Archive for March, 2011
Medi 301 Film Write-up #1
Trevor Olafson
Control Room
The first impression of the film Control Room is one of foreboding. In the offices of Al Jazeera we are introduced to the producers and reporters who are on high alert and afraid of the coming American invasion of Iraq in 2003. They are going about the business of reporting in the best way they can, while cooperating with CENTCOM and its media intelligence officer Lt. Josh Rushing. This included running translated broadcasts of American political speeches or opinion pieces during the run-up to the attack on Baghdad.
In North America we have a collective memory of it as seen through the eyes of FOX, MSNBC, ABC etc. that is very devoid of the kinds of nightmare images that are the reality of armed conflict; this is especially true when the victims are civilian. In the film we see evidence that one of the first missions of CENTCOM is to create the correct atmosphere and context to justify an invasion of Iraq. In contrast to the types of localized human interest counter-narrative of the Al Jazeera reporting, in Control Room American media is in the process of de-humanizing the citizens. Their stories do not focus on how much we have in common. They are not showing the people in Baghdad going shopping, taking their kids to school or going to work. As we see in the film, footage of a screaming mob is quite effective at winning the sympathy of those ready to just ‘nuke em’.
To portray the citizens of Iraq as ‘like us’ is one way that Al Jazeera tries to provide a counter-narrative. They go further however and portray the true face of suffering and death, and take flak for showing the real human cost. It makes for a laugh when we see Josh Rushing argue with Hassan Ibrahim about how this is minimal and just one of the by-products of conflict. He still believes the military rhetoric about ‘smart weapons’ and ‘surgical strikes’. The missile strikes on Al Jazeera and Abu Dabi TV etc. were evidence that ruffling the feathers of some birds can be deadly.
Al Jazeera’s mission statement is presented in the film as “The Opinion and the Other Opinion” this is a very good definition of what a democratic model of journalism should be. In the film we see one instance of the producer Samir Kadher say that “We at Al Jazeera play the American propaganda as if it is news”. We also see him admonish his reporters to remain objective as possible while carry out their duties. This is in contrast to American claims that Al Jazeera is Osama Bin Laden’s mouthpiece, followed up by Josh Rushings’ admission that there is “ incredible bias” with the CENTCOM reporting.
The biggest difference between Al Jazeera and the American style media is the fact that reporters are local to the region. They understand the people and their problems, foreign reporters do not have the same insights. Whether Al Jazeera really is a contra-flow of news is brought into question in the film. The scenes of the statue of Saddam being demolished in the center of Baghdad were not covered by Al Jazeera. In the film we saw as they could only comment on the feeds they were getting from the embedded media as this event unfolded. It became clear that the mob that had ‘spontaneously assembled’ to topple the despotic edifice were in fact not even Iraqis’. The producer at Al Jazeera gave evidence of this by saying that they did not have the correct accent. He then pointed out that the whole thing was “not right”, there were no women or children present in any of the shots, nor were there any Iraqi soldiers or Republican Guard. He raised suspicions that the event was staged – one of the mob had an Iraqi flag pre 1991 with him (deemed unlikely). These aspects of this event were not heard on FOX or MSNBC, instead it was spun as the Iraqi people embracing democracy and freedom.
During the film,
Al Jazeera ended up not able to truly provide the ‘other opinion’; due to damage to infrastructure as well as political pressures.
Medi 301 Film write-up #2
Trevor Olafson
News From The Holy Land: Theory and practice of reporting conflict
The central question in regards to understanding conflicts, is how we hear of them. The news in the West usually focuses on a war and violence angle in their stories and leaves out important information as to the cause of the it. An effect in perception of news watchers towards the unrepresented side of a conflict manifests as a them and us mentality; which helps win support for military actions against the ‘enemy’ or ‘terrorists’. Most of us have been duped at one time or another by this kind of reporting, and simply gone on with our lives. While war atrocities and genocides were taking place – we slept.
