Description
Book SynopsisFrom the Holocaust to 9/11, modern communications systems have incessantly exposed us to reports of distant and horrifying events, experienced by strangers, and brought to us through media technologies. In this book leading scholars explore key questions concerning the truth status and broader implications of 'media witnessing'.
Trade Review'Why are witnesses to salient socio-political events so important in our age of global media reporting? Testimonies are sometimes the only chance to arrive at more information which would, otherwise, have been swept under the carpet. This excellent book elaborates on, and challenges, the complex and difficult roles of eye witnesses and of the media in truly innovative interdisciplinary ways. Everybody who deals with media in their everyday lives will be able to gain new insights.' - Professor Ruth Wodak, Lancaster University, UK
'This is a most valuable collection of essays. Innovative, engrossing and rewarding, it provides an excellent exploration of media witnessing and is definitely to be recommended.'
- European Journal of Communication
Table of ContentsAcknowledgements Notes on Contributors Introduction: Why Media Witnessing? Why Now? PART I: PERSPECTIVES ON MEDIA WITNESSING Witnessing: An Afterword: Torchlight Red on Sweaty Faces; J.D.Peters Telling Presences: Witnessing, Mass Media, and the Imagined Lives of Strangers; P.Frosh Mundane Witness; J.Ellis Witness as a Cultural Form of Communication: Historical Roots, Structural Dynamics and Current Appearances; G.Thomas Archaic Witnessing and Contemporary News Media; M.Blondheim& T.Liebes PART II: PERFORMANCES OF MEDIA WITNESSING Witnessing as a Field; T.Ashuri and A.Pinchevski From Danger to Trauma: Affective Labour and the Journalistic Discourse of Witnessing; C.Rentschler Scientific Witness, Testimony, and Mediation; J.Leach Witnesses or Bystanders: What Models are Appropriate in Understanding the Media Act of Witnessing? Witnessing Trauma on Film; R.Brand Index
