Tuesday, February 23, 2010

Locating the meaning of a text within the text’s own meaning (or another title as equally disorienting)


Wark’s piece, The Weird Global Media Event and the Tactical Intellectual, posed a very interesting delema for me.

Firsts thing’s first. I found it very interesting and relevant that the story arc of the article hyper focuses – if you will – on the one global media event of the September 11th. While I don’t argue that 9/11 wasn’t a pivotal moment in the trajectory of world political, social and media order, I do contest that it contradicts the central point of the piece – namely that compressing an event into the constraints of a narrative form, whether that event is of global or local media coverage, highly skews the objectivity it attempts to engender. Rather, this action creates a notion of “Wedome vs. Theydome” and provokes misunderstanding, hostility and erects borders in our increasingly globalized world. Wark does not cite any other “Weird Global media events" and instead employs the same tactic that the the article critiques. The fact that Wark Organizes his/her(?) argument around one example and declines to use the excess of rich examples of media coverage to support her claim is problematic.

As I neared the end, the main point seemed to converge and collapse under the weight of this flaw. It left much to be resolved. As an optimist I attempted to figure out if this was in fact an intentional way to prove her point by employing the very devices she critiques….

The ending makes a seemingly abrupt tangent into the solution that the Afghan eXplorer provides the media’s problem. She asserts “The media tactician presents an image that endangers the conventions of journalistic narrative time, yet which is capable of inserting itself into it. The is kind of tactical media ironically displaces the boundaries drawn by the machine of the news story.” For a moment I was almost convinced that she was inserting her self into the narrative arc of the story (aka the “journalistic narrative time”) and “displacing the boundaries drawn by media”. But then again I don’t see how that resolves anything nor does the birth of one machine seem to provide all the answers to medias flaws.

As for me, I will keep questioning, That is the point isn’t it? Ahh finally! I got it. The point is to never cease to question and probe so that you come to you own conclusions. No no there must be more. ….

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