After watching the Yes Men in class I thought about how it is a form of tactical media and it proves how convergence today allows for tactical media to be successful. Media has commonly become a civil and public way for citizens to take political action in order to cause change. Media including film/documentary, television, internet, music, photography, video games, and the like have all been used as tactical media over and over again. With the common convergence of media today and the popularity of social networking (such as YouTube, Facebook, MySpace, blogging sites, etc.) tactical media is a form of activism that spreads so fast that it be seen and heard by the entire world in such a small amount of time, therefore it tends to be the most effective. Although there is a wide variety of media that has been used as a form of activism, I feel that a visual media style such as a documentary and websites that the Yes Men have done is perhaps one of the most effective forms of tactical media in that they are widely viewed by the public through means such as internet, television, film festivals, and theaters. Also, through the creation of the documentary film itself, many people (including the filmmakers, interviewees, targeted group, celebrities, and the general public) are forced to focus on the issue presented. I feel that with a camera in one’s face it becomes difficult to hide the truth. As I am personally interested in film making I was looking up other documentaries that focus on tactical media such as:
2.) RiP: A Remix Manifesto
Web activist, Brett Gaylor, created this documentary over a period of 6 years dedicated to defending DJ Girl Talk, who had been accused of copyright infringement by top record labels. The film features the collaborative remix work of hundreds of Open Source Cinema website contributers. This is a good representation of tactical media because it calls for action among citizens by encouraging more people to create their own remixes from the film itself while being informative about copyright laws themselves. Gaylor suggests that copyrights should be distributed according to the creator of the media as a whole, rather than who holds the ownership for specific songs, videos, images, etc.
3.) The Cove
This documentary film describes the annual killing of dolphins in a National Park at Taiji, Wakayama, in Japan from the point of view of ocean conservationist, Ric O’Barry (trainer of Flipper). The film exemplifies tactical media as the O’Barry and his team went to extreme, and occasionally illegal, measures to capture the truth about what was happening in this small cove in Japan. Portions were even filmed secretly by using underwater microphones and cameras disguised as rocks. The film was created in an attempt to save migrating dolphins who are herded into a hidden cove where they are netted and killed over the side of small fishing boats and sold as lunch meat. Directed by former National Geographic photographer Louie Psihoyos, the documentary won the U.S. Audience Award at the Sundance Film Festival in 2009 and the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature in 2010. Although the response to the film did greatly hurt the whaling industry, it did not manage to make it illegal. After showing the film in two theaters in Japan it was banned in the country.
4.) An Inconvenient Truth
This documentary film about former U.S. Vice President Al Gore’s campaign to educate citizens about global warming was a critical and box-office success, winning Academy Awards for Best Documentary Feature and Best Original Song, as well as becoming the fifth-highest-grossing documentary film in the U.S. This tactical media has been credited for raising international public awareness of climate change and has also been included in science curricula in schools around the world.
I do think that this form of tactical media can be very effective. I think that there does need to be quite a bit of other follow up after one of these videos is produced or it will just be a blip on the radar. Unfortunately there is so much corruption and brokeness in this world that issues such as these will be watched and quickly disregarded as soon as something new comes out. For that reason it is important to have followup ways for people to get involved. There must be strong systems that continually update the people as to keep them involved. One example of this is a non profit called Compassion International. It is one of the many programs that allows you to support a child in need in a different country. They give out numerous mailing and emails to keep people involved. There biggest strong point is the fact that they allow a person to be a pen pal to the kid they support. This is how people can be truly connected to a cause.
ReplyDeletewww.compassion.com