the noise is the message
alexei krivolap |
2007-03-08 | 16:00
temos: VMS
We are publishing Alexei Krivolap’s presentation which was done on the 2nd session of
Let’s start from one small example. Awake after a good party we often have a headache, or let’s be more exact: a hangover. There are two choices to fight against it: tactical and strategic. The tactical way would be some beer gulps… whereas the strategic one would be slow existence without alcohol through all the day.
We can state that the situation of tactical media is pretty similar. Tactical media are not able to eliminate completely a given problem, but they are ready to offer alternatives or other ways to grasp social problems.
Why tactical media today?
How many of you, who are here around our seminar table, have your own TV channel or radio station? I guess no one. Yes, unfortunately nobody.
But we all know well that nowadays culture is so-called media culture. Media-cultural lifestyle and ways of consumption are defined by mass media. Would we be better or worse players, we can play only one role: that of a member of the Audience (undoubtedly with slight variations – you can be a viewer, a reader, a listener, a surfer etc.).
Thus, my question is: who has a right to be seen, read or listened to via mass media? Who produces media content? The answer is: the power. Of course, the answer is so explicit for everyone, that it can be only a verification of the status quo.
Whereas tactical media is a way in which each of us can be seen or heard by the general public.
How the noise makes sense?
First of all let me give you some explanations. Noise here is to be understood in the sense of communication theories, in where noise is an obstacle for communication, or rather huge barrier, a fence. Thus noise can narrow a scale of cooperation, because it highly supports a rise of misunderstandings.
According to well-known Marshall McLuhan’s statement, “the medium is the message”. Noise in communication can still reveal at least one fact: the act of communication has been established. And the goal and the sense of tactical media, in my opinion, are to increase possibilities of varying communication.
It means that tactical media can produce noise. The noise, as we know already, is the message. This noise can stun established mass media, since this noisy content of tactical media is not a big piece of art or content suitable for mainstream media.
Two examples of communicative noise: Ukraine and Belarus
I. UA experience
Net project Funny eggs (Веселые яйца) played an interesting role during the Ukrainian elections campaign 2004, so-called
Now I want you to watch two clips from Funny eggs-series (all of them can be find in their website http://eggs.net.ua/). The first one is a promo clip of the whole project, a piece of flash animation; and the second clip is a real sample of tactical media. Video material used in it is from old soviet film Gentlemen of success.
II. BY experience
First Belarusian internet series was called Web-master and Margarita[i]. How was it made? Visual material was grabbed in the worse tradition of piracy from DVD, later a new soundtrack was created and recorder (by long odds, with cheapest microphone and simple PC), images and sound were cut and glued using Adobe Premier. As a result sparkling Russian movie stars were starring in Belarusian net-film (that can be found by URL http://www.xopic.info/web/video/materialsAction.php).
Unfortunately the project did not gain in huge popularity. But we can accept it as a good sample of social activism and an example of DIY-media project.
DIY (do it yourself) media
Key question for the chapter: what is an essential condition for distribution of tactical media products?
- Cheap multimedia technology;
- Simple ways of creation of media products.
Tactical media need free (accessed to anyone) flow of information – and Internet proposes a good possibility for distribution: newsletters, blogs (like livejournal or youtube) etc.
Tactical media can never fit into frames of traditional TV or radio, and tactical media can never supersede established media. If such happens, they will be quickly recognized by the dominant members of discourse and re-formatted into a culturally acceptable media format. And yet another reason tactical media can not intrude into TV channels is a copyright question; as we have seen in Ukrainian and Belarusian cases, copyright was transformed into copyleft.
I understand that nobody can view or read everything. But in my point of view tactical media conceive society not as a community of readers/ viewers/ listeners… i.e. media consumers, but rather as range of communities of writers/showers/speakers. Tactical media open variety of possibilities and ways to grow up from consumer to producer, as already Michel de Certeau stated in his book “The Practice of Everyday Life” (1984).
The effect or the power of tactical media is not in rising quantity of its own audience (e.g. those, who have seen video clips mentioned above) – that is rather a sign of success for established (mainstream) media. The effect of tactical media shows up while raising the number of media producers (of those who write, shoot, cut, record etc.): people who make instead of simply taking.
In conclusion
- Tactical media can offer to audiences an active role and visibility. Participators of public life are not mere a topic for newsmakers, they are also agents, catalysts of social shifts.
- Each of us can write, shoot, cut, record and so on (or: I hope that each of us can write, shoot, cut, record etc.): thus public and private institutions could and should lose its monopoly over “media truth”, the media voice.
- If you have something to communicate to wider audiences, do not hesitate and do not wait for “professional mediators” – TV camera team coming to your place. We can distribute our ideas by our own efforts.
- Tactical media is not about a new form of traditional media, but rather about a new role for each of us.
- I know only one way to understand, what the tactical media are – to do it yourself.
[i] Master and Margarita (2005) is pretty new Russian TV series made after well-known novel by Mikhail A. Bulgakov.
temos: VMS |
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