It would seem that the grainy quality of the digital images coming from the
war front are meant to express some of the difficulties and challenges of
the war experience itself for the journalists, as if these images were taken
under great duress.   Semiotically, these images convey the hardship of war
itself, as if they were taken in secret, forbidden,
and they demonstrate the work of journalism itself--the embedded journalists
whose challenge it is to capture scenes that are difficult to get, require
risk and possible death.These images try to authenticate the difficulties of
journalism under such conditions.They carry the weight of war itself.
----- Original Message -----
From: "Melanie Swalwell" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Tuesday, April 08, 2003 8:43 PM
Subject: war images/authenticity


> David wrote:
>
> >I think you have a point,the poor image suggests an
> >authenticity through 'presence'. What is interesting
> >is that this is something that i would say was media
> >other than the television news, particularly cinema
> >and the net. The 'haptic', sensory quality is in
> >itself an authenticating rhetoric (Laura Marks''Skin
> >of the Film' is great for this debate).
> >
> >Basically, what traditionally evoked a fidelity of
> >information, a truthfulness, to the news seemed to me
> >to be the voice of the reporter (very important if you
> >consider the RP voice training BBC reporters
> >conventionally receive) and the clarity of image.
> >
> >Recently, significantly poorer images seem to connote
> >authenticity with entirely different means, and the
> >extensive use of scrolling text seems to act as an
> >associative 'anchor' which grounds the dynamically
> >variable quality of image.
> >
> This subject (footage from video phones) came up briefly last month.
>
> But the use of scrolling banners/headlines that you mention is, I think,
> an important one for considering spectatorship.  Not having cable, I
> (like many Australians, I think) only get to watch continuous news
> coverage from U.S. and other channels at those times when free to air
> stations broadcast live feeds (from CNN, NBC and the rest, BBC, etc),
> which is only when 'world shattering' events happen.  So: '91 Gulf War,
> Sept 11 2001, and now the Iraq war.  Sept 2001 was when I noticed a new
> array of techniques being used on these channels, including the
> scrolling text but also the splitting of the screen in other ways: a
> talking head reporting on location, say, in one part, with a shot of
> studio anchors in another maybe, and/or images from the scene in
> another, often going without comment.  What really fascinated me was the
> discontinuity between these various media elements, presented
> simultaneously.  It was tv as multimedia.  Their out-of-synch nature
> offered a range of interesting possibilities at the time for reading
> across the different 'sources', something I did extensively, especially
> because the technique was unfamiliar to me.  (I note that our free to
> air channels have now picked up the scrolling text thing.)
>
> So while recognising that the grainy, low-fi images are the focus of
> this thread, I'd wonder whether the scrolling texts you're referring to,
> David, are always referential, purporting to explain the images or
> whether their disjunctiveness might suggest something other than an
> anchoring function?
>
> Melanie