FuturePresent

"...we're seeing the medium invent itself in real time"

TED Blog: Q&A with Clay Shirky an Twitter and Iran

changing orders of discourse on 'police brutality'

"Tomlinson is propelled forward to the ground with a great deal of force"
(G20 police assault revealed in video, Guardian Unlimited*, 7 April 2009: Scene 4: 31 seconds)

courtesy: The Guardian

 

Following on from 'Financial Fools Day' (FuturePresent Blog, 01 April 09), the latest Saturday Guardian (hardcopy) (12 April 2009) made me return to thinking about media representation of police-precipitated violence.

Now, the questioning of police conduct has long been part of everyday discourse, part of long-running urban mythology. In Barthes' sense of the term, mythologies are narratives through which we give meaning to the world around us (Mythologies, 1972); in this case I’m referring to folk mythologies of police violence reflecting the power structures in society over time. Like all mythologies, these are partly attuned to, and partly out of tune with, actuality. Not least because the police are not a mass, but constituted by individuals with different temperaments, albeit individuals adhering to macro, formal laws and codes of conduct, and micro, informal systems of practice.

Certainly, police violence is part and parcel of the discursive territory of, say, The Stop the War Coalition (see Edwards, 'London Demonstration to Protest the Police Attack on Ian Tomlinson', Manchester Stop the War Coalition, 08 April 2009, for a pertinent example of this) and currently prominent within the blogosphere (see Bristle’s Blog from the BunKRS). However, critical perspective on 'Operation Glencoe' (the £7.5m G20 security strategy, supported by six police forces) has bled out notably to the mainstream media over the last two weeks. In context with the YouTube docs tweeted by @guardiantech: G20 protest footage: police v demonstrators ('Financial Fools Day', FuturePresent Blog, 01 April 09: comments) and the G20 police assault revealed in video (Guardian Unlimited, 7 April 2009), the front-page and follow-up double-page spread in this Saturday Guardian (hardcopy) (12 April 2009), precipitated by Ian Tomlinson's contentious and premature death after the G20 London demo, concretise what seems to me to be an unprecedented transformation in the representation of police conduct. The Guardian Unlimited's G20 coverage overall indicates the disproportionate focus on police violence at the G20 protests in London.

The Guardian are not unique here: mainstream news sources as diverse as BBC News and The Times have expressed concerns over G20 police tactics. However, it seems to be the case that The Guardian's is a much more extensive critique of 'Operation Glencoe'; it is certainly the case that the angle of media reportage changed significantly pre-and-post demos. The screenshot below of the first page of an archive search of Times Online for 'G20 + police + violence' indicates the nuanced change in reportage between 28 March and 11 April 2009.

 

The Times Online: 'G20 police violence ' archive search
28 March - 11 April 2009

CLICK ON THE IMAGE ABOVE FOR A FULL-SCALE VERSION

 

To my mind, these kinds of documents are long overdue. From an anecdotal perspective, I was impressed by the serenity and support of the police in the main anti-Iraq-War demo in London in 2003. Yet, to say I was ‘impressed’ already tells of my pre-conditioning by folk mythologies of police violence. Certainly, these mythologies were concretised by my experience of the police when I participated in the march through Brighton attempting to deliver a petition calling for the closure of the EDO MBM Factory (Home Farm Business Park, Brighton, UK) to Brighton Town Hall. EDO MBM was a prominent link between the occupations of Iraq, Afghanistan and Palestine and Brighton and Hove City Council, ironically, the first council in the UK to be awarded United Nations Peace Messenger City status. Protestors were blockaded in North Street (some streets away from Brighton Town Hall) by police. Effectively, the police curtailed our right to petition our own council peacefully (for a non-anecdotal perspective, see Eccles, Police hold line against peace marchers, The Argus, 18 September 2006).

