the two sides

Digital media formats and digital media authoring tools introduced a number of dynamic elements to our understanding of the political voice as a function of communication technologies, “the media” as a heteroglossic medium, and the nature of ownership over a particular utterance within the public sphere. Specifically, the manner in which public voices—such as those expressed by our institutions, organizations and prominent individuals—are created, disseminated and consumed is currently undergoing a renegotiation. On one side of the divide lay the monolithic voices, those that are purveyors of truth-as-defined, established voices and voices seeking establishment within ranks of authority. The content of their messages attempts to declare, specify and inform the eventual consumer. We find these voices and their digital manifestations on television, in stump speeches, reported on in newspapers, quoted in emails. They bear watermarks, press releases, non-disclosure agreements, and the other proverbial kowtows to the authenticity of the voice en bloc. The other side, however, understands the concepts of truth, originality, and authorship entirely differently.

In contrast to the established voices, an alternative kind of voice is being expressed in non-traditional venues and in non-traditional ways. Characterized more by appropriation, bricolage and mixing, the messages are playful, subversive, and ironic. The raw content of the messages is rarely original, but re-used or manipulated for a new aim. This recycling of content in these messages is not, however, blind to context or to the providence of the original message; rather, the providence of the content, the references, the messages, are usually part of the main thrust of the statement. No authority sanctions these statements, they are posted semi-anonymously online for a wide, untargeted audience. These are videos, heteroglossic within their own timelines, that visualize a political expression in which politician and constituent are blended with pop culture, internet culture, music and politics.

~ by Gabriel on June 27, 2008.