War-focused social documentary as a tool for global change

Размещено на http://www.allbest.ru/

Размещено на http://www.allbest.ru/

Poltava V.G. Korolenko national pedagogical university

University of Vic-Central university of Catalonia

War-focused social documentary as a tool for global change

Oksana Rudych

Mireia Canals-Botines

Iryna Kohut

Abstract

The article observes the war-focused social documentary use while calling for global change. It considers a form of documentary photography within the idea to draw the wide public's attention to vital ongoing war-caused social problems and issues.

We also characterize social documentary as a critical genre of photography, dedicated to reflection of the life of different people, underprivileged or disadvantaged as a result of the war. The terms «war», and «war of aggression» are concretized. It is also stated, that while conversations, political speeches, press reports or publications, the word «war» may be used to express any serious struggle, strife or campaign. Thus, references are frequently made to «war on corruption», «war against drug dillers», «war of worlds» or «war of genders»: the metaphor of war usually serves to convey the stressfullness of the situation, and such a metaphor must not be taken literally.

Also, the difference between Social Documentary and Photojournalism is characterized: photos are usually taken for the future reference, whereas photojournalism images are predominantly meant for the short-term public involvement. Social Documentary images definitely may be stored for the long-term study, enabling better understanding of the modern world we live in, making sense of our living, discovering the way other people live.

Article characterizes the main thematic motives of social documentary, such as: child labor, child neglect, homelessness, poverty, impoverished children and the elderly, and hazardous working conditions, and outlines the peculiarities of their interpretation in the context of war.

Social documentary is to preserve the most important events or parts of the history - some details or archival footage that would rather be buried. This gives not only a better understanding of current events, but also a prospective of what we might face in the future.

Social documentary can be an effective tool to influence our preconceptions, and develop empathy towards human beings or any creature suffering. By bringing personal stories to light, documentaries can aim much-needed wider audience's awareness on to war-caused social problems, and facilitate the search for solution.

The article also deals with the difference between Social Documentary and Pictorial Manipulation, which are often used to shape public opinion within global digitalized informational space.

Key words: social documentary, pictorial manipulation, war issues, global change, photojournalism.

Анотація

Рудич О.

Полтавський національний педагогічний університет імені В.Г. Короленка, Україна

Каналс-Ботінес М.

Університет Вік - Центральний університет Каталонії, Іспанія

Когут І.

Полтавський національний педагогічний університет імені В.Г. Короленка, Україна

Соціальний документальний фільм про війну як інструмент глобальних змін

У статті розглядається використання соціальних документальних фільмів, присвячених війні, водночас закликаючи до глобальних змін. Він розглядає форму документальної фотографії в рамках ідеї привернення увагу широкої громадськості до життєво важливих суспільних проблем і проблем, які виникли під час війни.

Ми також характеризуємо соціальну документалістику, як критичний жанр фотографії, присвячений відображенню життя різних людей, знедолених чи знедолених внаслідок війни. Конкретизовано терміни «війна», «загарбницька війна». Також зазначено, що під час розмов, політичних промов, звітів у пресі чи публікацій слово «війна» може використовуватися для вираження будь-якої серйозної боротьби, розбрату чи кампанії. Таким чином, часто згадуються «війна з корупцією», «війна з наркоторговцями», «війна світів» або «війна тендерів»: метафора війни зазвичай служить для передачі напруженості ситуації, і таку метафора не слід розуміти буквально.

Крім того, охарактеризовано різницю між соціальною документацією та фотожурналістикою: фотографії зазвичай робляться для використання в майбутньому, тоді як фотожурналістичні зображення переважно призначені для короткострокового залучення громадськості. Соціально-документальні зображення, безперечно, можна зберігати для довготривалого вивчення, дозволяючи краще зрозуміти сучасний світ, у якому ми живемо, осмислити наше життя, дізнатися, як живуть інші люди.

У статті охарактеризовано основні тематичні мотиви соціальної документації, такі як: дитяча праця, дитяча бездоглядність, безпритульність, злидні та люди похилого віку, шкідливі умови праці та окреслено особливості їх інтерпретації в контексті війни.

Соціальна документалістика полягає в тому, щоб зберегти найважливіші події чи фрагменти історії - деякі деталі чи архівні кадри, які краще прибрати. Це дає не тільки краще розуміння поточних подій, але й перспективу того, з чим ми можемо зіткнутися в майбутньому.

Соціальний документальний фільм може бути ефективним інструментом впливу на наші упередження та розвитку емпатії до людей чи будь-яких істот, які страждають. Висвітлюючи особисті історії, документальні фільми можуть привернути увагу широкої аудиторії до соціальних проблем, спричинених війною, і сприяти пошуку рішень.

У статті також розглядається різниця між соціальною документацією та графічною маніпуляцією, які часто використовуються для формування громадської думки в глобальному цифровому інформаційному просторі.

Ключові слова: соціальна документалістика, графічна маніпуляція, проблематика війни, глобальні зміни, фот ожур н алізм.