Alternatively, in my little town of Wimborne, the police have instilled in me a sense of trust. Though the ‘bobby on the beat’ has long disappeared even from my town, from my experience, there is an air of calmness associated with local police, as they ride around, often on their bicycles, often in a pastoral, rather than disciplinary, role. Then again, I live in the kind of town where some people continue to take the risk of leaving their doors and cars unlocked. Occasionally, this turns out to be a foolish decision but, more often than not, there are no repercussions. Recently, my car wing mirror was broken overnight by two youths, who seemed to have used the roads in my vicinity as their destructive playground. A friendly policewoman informed me of the crime early the next morning, before I’d even noticed the damage to my car. The youths had already given themselves up. This was followed by police phone calls every other day updating me of the process of prosecution. The police solution was one of ‘restorative justice’, by which I mean that we, the victims of the crimes, were involved in defining a non-custodial punishment for the youths. Other local police mythologies range from the bobby who walked a friend of mine home hand-in-hand after my friend had decided erroneously that  ketamine would be his drug of choice for the evening, to another arrested agressively for just walking down the street.

My point is that sometimes the police fall foul of the law themselves, sometimes not. My point is that, from my perspective, media reportage of demos generally has all too often tended to demonise demonstrators and reify police. My point is that representations of the G20 protests in London amongst certain media factions seem to be breaking this mold in the most unabashed of discourses. My friend, Daniel Cox, noted that this may signal a lingering left-of-centre-media post-2003-Anti-War-Demos-got-us-nowhere-resentment (this is epitomised, for example, in Pidd, We marched then...But what now?, Guardian Unlimited, 22 April 2005). Daniel tempered my optimism by reminding me that we're far, far off from the likes of The Daily Mail tapping into this discursive shift. Notwithstanding, the moderated Mail Online News Board on 'How well did the Police handle the G20 protests?' reveals a more complex demographic than the one one may define instinctively as the readership of The Daily Mail. Some of the comments, of course, are right on the mark. Here are two contrasting viewpoints:

 

"Well it was obvious that the man [Tomlinson] was no threat, he was just walking past with his hands in his pockets, maybe leaving the demo? I think that policeman should have spoken to the man first to see if he was going to make toruble!"
saarp a.k.a. Barbara Magill, South Africa

"Absolutely they [the police involved] should be prosecuted and fired immediately.
If it were Muslims demonstrating, they'd be running backwards, and ignoring the verbal abuse from them - oh, they've already done that!"
charlottenc

 

The complexity of discursive currents is highlighted by the sponsored links on the archive search page of The Times Online featured above: from Christian Khan Solicitors advertising for 'advice on legal actions against the police', to The US Department of Sate's America.gov's Alternatives to Violence [sic], to Assured Risk Strategies' G20 March Security consultancy service, to (some twisted humour evident here) Violent Cop on lovefilm, cash-ins on this latest news agenda item are rife. Almost enough for me to boycott lovefilm. But not quite.

In addition, any pro-Guardian discourse I may weave myself into is countered further by my distinctive feeling that The Guardian are sensationalising their content increasingly (for instance, see the disparity between the headline and body of this Saturday Guardian's front-page article - Lewis, Pathologist in Ian Tomlinson G20 death case was reprimanded over conduct, 11 April 2009: 1) and falling fouly to the 'cult of personality' (for example, see Allen, Front row fashionistas, 13 March 2009).

 

Ultimately, and in the name of one of their listeners, Richard_SM, BBC Radio 4's iPM asks the most pertinent question of all: The G20 protests. Does the media only cover violence? (Mair, 1 April 2009). The programme "prides itself in [giving us] '[Our] News'. [We] are at the very centre. The show revolves around [our] knowledge, ideas and experiences" (Vallance, Suggest a story, 14 March 2009). As Tracey details, "iPM has talked about Richard_SM before. He wrote suggesting we look at how the media covers demonstrations. 'Tens of thousands sacrificed their time' to attend protests about events in Gaza, but the demos were 'hardly covered'. He contrasts this with the heckling of a military parade in Luton and the Peter Mandelson green goo incident, which were widely reported." (Reporting demos, and all that Jazz, BBC RADIO 4: iPM, 31 March 2009).

 

The thing is: after the current forore subsides, who'll remember anything of the G20 gathering and its counter-discourses, aside from vague lingering memories of two days when British police lost it on camera big time, and one innocent bystander died?

