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In 2006, two events have already demonstrated the power of images and their growing importance as visual symbols in worldwide communication:
1) The publication of caricatures of the prophet Muhammad in a Danish newspaper, which, in January and February of 2006, led to violent protests in several Islamic countries, and,
2) Israel’s war in Lebanon, and, more specifically, the images of civilian victims that were disseminated not only on TV, but also via the internet.
These events were not only triggers for fierce controversies over content, which occurred in many countries, but they also provided cause for new reflection: firstly, they illustrated the broad scope of interconnectedness that exists in global communication, and, especially in the conflict over the caricatures, they revealed several previously ignored consequences of this development; secondly, they ignited a controversy over the importance of visual media and the use and misuse of images (visual symbols) in intercultural communication, or, in other words, in our views of persons who behave according to models foreign to our own, and events that occur in foreign contexts.
Globalization Strengthens the Power of Images
Worldwide communication is a phenomenon that has been revolutionised in the last 20 years by new media and the spread of digitalisation. Photos, and visual communication in general, have a growing importance in transnational and transcontinental communication, and in our views of distant worlds.
During the first Gulf War (1991), the US-run television station CNN became the first news station to broadcast globally. It was not until the war in Afghanistan (2002) and the occupation of Iraq via the “Coalition of the Willing” (March 2002) that CNN met its first competing model: the first Arabic news station, Al-Jazeera, broadcast its own views with images different from those used by CNN and the other Western TV-Channels. In addition, the first blogs from the war zone were now accessible. During the war in Lebanon in August 2006, internet communication had almost become more significant than the professional media.
International communication is becoming increasingly multipolar, and is, in the process, availing itself more freely than ever of visual symbols. Such processes of globalisation, rendered more dynamic by mechanisms that first became technically possible in our age of advanced globalisation at the beginning of the 21st century, change the basic conditions of our behaviour. Even if we persist in our old habits, these habits can have new effects in a new era. The controversy surrounding the caricatures of the prophet Muhammad, for example, proved that every form of national communication – communication whose context is familiar to its participants – has the potential to become a message to an unknown audience somewhere else in the world.
This creates entirely new challenges for those in charge of determining the form that communication may take; journalists for accountable media companies are confronted with new standards of accuracy and new risks for abuse and exploitation: their products, especially photos and films, can be used to make unintended statements.
Transcultural Iconography – The Role of the Cultural Context in Our Understanding of Images
We have known for quite some time that photos do not merely depict reality, but, rather, that they stage a specific view of reality. Today, we must also take into account the fact that photos can be manipulated with a computer. Indeed, scepticism toward photography’s ability to depict reality – which was once taken for granted – has existed in the general population for a long time. Nevertheless, the power of images affects the viewer on a level that is, in part, unknown to him or her, even in cases when rational reflection manages to create a certain distance from the image. The potency of images can undercut such rational reflection. This is a significant component of their power.
The expansion of worldwide communication intensifies differences in the processes of understanding and interpreting identical images in different cultures and societal contexts. One consequence of this is that images in different contexts often possess varying symbolic values. And, as we know, every interpretation can be influenced by two factors: (1) its comprehension within the context of its creation, and (2) the models for understanding (whether cultural, societal or socially conditioned) employed by the viewer. The emotional impulses that photos and, indeed, all images used for visual communication generate, are themselves deeply rooted in cultural and societal models of seeing and understanding, for which individuals carry little conscious responsibility. In order to decipher this process in the context of transnational and transcontinental communication, we need to become conscious of certain models, as well as the acts of cultural translation that our world requires of us. This is a challenge that we have only recently begun to confront.
We must develop a “transcultural iconography” that enables us to decipher varying models of, and potentials for, understanding image-symbols, and evaluating their understandability, in varying cultural contexts. With the growing importance of worldwide visual communication, the capacity to understand images in their contexts, and, on the other hand, to understand how they are viewed in different contexts, becomes a central task in all types of communication, including journalism and art.
Furthermore, because (international) communication is so often influenced by power relations – both concrete and symbolic in nature – changes in context are often implemented expressly for the purpose of image-reinterpretation, and can be based upon specific interests and used in specific modes of argumentation. During the conflict surrounding the caricatures of Muhammad, an image was circulated around the world that showed an Islamic cleric with raised hands in front of a burning building. It was adorned with one of two captions: “Mullah struggles to calm the crowds” or “Mullah excites the anti-western climate”. The reality of the situation can no longer be determined, but the subjectivity of image-interpretation was powerfully proven. |
