reframing the story media tactics and interventions, digital dissent, and satire Megan Boler Ontario Institute of Studies in Education University of Toronto www.meganboler.net The Moral of the Story: Art, Culture, Media and Politics Parkland Fall Conference 2008 | November 14-16, 2008
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reframing the story
media tactics and interventions, digital dissent, and satire
Megan Boler
Ontario Institute of Studies in Education
University of Toronto
www.meganboler.net
The Moral of the Story: Art, Culture, Media and Politics Parkland Fall Conference 2008 | November 14-16,
2008
Skepticism and critical inquiry: key tools for radical
change and social justice MEDIA CRITICISM: popular culture is a
primary form of education MEDIA equally or more potent than school,
church, or home in shaping perceptions and culture
“Fear is the mother of morality.” Friedrich Nietzsche
Critical Media Literacy in Times of War
The Big Picture of Media and Democracy What is the role of media in a
democracy? How have activists engaged media
criticism and tactical media as part of social justice movements?
Media as propaganda in times of war
The power of media in defining perception and reality
Recent examples of media defining global perception with immeasurable negative effect:
How much hope can we invest in the political and cultural power of tactical media?
Questions about digital media
In what ways has access to digital media production and distribution democratized public political expression?
Has online activism detracted from offline social movements?
Silo effect/fragmentation: what are the effects of people reading increasingly different news sources?
See video Epic 2015 --”Googlezon”
Digital Media and Democracy: Tactics in Hard Times ed. M. Boler
(forthcoming MIT Press, 2008)
“Why, at a time when the means of communication have been
revolutionized, when people can contribute their opinions and
access those of others rapidly and immediately, why has
democracy failed?” (Jodi Dean)
Potentially Radical Digital Media Practices of
Intervention, Critique, Reframing, Organizing
Blogging, videoblogging Viral videos Remix Podcasting Social networking (Facebook, etc.) Mobile communication technologies
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Key questions:
• How are people using digital media for activism and to construct counterpublics, and what are the effects and impact of digital dissent?
• What are the relationships of online to offline activism?
• What is the significance of the popularity of parody and satire to changes in citizenship practices of activism?
Shock and awe2001/2003--present
Public crises of faith in
“truthtelling”
Coincides with
Increased democratized
access to digital media
production and circulation
Public crises of faith in “truthtelling”
Increased expression of demands for truthful accounts…
…Alongside paradoxical sense that all the world’s a construction
Living an irony: Only certainty is that we’re being lied to
grasping for fragments of facts
2004 “americans are dying for the truth” (key theme identified in high frequency in the 150 Bush in 30 Seconds)
Blog most frequently looked up word in online Merriam Webster Dictionary 2004
Jon Stewart’s appearance on Crossfire 2004 YOU person of year 2006 Truthiness popularized by Colbert in 2006-
“Word of the Year” now adopted in north american vocabulary
Colbert, first show 2005: “Truthiness is tearing apart our country…”
“It used to be, everyone was entitled to their own opinion, but not their own facts. But that's not the case anymore. Facts matter not at all. Perception is everything. It's certainty. People love the President because he's certain of his choices as a leader, even if the facts that back him up don't seem to exist. It's the fact that he's certain that is very appealing to a certain section of the country. I really feel a dichotomy in the American populace. What is important? What you want to be true, or what is true?...
Truthiness is: 'What I say is right, and [nothing] anyone else says could possibly be true.' It's not only that I feel it to be true, but that I feel it to be true. There's not only an emotional quality, but there's a selfish quality.”
Stephen Colbert, October 17 2005
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Rethinking Media, Democracy andCitizenship
(SSHRC 2005-2008)Four sites of study:
1) Online networks developed about Jon Stewart’s The Daily Show and appearance on Crossfire
against Bush 2004 election• 150 quicktime movie finalists
selected from over 1500 submissions
“Note to self”--Bush in 30 seconds
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Bushit, Holly Mosher
The one thing with art that is wonderful is it’s one of the few places that people let down their walls of what they already believe and actually listen with an open heart and are willing to consider things from another side. If you’re just in a discussion, people’s walls are up and they’re heart is closed usually. Art is the one thing that can bridge that with politics. (Holly Mosher)
Effects of online activism
“It’s really great because you know people are watching these ads, whether they see yours or somebody else’s and it’s really nice. You feel like you’re part of a group. I also support it by constantly emailing and writing my senators and congress people as well….” Holly Mosher
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(interview, Rich Garella producer of Polygraph Bin30)
a theory of communication try to get them emotionally
“instead of saying you know ‘Bush lied,’ and give people something that they can argue directly against or … accept or reject, we just said ‘let’s give them an arresting visual teamed with an arresting sound track that just creates this association in their mind between Bush and lying without exactly saying it explicitly.”
(Rich Garella interview, producer of Polygraph Bin30)
“people have this reaction like science is trustworthy and technical things are trustworthy and there’s an implication that scientific instruments are neutral collectors of evidence and give results that you can't doubt … the little pens are like laying down little lines of ink that you can't argue with. Now obviously … it doesn’t really say anything about what Bush is saying because Bush was never hooked up to any kind of machine and [Laughs]…and you know, polygraphs don’t work very well anyway…”Rich Garella, Polygraph
Rich Garella, Polygraph
“a theory of communication: try to get them emotionally”
“I view this ad really as … a kind of propaganda that I hope was effective but it’s not very defensible … it doesn’t construct a logical argument or anything like that and … when the same methods are used by people I disagree with to put across an underlying message that I think is untrue, it makes me angry.”
