Visual Literacy Series: How Is This Manoeuvre Orchestrated?
Foreword
Visual Literacy Series articles serve as one of the academic courses in this precise field. The main aim of this research is to focus attention on the analysis of the topic of “mass culture”, its visual representations and the ways it takes action through imagery and its components. The theoretical framework will be covered from a “counter hegemonic” stance and, essentially, the project involves the attempt to create a diagonal discourse that promotes visual literacy through the idea of art as a pedagogical and revolutionary act, since it moves collective subjectivities.
Visual Literacy Series will be mainly divided into the following chapters:
Where the Necessity Begins: Examples and Contextualisation of Control.
How is this Manoeuvre Orchestrated?
How is this Manoeuvre Orchestrated?
It is widely understood that information is never a spontaneous circumstance but rather a conception, i.e., a certain amount of data associated with giving rise to a communicative construction. Therefore, the treatment of information can differ "both in its iconic and verbal aspects or both together" (Aparici et al., 2009, p. 49) depending on the ideology on which it is constructed. Roberto Aparici, Agustín García Matilla, Jenaro Fernández Baena, and Sara Osuna Acedo, Ph.D. experts in ed communication and full professors at the UNED, urge the individual to look for the resident ideology in each piece of visual information. According to these authors: "we should not think that the declarations of the President of the Government, for example, are more ideological than those offered by an advertisement, a television series or a video game" (Aparici et al., 2009, p.234). It should be remembered that ideology is not an individual or concrete political characteristic or orientation but a norm. A norm of social order exhibited through behaviour, which ends up constituting a representation of the hegemonic powers: the privileged classes, and given that it is not expressed directly but subliminally in actions, conceals the intention of social domination. Nicholas Maquiavelo, the Italian philosopher and writer, said in his book The Prince (1513) that the city is nothing more than the scenography of power, a phrase in which he gave a visual value to the city, giving it the dramatic character of a stage for governmental theatre.
To understand how media and communication work, one should clearly perceive the concept of ideology and its influence on mass media. Modern media offers a variety of representations and narratives of the world, which are limited and not neutral but conditioned by the interests of the dominant groups. Thus, it has a considerable impact on forming individuals’ ideologies and beliefs, which are transgressed into daily life, shaping it. As such, the media plays an enormous role in shaping the existing power structures and aiding their reproduction and legitimization. Consequently, the analysis of the ideological dimension of information is an essential step toward critical thinking because it enables people to uncover the hidden meanings and intentions behind the messages they receive. In this sense, media education, which includes the capacity to get to, break down, assess, and make media messages, becomes an urgent device for residents to practise their right to data and participate in equitable social orders.
Figure 1 – It is not the same to persuade, as it is to manipulate
The fundamental function of visual messages occurs when they fulfil the manipulative intentions with which they were emitted, that is, when they are received into the brain, and the consequent modelling of the brain around the information takes place. According to Neidich's proposal (Neidich in Brea, 2005), this image processing, which leads to the flourishing of some neuronal centres to the detriment of others, occurs when the individual interprets the information received as correct and therefore internalises it and assimilates it as the truth. Thus, authors such as Juan Martín Prada or Roberto Aparici warn about how contemporary media visuality tends to be considered as "pure acts of information" (Martín Prada, 2018, p. 28), loaded with a false reality that induces the spectator into an empty act of interpretation, transparent and straightforward. To elaborate further, visual messages have the potential to alter our feelings, thoughts, and behaviours as well as how we perceive the outside world showing the risk of their influencing individuals' minds. Such risks become more apparent when reflecting on the current media environment, where the rapid spread of data and the expansion of images have created a profoundly divided and energised open arena. The acquisition of the fundamental abilities necessary to decipher the philosophical and manipulative techniques concealed behind visual messages and to engage in an intelligent and informed conversation with others, which enables the development of flexible and diverse points of view, is thus essential. Regarding this same issue, Len Masterman, professor of education at the University of Nottingham in England, asserts:
It can be said that the ideological power of the media is, in a certain way, proportional to the apparent naturality of its representations. Since the ideological power of a media product lies mainly in the capacity of those who control and elaborate it to pass off as real, true, universal and necessary what are inevitably selective and value-laden constructions, in which particular interests, ideologies and ways of understanding are inscribed. (Masterman, 1993, p. 36)That being said, it is suggested that an attempt is being made to impose a series of hegemonic political-social ideals through the apparatuses of the media. The media shapes the plural imagination, composes mass culture, and the information they provide is presented as the only truth. Juan Martín Prada compares this with Foucault's Surveillance Society, where the visible spectrum is submerged under the control of observation systems, warning against the submissive society. The information that is promoted and disseminated among its individuals and the flow of data that circulates tirelessly is "permanently filtered by large corporations and the intelligence agencies of military powers," which he calls the "post-truth society" (Martín Prada, 2018). Thus, the author defines contemporary idiosyncrasy as being watched and controlled by the hegemonic powers, which will determine what direction the world moves, or if it moves.