 

 

*I'm ignoring The Guardian's recent rebranding of Guardian Unlimited into guardian.co.uk for as long as I can get away with it legitimately. As the screenshot from guardian.co.uk below demonstrates, The Guardian itself doesn't seem to have yet decided between the two variations (screenshot dated 14 April 09).

financial fools day

Screenshot of BBC's document of G20 demo (Ben Brown, 1 April 2009) -http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7977489.stm

 

For those who couldn't be at the G20 demos (London) in person, The Guardian's interactive visualisation of the demos is interesting.  Ideally, one would have accessed this visualisation, followed the demos remotely, viewed media uploads 'realtime'. Posthumously, it serves as an archive of a day. The photos of the day's events are documents of media re-presentation. The visualisation, a document of psychogeography. The ultimate in virtual tourism. 

@scpgt tweeted great BBC footage of the demo outside RBS offices. To me, it's one of the best documents of political demonstrations. I'd suggest the movie shows: G20 demonstrators' own savvy self-marketing; that interests in media participation outweigh political participation ([read] these are not mutually exclusive); that the police escalate violence (sometimes/often/generally/invariably [delete as appropriate]).

[archive]

Today's work commitments in Bournemouth: participating in the ultimate in HE marketing - a postgraduate open day. Wouldn't have liked to deal with the consequences of attending a G20 demo in person instead. There's irony there.

To mark Financial Fools Day, and the economic crisis generally, I was visited by a bailiff at my home today. Felt invaded. Economic fascism. Illogical.

So here am I writing about it. Part virtual tourist; part media critic; part media producer; part activist. Part financial fool.

_____________________________________________________

PART ADVERTISER
MA INTERACTIVE MEDIA : THE MEDIA SCHOOL : BOURNEMOUTH UNIVERSITY

OMeGle

Well, I've had my first conversation with a 'random stranger' on omegle and this is how it went:

Connecting to server...
You're now chatting with a random stranger. Say hi!
Stranger: booya!
You: hey
Stranger: where u from?
You: outer space
Stranger: me too!live just round the corner from the moon you?
You: 200 miles outside europa
You: and you?
Stranger: i said above
You: oh, yes :)
Stranger: you male/female or transgender?
You: what does that matter
You: ?
Stranger: i just wanted to ask if your male does your cock float in space?
You: i guess it depends
Stranger: on what?what are the variables?
You: degrees of arousal
You: what makes you smile?
Stranger: when i rub my breast
You: nice
Stranger: it is
Stranger: carnt beat a nice chicken breast plucked straight from the fridge

[You: disconnect ]

From outer space to cocks to breasts in 48 seconds. Remind me to try that again. Yawn.

Sign of the Times and, thus, not an uninteresting one.

Tag under ongoings
http://omegle.com

little revolutions

equality (not sameness)

The photographs above are part of the project Transindividualism (ongoing).

 

 

This post is based on a response to a question posed by a BA Television Production student of mine on a facebook multi-recipient message, in connection to her dissertation:

"DO YOU FEEL THAT FEMINISM IS STILL RELEVANT TO TODAY'S SOCIETY?"

Response criteria: 'yes'/'no' format; followed by a single sentence explanation

 

_________________________________________________________________

MY RESPONSE

YES

Major feminist revolutions happen occasionally, minor feminist revolutions happen continuously, in various sites. Simultaneously, I'm reminded every day in, some times explicit, some times implicit, ways that patriarchy continues rife.

Yet, the question itself is problematic for me: I think the emphasis should be on equality (read equal, not same), irrespective of gender/ sexuality/ age/ race/ nationality/ class/ etc. At this point, I can think of three groupings that make this more complex:

1. religion - from my perspective, opting to be part of an organised (if not personal) religion is a grasp for rooting/routing in a complex world

2. (dis)ability - there are individuals that are able to cope with the world we've manufactured better than others (physically/psychologically/other-ALLYs i can't think of speedily)

3. economic - itself a category of capitalist inequality

Individuals in these groupings may have unequal needs to others. Tend to think some need extra empathy/sympathy. But I'm just being patronising and acting out guilt, I know. Note also that these inequalities may not be as clear-cut as first imagined: we could argue (though perhaps not very convincingly) that it's the economically affluent who need sympathy, for instance, for we may make assumptions that they can't perceive the value of the free things in life. Alternatively, we may want to commiserate ourselves as inhabitants of technologically-developed parts of the world, for as global meltdown progresses, our too substandard pharmaceutically-aided GM-ed immune systems will be less able to cope than, say, a child miner in The Congo or a child litter picker in Nairobi, toughned accumulatively by her everyday contact with the pollution we've generated (see a Comic Relief '09 clip of Simon Cowell's visit to Nairobi's litter-picking children).

