One interesting conversation that will never take place is one between novelist H.G. Wells and someone like human rights advocate Kelly Matheson of WITNESS (c. early 21st century).
In the book “Digital Culture,” Wells was quoted as pre-figuring the Internet (although his limited 20th century horizon was focused only on the then-emerging medium of photography) with his idea of a “world encyclopedia,” which he thinks can be “a way to world peace that can be followed without any very grave risk of collision with warring political forces and vested interests…”
Fast forward to Matheson saying in 2011 that their organizational vision of cameras everywhere to document human rights issues finally came true: People rising up from the Middle East to Manhattan while providing first-hand, real-time account of the action.
Sounds like the makings of a Wellsian utopia except that the path to world peace seems to be more torturous than the novelist imagined and has so far definitely involved some very grave collisions in places like Egypt and Syria.
On the one hand, we get intimate perspectives of the day’s big issues that can deepen our sense of context better than any TV news sound bite can do —- like watching a raw WITNESS footage of a 5-year old Palestinian kid being detained for throwing rocks at Israeli soldiers or seeing a traditional wedding among the Hazaragi people of Afghanistan in the ENGAGE website.
But that same video about the 5-year old kid also showed one of the soldiers taking a photo of the citizen videographer. It’s striking how a tool of the digital age, the camera, became almost a physical substitute for a gun as weapon of intimidation. And the video itself is lethal weapon in the hands of partisans who may have little interest in promoting a fair and balanced view of the conflict. It becomes pernicious propaganda.
As the book implies, information is a lot like money. It’s just another neutral medium of exchange that we romanticize at our own risk, perhaps egged on by “high priests of technology,” our middle-men into the future who may not see any clearer than we do.
At the same time, the ambiguous situations that come with user-driven content generation do also need some level of gatekeeping, perhaps based on the model that organizations like WITNESS now perform in ensuring that security and human dignity don’t get lost in the shuffle.
Well, somehow my first response got deleted. I’ll try this again.
I enjoyed your connection between WITNESS and George Orwell creating a 21st century utopian. I always think of 1984 and big brother, but turning the idea around so that it becomes ‘people are watching so be nice!’ into an advocacy role could prove to be beneficial and spur change in the world.
I also agree that when publishing stories, safekeeping and security has to be WITNESS number one priority. I mention this in my post as one of my unresolved issues because I needed to hear an example of how they protected Na Papa from the military police that could have killed her over the video.
And I also agree that the level of authenticity shadows network news. I always have to remind myself that every news story has a sponsor.
My own personal call to action is to promote WITNESS to my friends and let them in on this powerful living room on the internet.
I liked your point about videos being used as a weapon of intimidation. It made me think about how this concept translates over to everyday life. In this digital age video cameras can be very intimidating even in non-threatening situations. Take for instance, If someone is filming at a party, people may become intimidated by the fact that someone is recording their moves. They might act differently for fear that the video would pick up something embarrassing and then posted on the internet.
I was just listening to this interview the other day (http://www.scpr.org/programs/airtalk/2013/09/24/33882/when-is-it-okay-to-snap-and-share-pics-of-stranger/) about whether or not it’s okay to take pictures of strangers. I was also reminded of a NPR story about an israeli soldier whose job it was to take pictures of palestinians. They would do these visits to people’s houses at all hours of the night and make the family get up and call everyone into the room and then snap pictures of them. It wasn’t even like they had information that these families had done anything. They just did it to compile pictures and intimidate them.
Jamie, if you know any teachers, especially history or social studies teachers, share the Witness page with them especially, or encourage your friends to share it with teachers. Engage would also be useful. I already shared the Witness page with my husband. He’s a h.s. social studies teacher who teaches a unit on climate change, and I thought the videos in kids own voices would really be powerful to make the issue real for other kids.
Hm, now I kind of want to do a final project on showing the Witness videos to high school students…..
Hey Grace, I like that you said “ambiguous situations that come with user-driven content generation do also need some level of gatekeeping,” because I tend to agree. If the videos are unfocused or thrown together, I think it’s easier for the important message to get lost. However, Engage had some amazingly powerful videos – I was awestruck by the stories of women who had been taken as child soldiers – how awful!
With that said, Natalie pointed out (I think about the direction of user-generated media in general) that “It’s messy and it’s imperfect, but it is more democratic than the historical/traditional forms of media because there few to no gatekeepers anymore,” which I think is an excellent point.
So where is the happy medium? Can we have raw human stories and footage presented in a democratic way, but organized efficiently enough that the content is accessible and presented well enough to keep people browsing for more?
Where’s the happy medium, indeed? That’s the question of the ages. From our point of view as professional communicators, perhaps a starting point (one of many) is to start re-evaluating our role in this complex process, as more of value-added middle men in different capacities — teacher of technical skills, strategic connectors, advocates of individual rights to privacy, dignity and security, aesthetic consultants and editors… the job descriptions go on and on.
Full disclosure:
Did a minor edit on my original write-up. I somehow confused H.G. Wells with George Orwell. I also put my comments about Wells pre-figuring the Internet in a more accurate context. Wells might be conceptually thinking of something like the Internet but I guess his turn-of-the-century imagination can only then envision something related to photography, which was probably viewed by people in the late 19th century with the same awe and anticipation as we did the Internet in its early years.