The violent image insurgent propaganda and the new revolutionaries Neville Bolt

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Bolt, Neville

Contributor:

UPSO eCollections (University Press Scholarship Online)

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Insurgency--Public relations--History.

Insurgency.

Revolutionaries--Public relations--History.

Revolutionaries.

Communication in politics--Technological innovations.

Communication in politics.

Mass media and propaganda.

Political violence in mass media.

Terrorism in mass media.

Public relations and politics.

Genre:

History

Physical Description:

1 online resource

Other Title:

Violent Image

Place of Publication:

New York Columbia University Press ©2012

Summary:

Fast-moving, self-perpetuating images of violence have radically changed the nature of insurgency in modern times, and the global media trafficking in these images have fundamentally transformed the act and speed of the exchange among populations. First satellite TV, then laptops and the Internet, and now cellphones and social media, new technologies have revolutionized the act of communication and have collapsed the impediments of time and distance. Rebels who hope to overthrow states and revolutionaries who aim to establish transnational, ideological communities have only to utilize these dynamic technologies to advance their goals. Yet trial and error has also taught a key lesson: in a visual world, the pull of the violent image is more powerful and resonant than the draw of the carefully-crafted word. Neville Bolt dives headfirst into the innovative strategies of today's revolutionaries and their fascinating appropriation of the nineteenth-century practice of "propaganda of the deed," or the political act of violence. No longer is the terrorist act simply a means to push governments to overreact, therefore shredding their legitimacy and credibility. The deed has instead become an efficient tool to initiate a campaign of shock and awe, exposing and exploiting the grievances that underlie communities' fragile ties. Images of 9/11, 7/7, Abu Ghraib, and "collateral damage" are the contemporary weapons of choice. The Violent Image explores the emotional and psychological components of this visual "moment of shock," or the binding of emotive pictures to messages causing popular uprisings. From terrorist groups such as the Fenians and the Taliban to the architects of the ongoing Arab Spring, this study follows insurgents and their manipulation of violent imagery to build narratives and bring social change. Taking advantage of the "war of ideas," new revolutionaries generate surges of support that spread virally through global networks, often so quickly that states are unable to respond in time and kind. This book ultimately asks whether the world has reached a point in which insurgents and populations are driving images and ideas so rapidly that we are already in the grip of a new era of revolutionary politics. --from Amazon. com

Contents:

Introduction

What is Propaganda of the Deed (POTD)?

Overview

Different ways of reading POTD

The terrorist act as communicator : Historical context ; POTD: twenty-first century communicator ; Propaganda ; Political marketing ; Strategic communications: the state ; Strategic communications: the insurgent

Archipelago of memories : Memory, myths and terror ; Constructing memory ; The outside world of the self ; The outside world of the group ; Myths maketh man ; POTD as metaphor

Insurgent memory and narrative : Symbols of resistance ; Irish Republicanism ; Young Ireland ; Fenians ; Easter Rising, 1916 ; Anglo-Irish and civil wars ; Mitigating atrocity

The insurgent image : Opportunity spaces and images ; Opportunity and speed ; Capturing attention ; Images as weapons ; Resonance, anticipation ; Unseen, unspoken ; Directing images ; Using frames to trigger action

Television memory : Part 1. How is memory shaped across the media landscape? ; Ownership and political elites ; Audiences ; Creating memory ; Part 2. How event and spectacle challenge media memory ; Event and spectacle in the media landscape ; LIVE-ness ; Turning weakness into strength

Where the imaginary meets the virtual : Surges, flows and scapes ; Networks in the real and virtual worlds ; Social capital ; Self-generating communications ; Archipelagos and diasporas: defining the population ; Outmanœvering bureaucracies ; Strategic opportunism

Spontaneous revolution : The Arab uprisings and liberation-technology ; Dead men do talk ; Anonymity and leaderless revolution ; Spontaneity and revolution

The new strategic operating concept : Opening spaces at the fin-de-siècle ; INformation and the military ; POTD as insurgent concept of operations ; IEDs, suicides and dirty bombs ; Information and 'new terrorism'

Conclusion : A new conceptual framework for POTD ; Broader reflections ; Implications for the future

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages 271-415) and index

Description based on print version record

ISBN:

9780197554623

0197554628

OCLC:

1242873391

Access Restriction:

Restricted for use by site license