IX. International Congress of IGEL, Edmonton / Alberta , August 2004
Call for papers for panel:
The aesthetics of social movement in modern societies.
The media as the media of protest, an intercultural comparison.Kathrin Fahlenbrach, Department of Media and Communication Studies,
Martin Luther University Halle-WittenbergNever before have social movements been so much in need of media coverage to make the public aware of their protest. To use Joachim Raschke's dictum: movements that receive no media coverage don't happen.
Social movements thus face a fundamental challenge in today's world: they must design their protest and transmit their message in a form that fits the standards imposed by the mass media - which, in effect, means the visual media. To receive the media coverage and public attention that can be used to exert political pressure on the decision makers, they must take into account the conditions under which media are produced, and the mechanisms they employ to select stories.
Since the mid-20th century, being guided by the media's selection criteria has meant looking for visually and symbolically potent forms of protest. Television's victory in the battle for media influence has fundamentally transformed public protest. Symbolically laden pictures and iconic personalities are no longer a mere accessory of social movements; instead, they have become a condition sine qua non of public attention and thus of political influence and success. It is commonly recognized that politicians and political parties also increasingly respond to the demand for symbolic politics, and act with an eye towards the impact their own images will have once conveyed by the mass media.
The panel "The aesthetics of social movement in modern societies -- The media as the media of protest, an intercultural comparison", at the IX. IGEL conference in Edmonton, discusses the issues that, across different media, have arisen with the visualization and symbolization of protest. In the era of visual media, how was, and is, protest articulated in literature, magazines, posters, record covers, film, and television? How important are the demands of visual media for different expressions of protest, given the media's stronghold over the very public opinion the protesters want to influence? Is literature, e.g. the books of the student movement in the 60s, also concerned with visual symbols of protest? (E.g. William Burroughs, Rolf D. Brinkman, Bernward Vesper...) Can we discover continuities or discontinuities across different media in their coverage of specific social movements? (E.g. '68 in literature, film, television, etc.) And lastly, we want to pay attention to the use of the internet and the increased interconnectivity among social movements. Which visual and symbolic forms have been developed in the new media (e.g. by anti-globalisation movements like ATTAC), and how important is visuality for these?
Please send proposals to Kathrin Fahlenbrach: fahlenbrach@medienkomm.uni-halle.de