 

Relating this back to gender, there are instances when/where some men get a raw deal in comparison to women. Think, for instance, about current inequalities in maternal/paternal leave. Other individuals in (seemingly dominant) groups may experience similar inequalities.

And there are times when I relish being treated like a princess, though by an equal prince/ss. Just because I ask my partner to fix the leaking kitchen sink tap because it saves me the bother of grappling with unknown handy-(wo)man tips, doesn't make me unequal to him, or he my dog.

Long live the little revolutions in (re)thinking and (re)doing.

This is longer than a sentence.

_________________________________________________________________

 

 

The 'Bono Effect'? Simon Cowell with children in Nairobi, taking an educational break from their daily litter-picking (Comic Relief 2009).

 

_________________________________________________________________

For a more in-depth exploration of issues of identity, as discursively constructed through media representations, take a look at the Media and Identity lecture series I developed for second year undergraduate students on BA Interactive Media, BA Television Production and BA Scriptwriting at The Media School, Bournemouth University.

 

 

refuel

 

Just ignoring the fact that i've ignored this blog for far longer than would ever be acceptable.

 

Refocus on succint, regular posts, rather than essay-style infrequencies.

 

kakotopia

 

 

 

I was invited to speak about crossmedia at the recent Cross Media Storytelling International Conference in Mechelen, Belgium. My presentation can be accessed here.

The conference brought together a wide mix of speakers, including amongst many others, Piet Bakker (School of Journalism and Communication at the Hogeschool Utrecht), who spoke about “young people and media use”, Kris Hoet (EMEA Marketing Manager), who discussed the multiplatform capabilities of MSN's side of Live Earth and Stan van Engelen, founder of Holland Doc and new cross media developer for VPRO TV, who showed us the intriguing cross media documentary project In Europa. I shared a panel with Nico Carpentier (Communication Studies Departments of the Free University of Brussels - VUB) who conducted an apt deconstruction of the idea of 'participation' and the conference's keynote speaker Gary Hayes (Director of LAMP) who talked enthusiastically about immersive environments as the future of co-creative media.

 

Screenshot of In Europa (VPRO 2007)

 

Gary would have us divided between 'forward thinking practitioners, catch-up heritage media representatives and theoretical, reflective academics' (personalize media, 26 Nov 2007), but such easy categorisations don't really get to the crux of the complex ideas shared within the conference or the degree of crossovers that exist between each category he projects. Our panel was expertly umpired by Geoffroy Patriarche (Facultés universitaires Saint-Louis and chair member of ECREA). I say umpired, because Gary was outspokenly uneasy about, as he put it on the day, 'being sandwiched between' two academics. How old-school.

The existence of this blog and correlative posts on the CEMP interactive community, indeed the existence of IPE, CEMP, The Interactive Media Production Blog and many other ventures of their kind across contemporary universities, such as the ArtLab and FutureLab, make up a more complex narrative. I exist alongside many other academics who are theoreticians and practitioners simultaneously. Try Neal White or Sean Street for a more varied taster. Not all academics class themselves as both, indeed some would never class themselves as theoreticians. Having experienced the more traditional university cultures of Cardiff and Sussex, where media practice education has only been offered at the levels of postgraduate vocational diplomas or, in Sussex's case a new generalist media practice and theory degree, I continue intrigued by the degree of media practice specialism and innovation that exists at The Media School, Bournemouth. Yet, here, we are grappling with ways to be a reflective practitioner. Contrary to Gary's diagram below, many of us are sharers, creators, critics, editors and consumers at any one time or simultaneously. Indeed, Ang (1985) has long tore the notion that consumers are passive apart.