News stories based on a Peace Journalism perspective would for example, be constructed differently than the traditional pieces. The order of the shots in the segment can change perception of the context, this lack of context feeds polarization; Peace Journalism is a counter to this aim. Knowledge of what created the conditions in which people feel driven to become ‘suicide bombers’ is often lacking. A culture (Palestinians) that has had to endure persecution and hardship would have much more support in the West if we were shown the checkpoints, barbwire and soldiers they contend with on a daily basis. Questions that ask why, don’t happen without wanting to know who and what. In the case of the Israel – Palestine conflict, the tradition is not to ask about this structural violence. Understanding people and the landscape in which they live is the goal of Peace Journalism. Giving a voice to those on both sides would help to end patterns of mutual mistrust and begin reshaping attitudes which dictate behaviour.
For example, stories about a peace talk or summit often include a line that there is little chance of a successful meeting. The alternate version would focus on how to create conditions for successful peace initiatives, such as empathy and understanding of those who have been affected. It is easy to turn a blind eye to something that you cannot see. Without inclusion of the facts, opinion is misshapen and contradictions are ignored, allowing the same conditions to continue.
Certainly I would have a deeper understanding of the plight of Palestinians if the major news reports included stories about how they have been displaced from their land and forced to live in a enclosure. The ‘Apartheid Wall’ symbolizes and enforces daily injustices against the Palestinian people, who are literally caged and at the mercy of their colonial masters.
Approaching these issues in the spirit of ethical journalism requires that they be brought to light by showing real instances of the frustration of Palestinians; blocked from farmlands, harassed and killed. The truth of the background issues would become transparent as previous cover-ups are exposed by journalists who are not foreign to the area.
Without a drastic change in the amount of foreign news reporting(local journalists) getting their stories out to the mainstream, they will remain ‘alternate’. At this time, viewers in North America see a small percentage of reports from journalists based in the region, and those must meet the ‘gatekeepers’ approval before being allowed to go to air.
The typology of violence in a troubled region will continue as long the attitudes and contradictions that cause and perpetuate it remain invisible to those outside the conflict. Let us all hope that those seeking to tell the truth are allowed, I for one still want answers. 
Medi301 Film write-up #3
Trevor Olafson
A Little Bit of So Much Truth
The film by Jill Freidberg, Un Poquito de Tanta Verdad(A Little Bit of So Much Truth) documents the teachers strikes in the Mexican state of Oaxaca. In this sympathetic look at the popular uprising, the film-maker focuses on how radio became a vital part of making it possible. In May of 2006 over 70,000 teachers went on strike fighting in defense of public education. They had spent years voicing their concerns about the poverty of the children they taught and the lack of funding for even the most basic of school supplies. In a bold move, the teachers went to the capital city of Oaxaca where they set up a camp known as a ‘planton’. For the first time the teachers also used radio to organize themselves, and set up what became known as ‘Radio Planton’. Unlike previous years the government refused to negotiate with them, threatening instead to use police action to break up the strike and evict them from the capital.
The immediate response by main stream media outlets in Mexico was to begin to paint the protesters as being a mob that was not only causing traffic jams, but causing huge economic losses and violating the rights of all Mexicans to move about freely. The counter to this was Radio Planton, it was the only way the protesters were able to get critical information passed amongst themselves and their supporters. Through call in shows, people were able to add their voices and support to the teachers in the struggle. Police action against ‘Radio Planton’ galvanized people to defend it. Calls to the citizens to come out of their homes and help as the police entered the radio station mobilized most of the population, who later drove the police out of the city center. Two days after the attack on the teachers over 300,000 took part in a protest march in solidarity with them. The teachers and the population came together to form APPO, they had one demand, the removal of Ulises Ruis Ortiz from power. This uprising grew through the continual updates given on Radio Planton with calls to people in various regions to support blockades and defy military action. Mass resistance against government forces would not have happened in the same way without the use of media outlets taken over by the protesters throughout the state of Oaxaca.
The government countered and used it’s own television to try to frame the protesters as ‘radical groups’. By using the postponement of a yearly celebration known as the Guelaguetza, the government thought that they would be able to turn public opinion; it was the fault of the protesters that they must cancel the event because of fears that members of the public or even tourists would be hurt. Celebrations went on as normal, despite the official statements on television. People had listened to their radio which they trusted. The radio was used to further incite the protesters who wanted to disseminate ‘a little bit of so much truth’ to eventually take over a TV station when they were refused some air time. The police moved in after three weeks and destroyed the transmitter equipment, because of the impact broadcasts were having on the people, who continued to call for Ortiz to step down. They did not let themselves be silenced however, and instead the same morning took over 19 commercial radio stations and continued to broadcast critical strategic information to keep themselves organized. Main stream TV was calling the protests and takeovers violent clandestine guerrilla actions, not reporting that the violence that happened was against the people by the police.
