance, an examination by The New York Times has found.
The effort, which began with the buildup to the Iraq war and continues to this day, has sought to exploit ideological and military allegiances, and also a powerful financial dynamic: Most of the analysts have ties to military contractors vested in the very war policies they are asked to assess on air."

Posted by Julia Stern at 10:16 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)

Similar to Deborah Scranton's The War Tapes, this is the trailer for a doc about the Oregon National Guard's deployment to Iraq in 2004 (shot during the same period as The War Tapes). Shot by the unit themselves and then edited by Scott Laney and Gary Mortensen.

Posted by Joshua Sargent at 03:02 PM | Permalink

I just wanted to flesh out a little bit what Professor Santos said towards the end of class yesterday. He mentioned that this generation is exposed to brutality and gruesome violence in the media in the form of entertainment (he mentioned "The Saw") and it seemed to me that he hinted that this exposure makes a YouTube video of a beheading more palatable, or at least more familiar. I see his point in that we are already accustomed/desensitized to gore and violence and even pay money to see it as entertainment. But the YouTube beheading video is still incredibly horrific because unlike "The Saw," the beheading video has the element of Truth. We were having trouble defining what truth is earlier in class, and we were talking about how all "wars are stories" as if there is no Truth so much as multiple perspectives. But I think that the difference between "The Saw" and the beheading video might actually help us capture the essence of what Truth is: truth is the fact that outside of the media, these wars, violence, and beheading are still very real and physical. Because it lacks truth, "The Saw" and any Hollywood film can be incredibly gruesome and neither have the same effect as the beheading video nor make the beheading video more familiar. It is thus truth that makes the beheading video (and war in general) a new and horrible experience each time we stumble into it.

Posted by Julia Hellman at 04:30 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

updated: 4/21/08 at 2:30pm

greetings all,

this is what I have for final projects. please feel free to amend (via email or comments here, I'll post updates) and if you haven't chosen something yet, please do so. I know a couple of people are still in the midst of deciding, so if you don't see your name here, that would be why... thanks guys! ck

Meaghan Casey - Culture of War/JDD
Alejandra Piers-Torres - Terrorist media/JPS
Sarah Kay - Terrorist media/JPS
Albert Huber - Terrorist media/JPS
Michael Schub - Terrorist media/JPS
Julia Stern - Terrorist media/JPS
Kathleen Fleming - Terrorist media/JPS
Megan Goetsch - Terrorist media/JPS
Veronica Cortez - Terrorist media/JPS
Kristian Walther - Culture of War/JDD
Josh Sargent - Culture of War/JDD
Amy Tan - Culture of War/JDD
Emma Clippinger - Independent Project
Maria Mahler-Haug - Independent Project
Alan Johnson - Cyborgs, Rhizomes, oh my!/Phil
Rosalinda Pascual - Independent Project
Marielle Segarra - Culture of War/JDD
Anne Krapu - Independent Project
Joe Braidwood - Independent Project
Ben Mishkin - Terrorist media/JPS
Julia Hellman - Culture of War/JDD
Willem Van Lancker - Independent Project

Posted by Christina Kim at 09:51 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Posted by Anne T Krapu at 10:06 PM | Permalink

The First Casualty – Ch. 21
Literature Review
April 15, 2008
Julia Stern

"Despite scouring two national newspapers every day, listening to the radio, surfing the web and watching the TV news, I have absolutely no idea how the war is going" (527).

Phillip Knightley begins the final chapter of his book, The First Casualty, with this sentiment of irony and dissatisfaction regarding media coverage of the current war in Iraq, as expressed by a British reader in a 2003 Letter to the Editor of The Guardian. In an age when the media has assumed such a ubiquitous presence in viewers’ daily lives, the issue of assessing the truth and accuracy of news coverage becomes ever more crucial – and perhaps less easily discernible – as we are consistently inundated with compelling images, live footage, and “expert” commentary on the latest wartime events. In the case of the current war in Iraq – the U.S. now entering its fifth year of engagement – and the Pentagon’s broader concept of the “War on Terror,” Knightley points to the media’s unprecedented efforts to make this “the most thoroughly reported war of modern times” (528),equipped with the technological capacity to deliver 24-hour coverage, and inclined to embed reporters within military units so that the news we see would (in theory) come “directly from amidst the troops in the field: ‘the best representatives to convey America’s intentions and capabilities’” (528, 531). Yet, as is illustrated in this chapter with a critical assessment of news coverage since the onset of the war in 2003, Knightley sets out to prove – successfully, it seems – that often, and sometimes intentionally so, “the first casualty when war comes, is [the] truth.”

As we learned from our recent discussion with the Eisenhower Series generals describing their varied interactions with the military and the media, there are many different (often conflicting) interests – political, corporate, humanitarian, and individual – involved in determining what is ultimately reported to the public during wartime. In Chapter 21 of The First Casualty, Knightly focuses specifically on the Pentagon and its recent policies in Iraq concerning media coverage, seriously calling into question the morality of several calculated actions employed by the U.S. governm