War 2.0 – day 2

Hugh White talked about new media from a long term historical perspective, questioning whether “new media” is really a major gamechanger when it comes to prosecuting war. On feature that emerged in Hugh’s short talk that is overlooked in the new media landscape is the role of broadcast mass media and the difference between what’s knowable from available sources of information and what’s inescapable.

This ties into a similar difference between active and passive media consumption. In an active mode, a person might seek out information or data to fit a certain parameter. In this mode data is selected or discarded according to its relevance to the task at hand. Perhaps someone is looking for dinner recipe or doing research on a school project.

In the passive mode, our criticality is less active. Browsing YouTube is an obvious example, but so too might be social networking via Facebook where there is no specific agenda directing the use of the media. TV is of course another such example.

So (according to Hugh) what’s inescapable in terms of public knowledge still carries far more weight in political terms than the simple fact that some knowledge might exist. This idea seems to have some merit in terms of common sense because while we might indeed be able to find out things about the war in Afghanistan that aren’t necessarily on the front page of a newspaper or in a TV bulletin, unless we know the information is available, we are unlikely to search it out.

Of course obscurity is no guarantee that information or data that might have serious political information will always remain virtually unknown but it does raise the question of just who will take on the role of informing the public when the existing authoritative sources collapse. And in such a void, how will the public be able to make informed choices about the truth of any such information. Is viral marketing (or similar) the answer?

In discussing the role of the media generally with regard to war and the potential of media to exert influence over the political agenda, Sebastian Kaempf explored the symbolic representation of war in the media with a particular focus on the US military’s role in the the battle of ideologies.

With particular regard to “the war on terror”, he described the Pentagon’s media campaign as “perception management” striving to portray Iraq and Afghanistan as “costless” wars which avoid spilling blood, are humane and surgical, and only involve killing the “other”. Al Qaeda and the Taliban on the other hand avoid a direct confrontation with the US and its allies, preferring instead to engage in a media war where they seek to counter the information agenda of the Pentagon with such deliberately provocative images such as the beheading of captives and the aftermath of US bombings thus effectively putting bloody death back into the US public sphere.

PART 3

Two journalists made interesting presentations, one from Paris via Skype which underlined the web2.0 twist to the conference. Not only was Sophie McNeil about 10 hours behind, she was also jet lagged following her sudden relocation to Paris. Sophie’s skype presentation was at times marred by the technology but despite the technical glitches Sophie manage to convey some of the issues confronting a video-journalist in areas of armed conflict. She described her documentary style as observational, implying perhaps less interaction with her environments. This more passive approach may well be due to some of the constraints imposed by the multi-disciplinary roles a modern VJ must perform however it is seems reasonable to point out that in most cases she is probably assisted by some sort of local handler who speaks the language and allows her to acquire her material without the minute by minute journalistic intervention that might otherwise take place.

Sophie’s ideas about the need to balance embedded sources with on the ground investigative material is obvious and it begs the question why so few of her colleagues fail to pursue such an obvious line of inquiry. She also made a good point about the advantage organisations such as Al Jazeera derive from their embrace of alternative news sources, such as mobile phone material. This point was also mentioned by Paul McGeough who observed that mobile phones are often the first source of information available to a journalist in war zones.

However, the technology that powers almost instant worldwide communications for journalists, drives their impressive acquisition tools and enables local users to collect uncensored media also exposes the people in any subsequent media story to possible repercussions at home, a point Sophie was keen to emphasise. Given all the pressure and stress that a video journalist has to operate under in a war zone, it seems hard to imagine them doing the same job for thirty years.

Paul McGeough, a five time Walkley award winner and former editor of the SMH spoke passionately about the demise of quality journalism which he acknowledged is partially self inflicted. His address echoed the sentiments Andrew Keene with concerns about accuracy, context and historical perspective that come with the Web2.0 version of news. In retrospect it is easy to see the missteps that have created the current problems for newspapers, but the future has now arrived. Despite the problems plaguing old media players like newspapers, Paul’s observations about the need to physically bear witness as a basic requirement for journalism continues to resonate. Adopting new media platforms ( as exemplified by Sophie) is surely a requisite part of that notion.

As with other similar debates about the future of journalism, it is sometimes hard to see how the traditions of truth telling with the craft of building narratives and representing stories from areas of conflict can survive in the new media landscape but perhaps it is just a simple matter of believing that such things are too important to disappear, so a way must emerge.

A final thought or two
In the context of war, conflict is driven as much by ideology as anything else. The new information age creates an additional front for players to contest. Historically the relationship of the mass media and its impact on war has changed over time. In some instances the power of the press has been beyond the control of the state but in the modern age, not only is the public media space a battleground for competing players seeking to undermine the “message” of the other, it is also the case that some of the new Web2.0 media tools subvert the capacity of players to control the message in the first place.

Podcasts of the conference are now available.