Main part

Social documentary can is usually used to influence our preconceptions, and develop empathy towards human beings or any creature suffering. By bringing personal stories to light, documentaries can aim much-needed wider audience's awareness on to different social problems.

Rapid technical progress, the availability of the equipment needed, the improvement of the ways of transmitting and gaining information have made this genre more popular and in demand during the last decades.

We consider a form of documentary photography within the idea to draw the wide public's attention to vital ongoing war-caused social issues (on the photo examples, taken during the War in Ukraine).

The goal is - to characterize social documentary as a critical genre of photography, dedicated to reflection of the life of different people, underprivileged or disadvantaged as a result of the war.

Due to the goal we have determined the following tasks:

• to define the concepts of «social documentary photo», «aggressive war»;

• to outline the features of the use of social documentary photography in the course of covering the consequences of war in Ukraine.

Social documentary photography developed in to a separate field of documentation at the turn of the 19th century due to the legacy of Henry Mayhew, Jacob Riis, Lewis Hine Roy Stryker, Walker Evans, Dorothea Lange and many other photographers who documented the consequences of unemployment, femine, poverty and other social problems.

Social documentary is considered a subset of documentary photography and a form of photojournalism or reportage photography. It may also refer to a socially critical genre of photography dedicated to showing the life of underprivileged or disadvantaged people (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_documentary_photograph).

Highly respected and well - known scholars Marshal McLUEN, Gabriel Tarde, Hustav Lebon, Erik Fromm, Karl Jung, John McDougal) researched of the impact of electronic communication on the development of a person and society, and Alla Chernova, Boris Grushin, Volodymyr Lysenko, Hrygorii Pocheptsov, Jose Ortega-i-Gasset, Dmytriy Olshanskyi, Ihor Panarin, Martsin Libicki, Serhii Kara-Murza, Peter Linebarger, Mykola Senchenko and others studied the impact of social documentary on mass consciousness through the prism of information wars.

The term «war» is constantly used while conferences, political speeches, press reports or publications to express any serious struggle, strive or campaign. Thus, references are frequently made to «war on corruption», «war against drug dillers», «war of worlds» or «war of genders»: the metaphor of war usually serves to convey the stressfullness of the situation, and such a metaphor must not be taken literally (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_of_aggression).

We consider not conflict, but the war of aggression, or war of conquest, a voilation waged without the justification of self-defense, usually for territorial gain and subjugation.

In this case social documentary is to preserve the most important events or parts of the war history - some details or archival footage that would rather be buried. This gives not only a better understanding of current events, but also a prospective of what we might face in the future.

War focused social documentary reflects main thematic motives such as: child labor, child neglect, homelessness, poverty, impoverished children and the elderly, and hazardous working conditions, and outlines the peculiarities of their interpretation in context of the war.

The analyses of a wide range of social documentary photographs allows to presume that the greatest concerns of Ukrainian society and the world's community are:

1. The children's suffering (homeless, kidnapped, wounded, rapt, made orphans, refugees, dislocated, traumatized;

2. Displaced and dislocated people;

3. Environmental threats;

4. Homeless and destitute people;

5. Rilled and wounded people;

3. Hazardous and dangerous serving conditions of the mobilized people (both men and women). The number caters to 1.7 mln., most of them are ex. professionals like engineers, teachers, businessmen, or scientists.

Behind each photograph there is the story of a real person, this visualization of a grief appeals to the emotional sphere of a viewer alongside with providing detailed information of the war.

Social documentary can be an effective tool to influence our preconceptions, and develop empathy towards human beings or any creature suffering. By bringing personal stories to light, documentaries can aim much - needed wider audience's awareness on to war-caused social problems, and facilitate the search for solution.

Ukrainian media space and social networks nowadays are saturated with social documentaries, used to raise money for charity, donate Ukrainian army, show support to the war - victims, and maintain a sense of unity and solidarity.

Any war of this terror scale provides broad field for the artistic search (not only for photographers, but also writers, musicians, film-directors) in context of depicting behavior and reaction of both society and an individual to excessive pain and resulting sufferings.

On the other hand, contemplation of this pain, empathy, also causes stress with all collateral consequences for someone's physical and mental health. The dissemination of supersensual content with the aim of mental destabilization of an individual or an entire community can be considered informational terror and aggression. Thus, during the war, real photos of the executions of Ukrainian soldiers by beheading, castration, rape of children, cruelty to animals, etc. are constantly posted from Russian accounts and circulate in Ukrainian publics, multiplying stress, rage and despair.

Dozens of Pictorial Manipulations are also used daily to influence mass consciousness across the Globe to shape public opinion via digitalized informational space. Space, where every social documentary photography can be transformed into a tool of the changes needed.

The most common examples of pictorial manipulations include retouching photographs using ink or paint, airbrushing, double exposure, piecing photos or negatives together in the darkroom, scratching instant films, or through the use of software-based manipulation tools applied to digital images.

