Christian Christensen
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- May 2017
- ISBN:
- 9781526107213
- eISBN:
- 9781526120984
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Manchester University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7228/manchester/9781526107213.003.0009
- Subject:
- Society and Culture, Media Studies
On April 3, 2010, WikiLeaks and the Sunshine Press released the Collateral Murder video: a 17-minute clip showing a US Apache attack helicopter firing upon individuals in a Baghdad suburb. Amongst ...
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On April 3, 2010, WikiLeaks and the Sunshine Press released the Collateral Murder video: a 17-minute clip showing a US Apache attack helicopter firing upon individuals in a Baghdad suburb. Amongst those killed by the 30mm cannon fire were two Reuters journalists. Rooted in the author’s earlier work on the use of YouTube by US soldiers to record everything from the criminal to the light-hearted to the banal, the chapter addresses how this clip (viewed over 15 million times on YouTube, and with myriad copies throughout the Internet) has been used and re-used for a variety of activist purposes over the past 4 years, and how it has contributed to a temporal extension of ‘the battlefield.’ Rather than a somewhat static memorialisation or transcription of war, the Collateral Murder video has been more fluid: entering and re-entering public consciousness as it is linked to news events as they unfold. This chapter discusses the flow and distribution of activist imagery as it is connected to the flow of news and current events.Less
On April 3, 2010, WikiLeaks and the Sunshine Press released the Collateral Murder video: a 17-minute clip showing a US Apache attack helicopter firing upon individuals in a Baghdad suburb. Amongst those killed by the 30mm cannon fire were two Reuters journalists. Rooted in the author’s earlier work on the use of YouTube by US soldiers to record everything from the criminal to the light-hearted to the banal, the chapter addresses how this clip (viewed over 15 million times on YouTube, and with myriad copies throughout the Internet) has been used and re-used for a variety of activist purposes over the past 4 years, and how it has contributed to a temporal extension of ‘the battlefield.’ Rather than a somewhat static memorialisation or transcription of war, the Collateral Murder video has been more fluid: entering and re-entering public consciousness as it is linked to news events as they unfold. This chapter discusses the flow and distribution of activist imagery as it is connected to the flow of news and current events.
Lida Maxwell
- Published in print:
- 2019
- Published Online:
- June 2019
- ISBN:
- 9780190920029
- eISBN:
- 9780190920067
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780190920029.003.0005
- Subject:
- Political Science, American Politics, Political Theory
Chapter 5 argues that Manning’s leaking of the Collateral Murder video may have changed, or be at work in changing, the world. Mobilizing a reading of Virginia Woolf’s use of war photographs in Three ...
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Chapter 5 argues that Manning’s leaking of the Collateral Murder video may have changed, or be at work in changing, the world. Mobilizing a reading of Virginia Woolf’s use of war photographs in Three Guineas, the contention of the chapter is that leaking or displaying images of war may not have its primary impact through assuring accountability of elites but rather through changing the world: transforming various functional sites (offices, sitting rooms, work computers) into sites of truth-telling and empowerment. As an example, the chapter discusses the story of Ethan McCord, an infantryman who appears in the Collateral Murder video rushing to pick up the children injured by the shooting from the army helicopter. Seeing his own image in the video prompted McCord to take responsibility for his actions and to begin a broader anti-war campaign.Less
Chapter 5 argues that Manning’s leaking of the Collateral Murder video may have changed, or be at work in changing, the world. Mobilizing a reading of Virginia Woolf’s use of war photographs in Three Guineas, the contention of the chapter is that leaking or displaying images of war may not have its primary impact through assuring accountability of elites but rather through changing the world: transforming various functional sites (offices, sitting rooms, work computers) into sites of truth-telling and empowerment. As an example, the chapter discusses the story of Ethan McCord, an infantryman who appears in the Collateral Murder video rushing to pick up the children injured by the shooting from the army helicopter. Seeing his own image in the video prompted McCord to take responsibility for his actions and to begin a broader anti-war campaign.