TDS and Colbert Report:most informed, or breeding cynicism?
(2) Jon Stewart on Crossfire
October 14, 2004 Top-cited media
event in blogosphere in 2004
Watched by 600,000 Downloaded and
watched by estimates of 1-4 million within one week
Jon Stewart’sdemands to mainstream media on Crossfire
Media has a responsibility to the public
Crossfire replaces civilized discourse with partisan theatre hacks
“Stop hurting America”
“Stop, stop, stop,
stop hurting America…. See, the
thing is, we need your help. Right
now, you're helping the politicians and
the corporations. And we're left out there to mow our
lawns.” Jon Stewart on
Crossfire
Interview with Lisa Rein, TDS blogger
“The Daily Show was serving the function of what real news was supposed to do and they were the only people doing it and they were doing it with comedy it was all so weird and wonderful and it was still the only thing of its kind … so I just wanted to promote it and get it out to as many people as I could…That’s what I’m hoping for I’m really just trying to get out to a wider audience, I like being there for younger people, so they can get good information about things before they waste a bunch of time…”
Megan Boler and Stephen Turpin “Ironic Citizenship: Coping with Complicity in Spectacular Society”
available on www.meganboler.net
“The Daily Show and Crossfire: Satire and Sincerity as Truth to Power” in
Digital Media and Democracy: Tactics in Hard Times (MIT 2008)
Fake news: many paths to truth; commitment to
sensibility; seeking to reveal untruths
Straddles all spheres:• Uses remix, “real news”• Jon Stewart committed to “rational debate” as
an ideal of press and democracy• Uses satire to “pop us out” of assumptions of
“truth” in media• Asks viewers to inhabit space of critical gap• Yet not outside of complicity and spectacle
Why the appeal of fake news?
Irony and political satire allow us to cope with complicity in the spectacular society
Coping with complicity and society of the spectacle
post-2001media landscape confirms the necessity of a contradictory life
appeal of fake news, satire and irony: frank admission of complicity with the spectacle
MSM upholds a correspondence notion of truth
in contrast, satire
allows ambiguity of meanings that resonate with our lived experience of contradiction within spectacle
satire as a call to action:
trusted court-jester’s sincerity
against already-admission of
complicity
Andrea Schmidt and Megan Boler,“Will New Media Save Democracy?” February 2007 Counterpunch
Notions of democracy: pluralist “Walmart” choice model, or agonistic sphere
Low percentage of blogs that get significant readership Silo effect? NO! Predominance of white male bloggers who achieve
“pundit recognition” and “public voice” Genuine questions about blogging’s investigative role
in journalism and capacities to shift news agenda setting
I always joke about what a what a great political activist I am sitting on my arse in front of the computer…I like to record protests and show people that they exist and, … so I will physically go to protests, I’ll shoot video for an hour and then go home and put it up and that’s my contribution. Rather than being at the protest like all day long ….
It seemed to help I mean it ultimately didn’t help because Bush went to war anyway. But it seemed to help in the lead up to that war where we started off with little tiny protests and then we had millions of people all over the world in February and…the video let people know that it was happening and people were showing up..
Onegoodmove.orgNorm Jenson Began blog to make TDS clips available
to Mac users Surprised that his blog quickly attracted
thousands of international readers Online comment forum evidenced that
viewing clips on his blog inspired viewers to become involved in activism
Zeyad
Survey Findings:Democracy through bloggingBlogging “allows a level of citizen participation. You
have a voice as well as a vote instead of just going and
pulling a lever and being an anonymous number, you actually
contribute something to the debate.”
www.meganboler.net Survey findings on blogging
“I think the main value is it brings more voices to
the table. Like by comparison to corporate
media where they pretend that there’s maybe two
sides to every argument, which is ridiculous.”
Bloggers motivations
“I’m not just attempting to influence [readers] while they’re online, I’m attempting to influence them for their entire lives.”
A contributor to a prominent US military blog explains, “I like to argue because it helps form my opinion. I’m not bound to any opinion, and arguing with smart people who disagree is the best way to find holes in your own argument.”
Stuart Hall | Politics of representation
dominant (or 'hegemonic') reading: the reader …accepts and reproduces the preferred reading
negotiated reading: the reader partly shares … the preferred reading, but sometimes resists and modifies it …this position involves contradictions
oppositional ('counter-hegemonic') reading: the reader… understands the preferred reading but … rejects this reading, bringing to bear an alternative [non-dominant] frame of reference
“Culture jamming”
& visualmedia literacy
patricia ward williams“who took this picture?”
Tactical media:The Yes Men
Wednesday November 11, 2008
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Bill MOYERS: I do not know whether you are practicing an old form of parody and satire…or a new form of journalism.
Jon STEWART: Well then that either speaks to the sad state of comedy or the sad state of news. I can't figure out which one. I think, honestly, we're practicing a new form of desperation….July 2003
Creativity is the sudden cessation of stupidity. Edwin Land
Creativity requires the courage to let go of certainties. Erich Fromm
Genius means little more than the faculty of perceiving in an unhabitual way. William James