Media Augmentation in the Arab World: The Return of the Repressed

When the revolutions in the Arab world erupted, media augmentation was the sole direct reporter of the events happening in the street. It was the image of the revolution and, at the same time, the revolution of the image, an image that had exploded into the reporting of the explosion. What is manifested from all those revolutions is a violent brut image that does not care about the high definition of it resolution but about how real and genuine it is and therefore rough and pixelated. Media augmentation becomes the violent and aggressive reporter of the violent event themselves, the context as well as the content of that media are both violent and aggressive by default, and when it is presented into a plastic and synthetic façade for entertainment purposes, it remains violence and aggressive latent beneath all the layer of the spectacle, or even violent because it is hidden under the postcard-image of the spectacle. Revolution by itself is an act of violence, and the augmented image by itself is act of violence; the result is a spectacle of violence for an audience that can only be entertained with such acts of brut violence. With media augmentation, the multitude are themselves the perpetrators, the victims and the perceivers of all that violence with all its types and all the complexities of its layers and variations, through enacting it, watching it, consuming it or just living with it as a normal quotidian.

Content

Author and article information

Contributors

Hassan Choubassi

Joe Elias

Tarek Mourad

Conference

Publication date: June 2019

Publication date (Print): June 2019

Pages: 41-47

Affiliations

[0001]The International University of Beirut

Michel Abi Chahla street, Mousytbeh

Beirut-Lebanon

Article

DOI: 10.14236/ewic/POM19.7

SO-VID: fbcdeb2e-73d6-4841-b57f-4925add10916

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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 Unported License. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Conference name: Politics of the Machine Beirut 2019

Conference acronym: POM2019

Conference number: 2

Conference location: Beirut, Lebanon

Conference date: 11-14 June 2019

Conference sponsor: Electronic Workshops in Computing (eWiC)

Conference theme: Politics of the Machine

History

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1477-9358 BCS Learning & Development

Self URI (article page): https://www.scienceopen.com/hosted-document?doi=10.14236/ewic/POM19.7

Self URI (journal page): https://ewic.bcs.org/

REFERENCES

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Comments

Comment on this article

[1] U. Abulof 2015 The people want(s) to bring down the regime”: (positive) nationalism as the Arab Spring’s revolution Nations Natl 21 658 680 https://doi.org/10.1111/nana.12137

[2] H. ArendtJ. Schell 2006 On Revolution Penguin Classics New York

[3] J. BaudrillardC. Turner 2012 The spirit of terrorism and other essays Verso Books New York.

[4] G.L. Bon 2013 The Crowd: A Study of the Popular Mind CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform

[5] M. Foucault 1995 Discipline & Punish: The Birth of the Prison 2 Vintage Books New York.

[6] S. Freud Civilization and Its Discontents W. W. Norton & Company; The Standard Edition edition

[7] S. FreudJ. Strachey 2001 Totem and taboo: some points of agreement between the mental lives of savages and neurotics Routledge London; New York.

[8] S. FreudJ. StracheyA. Freud 1962. The Standard edition of the complete psychological works of Sigmund Freud Hogarth Press : Institute of Psycho-Analysis London

[9] B. Khbeiz 2003 Globalization and the Manufacture of Transient Events The Lebanese Association for Plastic Arts, Ashkal Alwan Beirut.

[10] N. Scheper-Hughes 1993 Death Without Weeping: The Violence of Everyday Life in Brazil University of California Press Berkeley.

[11] M. Shelley 2003 Frankenstein, Revised edition Penguin Classics London; New York.

[12] P. Virilio 1993 The third Interval, in: Rethinking Technologies University of Minnesota Press Minneapolis

[13] B.A. Yassin 1978 The Forbidden Triad, studies in religion, sex and class struggle 2 Al Taliaa Beirut

[14] S. Žižek 2008 Violence: six sideways reflections Picador New York.

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