Once the people had the media in their hands they were changed by it. Having this control allowed them to be able to mobilize and resist government forces, information about possible attacks against roadblocks or troop movements could reach a large number of people who could know when and where they were needed to fight back. The radio became their main defense. The power that the people began to wield changed the way they identified themselves, having control of the media was the turning point, from which they did not want to go back to the way things were.
Despite a huge organized march supported by people throughout Mexico and many parts of the world, thousands of police were used to attack and break up the teachers resistance movement, government television was used to whitewash these attacks in which at least 100 people were ‘disappeared’. One of the last stands of the movement was made at Radio Universidad when people were urged to bring their barricades to help preserve ‘the voice of the people’ and establish a new planton from which to continue the struggle. Unfortunately a campaign of propaganda instituted by the government against the movement was eventually able to negatively affect public perception. Once this was accomplished the government was able to completely break up organized protests without public resistance. Fear of being involved in supporting the protests grew as some were be
aten and arrested. With the eventual loss of Radio Universidad the protests died and the movement never quite recovered it’s support.
Medi 301
Trevor Olafson
Film write-up #4:
Seeing is Believing: Handicams, Human Rights and the News
If knowledge is power, then being able to disseminate that knowledge is more powerful still. In the film we see the evolution of the technologies and resulting use in documenting the struggles of marginalized and oppressed people. In each case, available technology ranging from a simple photocopy to modern cell phone gave ordinary citizens the ability organize themselves and air grievances against political and corporate tyranny.
With new technologies came new possibilities for human rights awareness and change. The advent of the handicam in 1985 heralded the age of a new type of journalism, anyone could potentially be a reporter and record first person accounts of events that otherwise would not be caught by usual network news cameras. The amateur video of the 1991 police beating of Rodney King in Los Angeles caught the attention of broadcasters and was subsequently shown around the world, angering many in the process. After the officers involved were acquitted of all wrongdoing massive riots broke out in a large 20 block area of the city that left 54 dead and more than 2,000 injured. This would likely not have happened without the combination of damning video evidence seen by all and outrage following the courts verdict in the trial.
The cell phone and internet have also been used to organize grass-roots campaigns for change. Texting and e-mail became the catalyst of a political revolution in the Philippines which forced the resignation of then President Estrada. He had been found not guilty on trial for charges of corruption, bribery and breach of public trust despite a considerable volume of evidence against him. Through texting and e-mail were people able to communicate and organize in large numbers and within a short time frame. In this case, the following four day protest was successful in its goal. According to Alex Magno, a sociology professor in Manila, most of the political upheavals of the last two decades have had a definitive link to communications technology. Audio cassettes, photocopiers, and fax machines have all been used with varying degrees of success or in cases such as Tiananmen, failure.
The risk of retribution against those using technology to organize human rights campaigns is very real concern. In the video, we see the account of the Nakamata people of the Philippines as shown by late journalist Joey Lozano. During the Marcos dictatorship, tribes all across the country were forced off their land which was then taken over for corporate use. After several failed land claims by tribe members they became more vocal and organized, the result is that they are targets of violence. In the film, Joey follows the Nakamata tribe as they move to a location awarded to them as ancestral land, his video camera likely was a factor in preventing armed thugs from interfering with the tribe that day. A few days later the tribe moves again, without the video camera present. Two of the tribe members were shot by guards as they moved past a demarcation fence, Lozano himself feels guilty for not being there when the tribe was decided to move the second time. This motivated him to provide the tribe with a video camera and trained members in shooting and editing footage, so that they might be empowered to defend themselves with it. They recorded their grievances and gave visual evidence of the conditions they faced, after this footage was aired locally, tribe members who had spoken on camera were injured and killed by gunfire and beatings. The Nakamata recorded the funerals of their members who had been murdered, there was enough interest by the major network in the Philippines and these graphic and emotional images were aired on national TV. Within one month of receiving the video camera, the images they captured resulted in large numbers of people aware of their plight. They had gained the interest of a top rated investigative show with national television exposure, resulting in a prime-time report about the Nakamata that relies heavily on the footage by the Nakamata themselves. Although technology had given them a voice there was an immediate violent response by corporate thugs trying to silence them, a continued risk that will be only end when the land claims are settled, if ever.
