BILDBLOG
This site -- a critique of BILD Zeitung, literally "the picture paper" -- is a great idea. BILD is a printed and even more debased version of FOX news, if you can imagine such a thing. It is also the highest circulating German newspaper, partly due to its potent mix of scandal, nationalism, right-wing politics, sex and nudity. BILD was the subject of Heinrich Boell's classic The Lost Honor of Katharina Blum, which was also made into a brilliant movie by Volker Schloendorff.
Link via Margaret Marks, who found it through Papascott.
It would be worthwhile to develop concepts for criticism of the visual imagery of news outlets as well. (BILD is the "picture paper," after all.) I just had a visit from my sister Heidi and her boyfriend Steve Aishman. Both are artists, and Steve is a professor at SCAD. Both Heidi and Steve made the argument that education in visual communication is becoming increasingly important in a shrinking and media-saturated world; they both approach their work as an exercise in teaching the art of visual criticism. The most accessible technique within the context of their own work is humor -- humor can force a shock of recognition -- but the point is a general one.
The folks at BILDblog are performing an important function in criticizing the non-visual aspects of the paper, much as media watchdog sites in the U.S. have been doing. My favorites are Media Matters and the incomparable Daily Howler. The fact that these sites earn asymmetric partisan ire should not obscure the theoretical service that they are performing: developing high-quality patterns of criticism of the way that news is both created and presented. Many of their critical tropes are available on a non-partisan basis.
Seems to me that a similar approach should be taken to visual imagery. The costs of the technical side of such criticism have dropped dramatically over the past few years, as it has become easier to copy and publish photos on the web. It's primarily the conceptual language that's lacking, I think. It's pretty easy to talk about the "horse race" or the "he said / she said" tropes as misleading, but a little harder to talk about photo and shot selection in the same fashion.
I don't know of any sites that attempt this kind of criticism, but I'm on the lookout!
2 Comments:
"Stell dir vor, es ist Sonntag, und keiner kauft BILD"
was one of the Sprueche I learned at the Goethe Institut.
which is a twist on "Stell dir vor, es ist Krieg, und keiner geht hin."
One such criticism I've come across in passing is the "Americans United for Separation of Church and State" criticism of a presentation at a Baptist service in Arkansas, in which (they argue) an improperly partisan message for Bush is sent. From executive director Barry Lynn's letter to IRS (excerpted in the a 7/22 Arkansas News Bureau report, ):
"I have enclosed a videotape that includes the entire sermon as well as a partial transcript. About 45 minutes into the message, Floyd begins to discuss the differences between Bush and Kerry. Please note that even the imagery employed by the church is designed to promote Bush. A huge photo of Bush is projected onto a screen that shows the president next to an American flag. By contrast, small photos of Kerry are used that show him as one person in a larger crowd. In addition, Bush is shown ..."
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