Nowedays everyone has easy access to editing photos they post online. Social media filters have become a major part of photo manipulation. Through apps like Snapchat, Instagram, and TikTok, users are able to manipulate photos using the back or front camera, applying pre-made filters to possibly enhance the quality of the picture, distort themselves, or even add creative elements such as text, coloring or stickers (Pravda, chujka y fejk).

Under the influence of manipulation, existing attitudes and perceptions of events can be weakened or changed. Any information can be covered from different points of view, with different accents, in different contexts.

Examples of media manipulation with the photograph:

• providing incomplete information;

• deliberate concealment of a certain aspect of information;

• shift of emphasis in the message;

• manipulation of symbols, use of slogans;

• taking out of context;

• manipulation of emotions, values, generalizations;

• manipulation of numbers (sociology).

Mass media can artificially hide certain events and focus attention on certain aspects of it, silencing others, which creates an opportunity to manipulate the audience. The example of manipulation often is the presentation of news. News is an operational informational message that contains socially important and relevant information relating to a certain area of society's life.

Manipulative techniques are ways of performing certain actions and presenting information in media texts to achieve manipulative influence on the recipient or group.

Techniques of media news manipulation:

1. Control of information flows, dosage of truth: coverage of only that reliable information that the manipulator needs. Deliberate public silencing significant information, ignoring facts, filtering them.

2. Fabrication of facts. Fabricate means to make, artificially create «facts» and not reflect the real state of affairs. To denote false, falsified information.

3. Absence of alternative (other than official) information in mass media. Information like that can enable the audience to make their own choices.

4. Hanging (gluing) labels: unjustifiably accusing someone of something, attribute negative qualities, socially unacceptable actions, shameful behavior for discrediting a person etc.

5. Delusion (illusion) of pluralism in coverage of social and political events. It is created by submitting the same information in different ways. That is the absence of different views on the problem. This also includes ignoring dialogue and public debate (exchange of opinions on a certain issue).

6. References to authorities on whose behalf beneficial manipulators are distributed information (comments, opinions, evaluative statements) to approve or condemn some facts. Variations of this technique include references to an anonymous authority (a famous scientist, writer, politician, etc.).

7. Distraction of attention from the main to secondary. For example, filing publicly important information among insignificant. As a result, attention is distracted and the meaning is lost preconceived.

8. Contrasting presentation of information in the media message according to the principle «about yourself - good, about others - bad» (Informacijna vijna: propaganda rosijs'kyh ZMI pro podii' na Shodi Ukrai'ny).

9. Covering with universal (win-win) concepts that have a positive reaction in the audience, those phenomena that really have nothing to do with democracy, freedom, legality, patriotism, victory, success, etc.

10. Changing the content of information due to the loss of its true context. It happens when a quote, a fragment of a video is specially extracted from a complete text or when media messages are constructed from different fragments.

11. Repetition of the same information, in the end, settles not only in the memory, but also in the subconscious of the recipients.

12. Submission of contradictory messages, quick change of messages, fast rate of sending messages, inconsistency of the message header with its content.

13. Use of stereotypes - simplified, primitive, schematic images, cliches, slogans or, conversely, specific, complex terminology (Informacijna vijna: propaganda rosijs'kyh ZMI pro podii' na Shodi Ukrai'ny).

In conclusion I would like to say, that social documentary can influence the way of life, thinking, actions, beliefs, can change moods, desires and behavior of people by ultimate depiction of reality.

However, finding means to minimize manipulative information and a balanced amount of sensitive content remains a challenge for modern researchers. After all, on the one hand, society should not abstract from the vital problems, not to get infantile, but on the other hand, society should take care of mental health as a guarantee of a proper and timely response to up-to-date challenges.

Thank you very much for your attention. If there are any questions, you are very welcome to ask.

References

documentary war social

1. Vydannja, shho publikujut' nepravdyvu informaciju [Editings, that print disinformation].Wikipedia. Retrieved from http://uk.wikipedia.org/wiki/ [Вікіпедія: Видання, що публікують_неправдиву /інформацію].

2. Informacijna vijna: propaganda rosijs'kyh ZMI pro podii' na Shodi Ukrai'ny [Information warfare against Ukraine: agenda of Russian mass media about the East of Ukraine]. Retrieved from http://www.korupciya.com/? p=18255.

3. Pravda, chujka y fejk. [The truth, the think and the fake].Retrieved from https://medium.com/@SoF_/ - 68f7b0a8c25.

4. Psevdo-aktyvist «Pravogo sektora» v Slov'jans'ku vyjavyvsja fitnes-trenerom iz Kyjeva - ZMI [Pseudo-activist of the Right Sector in Sloviansk is on real a fitness-trainer from Kyiv]. Unian (2014). Retrieved from http://www.unian.ua/politics/ 910251-psevdo-aktivist-pravogo-sektora-v-slovyansku-viyavivsya-fitnes-trenerom-iz-kieva-zmi.html

5. www.google.com/search? client=firefox-b-d&q=social+documentary

6. https:/ / en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_documentary_photograph

7. https:/ / en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_of_aggression

8. http://nkkep.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/13.04-OOPTBD11-GO.pdf

Размещено на Allbest.ru