 

Click on the diagram to view Gary Hayes' large version

 

Equally, online participation is a multi-dimensional plane, rather than a fence with two sides. This is the crux of the argument I make in my presentation. Online participation by the people for the people has come a long way in twenty years, but its continually being re-institutionalised, re-channelled, repurposed, repackaged. I used my platform to get the European industry to think a little bit more about this issue - that doesn't make me anti-corporatist in and of itself. Though I am. And funnily, Kris Hoet (EMEA Marketing Manager) made one of the most charismatic presentations. It's because I believe in online participation and the multi-channel, multi-voiced opportunities to make a better world the net offers that I do what I do. At the same time I don't think technology is the only way to get there. The essence of my argument is that if we are to really begin to think about co-creative crossmedia futures then we need to think about collaborative story-making not story-telling. The reality is that many out there just aren't buying into the crossmedia marketing spiel.

I set up an open facebook group Crossmedia Narratives: What are they to you? to gage what crossmedia meant to people before I wrote the presentation for the conference. Now there's an irony in co-creation in and of itself. Out of the 42 members it accrued in 2 days and 64 members it has to date; only a handful have made any influential mark. That's the other irony. Here are a couple of comments that arose:

"Crossmedia Narratives: What are they to you?"
more ways of creating audiences to sell things to?
more ways of 'knowing' consumers?
more ways of allowing an audience member who sees herself as 'active' to make use of illusory agency?
Galit Ferguson, London, 21 November, 2007

They're mainly a way for old media to try to hustle something it couldn't hustle in old media on new media, by spending a huge bundle on: YouTube, Twitter, Second Life, Internet sites?

They're not my narrative.

My narrative stays in one media, and uses the other media only to advertise that venue that I find to be the main one. So a Second Life event or build is advertised on my blog, on Twitter, etc. I also like Koinup. I'm definitely not going to go out of my way to equalize the presence on all media so I can brag that I'm cross media. It's enough that I cross genders on my SL avatar. Thank you, and good night.
Catherine Ann Fitzpatrick, Silicon Valley, 23 December, 2007

The latest Pew figures on the growth of US youth online participation (click here for pdf report) are encouraging, but last year's Pew's predictions for the Future of the Internet weren't. My research on children's online experiences www.altcyberkids.org makes for a more complicated story. Indeed, Pew editors and Gary Hayes read like the traditional journalists they are, continually claiming cultural instances as waves of a new phenomenon on the horizon - Humanity Slowly Returns to Creativity? Com'on!

Gary is right when he says that 'when you perform any action in society (online or real world) you are participating in it' (personalize media, 26 Nov 2007). It is because of LAMP's worthy contributions to online participation that I am responding to his dare, as a critic, sharer, editor and creator. Yet, to see the future of online co-creation as so bright we have to wear VR shades is misguided. Participation for me is not creaming over a cross-reality world where TV contestants take the form of avatars. To me that's utter kakotopia.

temporary diversion...

I'm currently dedicating my attention to completing my PhD - alt.cyberkids: contingencies of childhood in the information age - an analysis of children's own online activism.

I will refocus on this blog in the new year.

'til then, peace =)

TRANSMEDIALE.07: IPE INTERVIEWS ARTHUR KROKER

 

Arthur Kroker (Co-Editor of CTheory) agreed to speak to us at IPE about some of the themes raised in his Keynote at transmediale.07, ‘Born Again Ideology’.

To hear the podcast of our Interview…Click here>

You may also like to listen to our audio recording of Kroker’s Keynote ‘Born Again Ideology’...Listen>

 

 

 

WE PODCAST TRANSMEDIALE.07

 

As part of our research and teaching activities at IPE (Research Centre in Interactivity, Personalization & Experience), at The Media School, Bournemouth University, we podcast from transmediale.07. We saw this as a way of making media arts and culture festivals of this kind accessible to a wider audience, as well as generating various teaching and research resources.

To view our photographs, videos and podcasts from transmediale.07....Go to our Interactive Media Production Blog>