Figure 2 – The era of post-truth
Throughout this series of articles, it has already been deduced that: 1.) The development of the brain has to do with the stimuli it receives, 2.) These stimuli are mainly received by visuality, mass culture, 3.) The system intervenes in these processes to perpetuate itself and to aid its functionality, 4.) Manipulative actions are carried out through the visual, establishing fictitious truths.
The peculiarities that characterise the current imagination and how these manipulative possibilities are established from them need to be analysed to go further into the research. The establishment of such analysis implies that modern CMMs are not linear but exist in a state of constant flux, consisting of a variety of constantly evolving factors shaping modernity as people know it. Therefore, the broader socio-cultural context should be taken into account when uncovering the underlying mechanisms that allow visual media to manipulate people's perceptions and beliefs. It was pointed out earlier that the contemporary visual experience has become rhizomatic in that it is multiplied and overwhelming, a fact to which must also be added the factor of "mutability" that the image possesses today (Martín Prada, 2018). This means that, in the age of digital retouching, any situation, however improbable it may be, becomes presumably feasible if software is involved. A wide variety of visual objects are available to users today, giving them a platform for communication and self-expression. Corporate and political interests, however, significantly impact the dissemination of visual messages, affecting both their presentation and reception. This may restrict the variety of available viewpoints and emphasise how crucial it is to cultivate critical thinking abilities to interact thoughtfully with media content.
Therefore, the viewer, who is now called "emirec" (formed from the terms emitter and receiver) as proposed by Jean Cloutier, Canadian educational communicator and journalist, emits and receives audiovisual content that they take as truth even though it is not, in an informational avalanche with which the system essentially demands the reproduction of the patterns that are implanted in the citizenry as desirable. Thus, such reproduction of different patterns constitutes a "self-absorbed visuality" in which we are imprisoned and which gives no room for interpretation (Martín Prada, 2018). The international 'godfather' of mass media par excellence, Mark Zuckerberg, once acknowledged that Facebook's social platform makes "a squirrel dying outside your door more relevant to you than the fact that people are still dying in Africa" (Kirkpatrick, 2011, p. 181). Here, beneath this simple statement, lies the great trick of seduction. Individuals are being deprived of digesting culture, causing a misalignment of ethical and intellectual priorities and turning the average citizen into a puppet ready to deliver the blows of capitalism in their place, thus enabling the system to function appropriately and de-individualise the subject within mass culture. Dziga Vertov, a Soviet avant-garde film director, already foresaw the advent of invention and manipulation through the media in his Manifesto of the Cinema-Eye (1924):
I am an eye. A mechanical eye. I, the machine, show you a world in the only way I can see it. I free myself today, and forever, from human immobility. I am in constant movement. I approach objects, and I move away from them. I crawl under them. I keep myself at the height of a running horse's mouth. I fall and rise with the bodies that fall and rise. This is me, the machine that manoeuvres with chaotic movements, that registers one movement after another in the most complex combinations... Free from the boundaries of time and space, I coordinate any and all points of the universe, wherever I want them to be. My path leads to the creation of a new perception of the world. That is why I explain the world unknown to us in a new way. (Acervoaudiovisual, 2012)
Figure 3 – Dziga Vertov’s picture of his Man with a Movie Camera
In line with these arguments, Aparici and his collaborators explain how the term "surfing the net" has mutated to become closer to "wrecking on the net", arguing that the constant noise of visual information leads, paradoxically, to "disinformation," or more specifically, to infoxication (Aparici et al., 2009, p. 43). This, according to Rosalba Mancinas-Chávez and Luis M. Romero Rodríguez (Mancinas-Chávez and Romero Rodríguez, 2016), doctors in Communication and researchers in Information Science, is the digital disease of the 21st century. Jacques Rancière reflects on these events and puts forward the idea that this space of disinformation occupies a commonplace of the sensible in which inequality is overcome —what for us would be mass culture. He also states that it is necessary to remove ourselves from it to enter an emancipatory spiral of equality where the autonomy of thought and individual action takes precedence over the hegemonic interests of the state (Rancière, 2009).
