GE21001 Dynamic Human Worlds Lecture 9 Media and Geopolitics Blog: Dr. Susan P. Mains Geography

Media and Geopolitics Lecture Outline: Access to media Media and knowledge Forms of media Media, geopolitics & tourism

Understanding Media A key source of information Provide depictions of many places, political events that may be far removed physically Varying access to different forms of media

Televisions in Use

Population

Internet Users 2002

Royalty Fees

Media and Knowledge Various forms of popular media may help to shape opinions and policies Media images also reflect viewpoints Media may be used to challenge popular ideas and/or stereotypes Different kinds of media may be accessible in different kinds of ways –E.g., print media (newspapers) –Lined to Benedict Anderson’s idea of an ‘imagined community’ –Mass produced, collective information –Prior to this: town hall meetings, travel writing, novels –Many elitist (e.g., literacy needed)

Marcus Garvey, UNIA --Black transnationalism, --Pan-Africanism Robert S. Abbott, African American Newspaper

Radio Connects with oral traditions of storytelling One of the mpst accessible media forms Public announcements Serial programmes Later, increasingly interactive –e.g., call-in shows –on-location reports

Radio Recognizabe formats News, public announcements, entertainment (musicals, dramas) What happens when these are challenged? –War of the Worlds, Orson Welles

War of the Worlds Broadcast Transcript

The Aliens Have Landed…? Political context –Anti-communism in US and Europe –Aliens as metaphors for feared ‘others,’ borders –Growing US imperialism –Emerging technologies –Growing interest in travel possibilities, Mars –H. G. Wells (1898), science fiction –immigration

The Aliens Have Landed…?

The Cold War & Media Newspapers and radio, later tv ‘Loose lips sink ships’ Strategically ‘fictional’ factual stories Fake military sites—e.g., through photography

Operation Fortitude -World War II ’deception operation’

Photography & Documentary Film Photography: can also be used to challenge caricatures Social documentary –Links to visual anthopology War photography ‘Indigenous’ cultures –E.g., Nanook of the North

Robert Flaherty, atch?v=bVbQVWkdcFk

More Recently Broader access for ‘citizen’ reporters with ‘local’ knowledge Large television newstations encouraging ‘on- the-ground’ reporters Range of news channels –Crossing borders –Use of internet, range of sources, political perspectives –Indymedia, Demotix But, increasing centralisation of ownership –E.g., Murdoch-owned News Corp

Film & Geopolitics Small number of large distributors Hollywood & Bollywood Films may incorporate different media –Literature, music, news, animation Geography of language in film Linked to city & national policies –e.g., Tax incentives, film festivals, launch of smaller budget ‘critical’ films (e.g., Braveheart vs You´ve Been Trumped), tourism

Workshop 1: Media, Tourism & Uneven Development Socio-spatial inequalities Tourists visiting low income neighbourhoods How do we define & depict ‘attractions’? e.g., Jamaica Kincaid’s writing –A Small Place

As Kincaid (1988, 18-19) notes in her novel, A Small Place, exploring tourism and colonialism in Antigua: “Every native of every place is a potential tourist, and every tourist is a native of somewhere. Every native everywhere lives a life of overwhelming and crushing banality and boredom and desperation and depression, and every deed, good and bad, is an attempt to forget this. Every native would like to find a way out, every native would like a rest, every native would like a tour. But some natives— most natives in the world—cannot go anywhere. They are too poor. They are too poor to go anywhere. They are too poor to escape the reality of their lives; and they are too poor to live properly in the place where they live, which is the very place you, the tourist, want to go—so when the natives see you, the tourist, they envy you, they envy your ability to leave your own banality and boredom, they envy your ability to turn their own banality and boredom into a source of pleasure for yourself.” tourist-attraction/ tourist-attraction/ ‘Poor Homeless Kids = India’s Latest Tourist Attraction’