Unfortunately, much of life at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee has ground down to a slow churl of anxiety, depression, and anger after the news of some devastating budget cuts proposed by the current state administration. Rather than once again attempt to ignore these issues, we dedicated this week’s episode of SCREENS to how media has worked within the activist communities on campus. Thankfully, Frankie Mastrangelo was on-hand to help us manage the many topics that might potentially emerge from this discussion.
Without a doubt, digital networked media has provided an unprecedented array of outreach channels to the general consumer. At this past Wednesday’s rallies, cameras of all capacities were wielded by students, professional photographers, as well as mainstream news media. Grassroots activist media were engaged in the days leading up to and through out the day’s events in the form of information dissemination and mobilization through social media. While the representative groups were often discombobulated throughout the organization process, the spontaneous blogs and Facebook groups demonstrate a coalescing message – one that denounces the administration’s policy of demonizing public education.
In what turned out to be a similarly cohesive episode, we pondered the political rhetoric of the administration’s budget proposals and how those opposed to the drastic budget cuts might employ their own poignant rhetoric to respond. Despite the popularity of “clicktivism” and other, more shallow, forms of consumer-activism, the combination of “boots on the ground” traditional forms of protest with digital media still manages to be an excellent method for getting a resonant message out to an audience. Frankie argued that digital activism, while more indirect, was often a good stepping stone towards more visible and active forms of protest and change.
Allain, as one of the many photographers/videographers at the event, talked briefly on the conflicted feelings he has when capturing images of rallies and protests. While the circulation of images and documentation is important to these events, we noted that at one point the rally seemed to be divided in groups of equal size: one half protesting, the other half documenting. While, as we discussed in previous weeks, the collapsing professionalization of image production and information gathering is a positive and enabling effect of digital technology, the stark half and half visual of the Wednesday rally begs a moment of reflection. Is documentation a form of activism, or merely another circulatory system that helps to discharge the energy of a politically aggravated population?
This led us, interestingly enough, to a discussion of “selfies.” One curiosity that remains to be answered is how prevalent are “selfies” in protests? Does the performativity of engaging in public protest lend itself well to self-portraiture? Can you even hold a placard and selfie-stick at the same time? Without having a solid grasp of selfie studies (is that a thing yet?), we took a stab at guessing that these would be more inappropriate due to the communal nature of activism. (Perhaps in defense of the selfie, or at least consideration, take a look at this NPR episode about self-imagery that counters the regulation and identity control of the US census) Post your protest selfies and let us know what you think.
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