Overall, these lines of research lead many to think that the visual landscape is developing in terms of futility and political invention to an environment in which big business, the mistresses of the capitalist machine, possess a dominant power over the dissemination mechanisms of visual objects of information. Furthermore, relentlessly distributing mass culture that is firmly and resolutely implanted as the truth in the brains of individuals determines their mental growth and subsequent activity and could lead to the loss of judgement and reasoning. Concerning possibilities exist for swaying public opinion and advancing specific agendas due to the power dynamics between big business and the media landscape. Independent thought and critical thinking may be marginalised more and more as mass culture continues to dominate. The potential decline in judgement and logic could have significant effects on society as a whole, as well as on individuals, ultimately threatening the foundation of democracy. To keep a healthy public discourse going, it is crucial to understand and address the ideological biases and manipulation present in visual messages.
Figure 4 – An escape door for manipulation, Sabbir Hasan (2019)
In order to face this situation, it is worth asking whether one of the viable ways to do so would be to develop new reading skills for the audiovisual content that surrounds every individual. As the representations of images cease to conform to "linear paradigms and conventional sequential canons" (Aparici et al., 2009), they will require new forms and paths that allow them to be digested: to improve their interpretation. It is essential to create new efficient methods for deciphering the vast quantities of audiovisual content that permeate contemporary society as the spread of visual media spreads even further. Individuals must develop new reading skills that allow them to comprehend and critically analyse these complex images rather than relying on conventional linear or sequential paradigms, which may need to be revised to decode the complex messages conveyed by contemporary visual media. By improving our visual comprehension capacity, we can better navigate the intricate and frequently perplexing landscape of contemporary media and, as a result, be better equipped to make defensible decisions about our world.
Bibliographical references
Acervoaudiovisual. (2012). Principios del cine experimental: Manifiesto de Dziga Vertov. Retrieved from https://acervoaudiovisual.wordpress.com/2012/02/02/manifiesto-de-dziga-vertov/
Aparici, Roberto; García Matilla, Agustín; Fernández Baena, Jenaro and Osuna Acedo, Sara. (2009). The image: analysis and representation of reality. Barcelona, Spain: Gedisa.
Brea, José Luis (Ed.). (2005). Visual Studies: The Epistemology of Visuality in the Age of globalization. Madrid, Spain: AKAL.
Kirkpatrick, David. (2011). The Facebook Effect. The inside story of the Company that is connecting the world. America: Simon & Schuster.
Mancinas-Chávez, Rosalba and Romero Rodríguez, Luis M. (Eds.). (2016). Comunicación institucional y cambio social: Claves para la comprensión de los factores relacionales de la comunicación estratégica y el nuevo ecosistema comunicacional. Seville, Spain: Ediciones Egregius.
Maquiavelo, Nicholas. (2010). The Prince. Madrid, Spain: Alianza Editorial. [1st: 1513]
Martín Prada, Juan. (2018). El ver y las imágenes en el tiempo de Internet (Estudios visuales). Madrid, Spain: AKAL.
Masterman, Len. (1985). Teaching the Media. England, London: Routledge.
Rancière, Jacques. (2009). The Politics of Aesthetics: The Distribution of the Sensible. London, United Kingdom: Bloomsbury Publishing Plc. [1st. ed. 2000]
Visual Sources
Cover image: Head games are for children. Available on: https://www.pexels.com/photo/inscription-about-head-games-on-wall-6353753/
Figure 1: It is not the same to persuade, than to manipulate. Available on: https://assets.entrepreneur.com/content/3x2/2000/1618863277-comunicacion.jpg
Figure 2: The era of post-truth. Available on: http://www.addingstories.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/posverdad-facts-1454x954.jpg
Figure 3: Dziga Vertov’s picture of his Man with a Movie Camera. Available on: https://www.moderntimes.review/dziga-vertov-and-the-factory-of-facts/
Figure 4: An escape door for manipulation, Sabbir Hasan (2019). Available on: https://www.behance.net/gallery/89830657/Escape-Door-Manipulation
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