Witness campaigns for awareness of human rights focus on exposing the circumstances or issues behind them to those people who are part of the general population and to those with the influence to actually change policy. They also have been active in campaigns that focus on bringing justice to those who have lost their lives in genocidal slaughter. Providing forensic video evidence of mass graves of thousands of murdered Muslims to prosecutors helped greatly in the conviction of war criminal Slobodan Milosevic. In the Congo, a slaughter of over three million gained little attention until footage of horribly maimed and dead victims were shown to national news agencies who picked it up. It was seen by many but most importantly acted upon when an outraged Nelson Mandela contacted the head of the United Nations to intercede. Witness continues to organize and provide support for various human rights movements around the world, with the goal of affecting change through the power of video and its’ ability to tell a story in a way that words cannot.
MEDI 311 – FILM ABOUT MEDIA
FILM DIARY #5
Trevor Olafson
Charles Chaplin: The Great Dictator
Three years in production, The Great Dictator was released in 1940 – at this time Hitler was at war in Europe, and the United States was not yet directly involved in the conflict. Chaplins’ film depicts the rise of fascism in Germany (Tomania), and parodies many scenes from Leni Riefenstahls’ Triumph of The Will; the nature of its’ construction exposed in darkly comedic fashion. The Great Dictator is itself an early example of and warning against propaganda(113) featuring the them and us( evil/good) dichotomy, many of the news reels (propaganda) to come later in the war would be framed this way – however Chaplins’ film came under scrutiny.
The existing appeasement and isolationist (looking the other way) policy in Britain and the States was in place to render films politically innocuous(117), Chaplin was pressured to remove images and messages in his film that would have been offensive to Hitler and Mussolini; both of them in the process of spreading fascism across Europe. Chaplins’ message – Germany under Hitler was a real threat to the Jews in Europe and world peace as a whole.
The film had been made as a comedy to create sympathy for the Jews, and Chaplin was criticized for doing so – later he would admit that he would not have made it this way if had known the extent of the horror inflicted by the Nazis’ at the time(118). The language of the film drives the narrative; editing, juxtaposition of people and place, sets, costumes, characters – all contribute to the portrayal of good(Jews) being victimized by evil (Hitler). There is first the physical differences of the people, those in the ghetto are relative to each other in size, are poorly dressed and underfed – they furtively go about their business. However, the SA troops that terrorize these people are very large in comparison, well tailored and obviously well fed – ironically, the business of the former is centred on the disruption of the business of the latter.
The impoverished ghetto that the Jews inhabit is in stark contrast to the opulent lifestyle enjoyed by the ‘fictional’ Adenoid Hynkel and his cronies, we are reminded of this callous inequity many times during the film. The banquet table that is poked at with indifference by Hynkel is contrasted with the meagre meal taken with thanks by the Jews. This point is most effectively made during the ordered burning of the barbershop sequence – the image of Hynkel playing a grand piano in his marble palace, is superimposed over the humble wooden building engulfed in flames, it serves both as warning and historical reminder. The pathological nature of evil incarnate is not constrained to a period in history, it will manifest time and again to consume and gleefully destroy anything that it is not – the way madmen seek to destroy other empires first, but always finish with their own. In the Hynkel dream sequence, he plays with the world as if it were a balloon- it eventually pops – the emphasis is that ‘Hynkler’ will never realize his conquest of the world or the redemption he seeks(121), and in Chaplins’ final 6 minute speech he addresses the film audience directly with the message – hold on to hope until the final passing of the age of evil and slavery into a new age of love and liberty which will be waiting to recieve those who seek it.
Sources
Cole, Robert. Anglo-American Anti-fascist Film Propaganda in a Time of Neutrality. Medi311 Course reader 110-125 Ed. Debra Pentacost
patterns of chance… random screen shots I took while using the Winamp visualizer… you had to be there…
