Technologies
of Representation's Relation to Public Opinion Regarding The Use of Military
Force.
Shayne
Weyker
9801 Rainleaf Ct.
Columbia, MD 21046
USA
Abstract--The
dysfunctional aspects of television news media's reporting on war can usefully
be thought of as originating the simulation and virtual presence technologies
with which the news media gather and construct the news in the first place.
Some characteristics of those technologies are discussed and the limitations of
each one’s capability to represent events is tied to the common complaints
about the TV reporting on war either being to sanitized or too sensational for
it to usefully inform public discourse about the appropriate use of military
force.
I. Introduction
Over
the past several decades we have begun to think more about the implications of
technologies of communication and information. How might our means of finding
out what happens in the world beyond the reach of our own unaided senses
influence what we know and feel about the events represented for us by our
devices?[1] To put the question in political terms, how is the public's
understanding of reality and the formation of their attitudes about what
government ought to be doing shaped by the technologies used to inform the
public?
Much has
been written about how changes in communication technologies (which includes
techniques as well as hardware) are (or are not) responsible for undermining
the quality of public discourse. This has been particularly true, some critics
argue, of discourse about the international use of force. [2] There are two
well-known arguments about electronic media's role in public discourse about
the international use of force. And while these critiques seem at first to
relate mainly to the political goals of those working in the media and the
governments they operate under, I hope to show why the dysfunction both
categories of critics point out may have some of their origin in the
technologies used to create the representations of events which the technology
of television simply passes along. Thus I am interested here in the
implications of devices used to gather and construct news early in the process
rather than in the television set which passes along the completed
representation to the viewer.
A.
These
criticisms are typically referred to as the CNN Effect and the Nintendo War
Effect.
1) The CNN
Effect: argues that the public in the case of the Somalia intervention was
over-sensitized to the violence being inflicted first on civilians and later on
U.S. troops. Often advanced by those on the right and those in the foreign
policy establishment, they claim this supposedly led the public to ignore both
calls to avoid direct involvement and later to persist until stability was
achieved. This second category of critics disapproves of this because they
consider the outcome (lack of resolve to stay out and stay in) to have been a
waste of life and resources. They also disapprove because the inability of the
U.S. government to convince its people to show the above kinds of resolve is an
example of what this groups considers the threat of an overly democratic
foreign policy process driven too much by the passions of the public fanned by
media sensationalism.[3]
2) The
Nintendo War Effect: argues the public was insulated from the reality of
the Gulf War's violence, and as a result those trying to rally opposition to
the war were disadvantaged in the debate. These typically left-leaning critics
dislike this because they dislike the substantive outcome in the Gulf War of
public support for a war the critics believe was unnecessary. But beyond this,
they (and others more in the political center) disliked the fact that a vitally
important public debate about the proper use of force was pre-empted through
careful image management. [4]
B. Technological contexts for the CNN and Nintendo War
effects
An interesting
feature of these two effects is that they are contradictory. Either one of them
must simply be wrong in all cases or there must be some not yet offered
explanation why the former would occur in some cases while the latter occurs in
others. As was said above, the point of this project is to show why one might
believe that the technologies of representation used by the media might
contribute to, rather than merely exist as tools to achieve, these biasing
effects on reporting and explain why both are possible.
1) Representation
through Simulation: Simulation technologies of representation are those
technologies which abstract and create more generalized substitutes for real
objects and events.[5] The viewpoint given may be that of a birds‑eye
view (radar scope, aerial reconnaissance camera), a cat's‑eye view (light‑intensifying/infra‑red
optics), a bomb's‑eye view (bomb camera), or an omniscient god's eye view
(data‑rich computer simulations of events), but rarely does it provide a
human's‑eye view. Indeed, these were all originally military technologies
whose objective was to provide a way of seeing different from, and militarily
superior to, unaided human sight. There was probably no
pressure in the design of these technologies, as there
was in the creation of the videocameras used by news crews, to make the
representations they create resemble unmediated human vision.
Indeed,
removing the ability to perceive militarily irrelevant things makes it easier
for the soldier using the technology to focus on the task of killing and
surviving since he doesn't have to screen those details out himself. It so
happens though, that those militarily irrelevant things happen to include the
sorts of things needed to trigger emotional responses, as will be discussed
below.
2) Representation
through Virtual Presence: Virtual Presence technologies are techniques and
devices which create the sense in the viewer that they personally are present
at the event represented through realistic representations. The first part of
virtual presence technology is the portable videocamera. Audiences will see
whatever the camera sees. It is held by a person at eye level and moved around
at human speed and is designed to faithfully reproduce what is seen rather than
to alter what is seen (as the Simulation technologies do). In short, it does
give the human‑eye perspective on it's subject, more so than even the
photographic camera, which while capable of richer color and detail when
reproduced on glossy paper, lacks animation.
The second part
of Virtual Presence technology is the devices and systems which make it
possible to bring color video and audio from the furthest corners of the planet
onto the television screen in real time. The fact that one knows that things
are happening roughly simultaneously with one seeing them occur greatly
enhances the sense of being there. And the portability of the equipment means
that a wider variety of events (including, significantly, armed conflicts) can
be covered live.
II. Simulation
technologies of representation
A. What are the simulation technologies of
representation?
The simulation
technologies of representation used by the news media in reporting on conflict
makes use of three types of technology.
1) The
Computer Simulation: These include animated computer-generated graphics
which are interactive, visually abstracted, but militarily precise
representations of some form of combat. Designed as a tactics training tool,
computer simulations of tank combat have on at least one occasion made their
way onto TV news stories about the Gulf War (presumably to illustrate roughly
what a tank driver sees).[6] And as the technology behind the simulations
becomes less secret and images created by them more visually appealing it could
become more likely than military press officers would offer and TV news editors
would accept these computer generated simulations of a hypothetical combat as a
way of giving the reporters and military press officers something to talk about
when the press officers are unwilling to talk about the outcome of past or
future real battles for reasons of security.
2) Military
Sensing Technologies: These include such things as
· videocameras cameras mounted on aircraft and
missiles/bombs
· infra-red and light-enhancing optics which allow
cameras to pull images out of darkness
· radar systems which sense distant objects across a wide
area and create simple graphical representations of them.
· reconnaissance satellites.
The first two
examples produced the images which the Nintendo War critics pointed to in
reporting on the Gulf War as propaganda. An edited recreation of the radar
screen of a U.S. missile cruiser as it looked right before the ship shot down a
civilian airliner was used in the public congressional hearings into the incident.
3) The
Iconic Graphic: These include things such as the still computer graphic
used. It can be used to show geographic location or movements on a map or a
comparison of the numbers of soldiers, tanks, planes, available to the
different sides of a conflict. One possible overlap of this category with the
previous one will occur with the news media's increasing use of imagery
gathered by commercial remote sensing satellites which will be used to show
geographic features in a more appealing and precise way than is possible with
paper maps.
B. Characteristics and limitations of simulated
experience
Because the
above representations are designed to pass along militarily useful information
or provide geographical context they are not generally designed to pick out
human beings and show what is happening to them. Being able to see enemies very
far away, or being able to have an overview of what is going on in one's
surroundings is contradictory with seeing individual people the same way one
sees them in everyday life. If individual human beings can be seen at all
separate from their easier to sense and more dangerous vehicles, the people are
visible only as a monochromatic blur.
Moreover, most such representations are designed to inform the user about
what is going on in the present or over a short span of time, since that's
where the threats to soldiers are. There is a sort of pseudo-omniscience that
comes with being able to see so much of what's going on in an area at once, a
feeling that one understands the objective situation, when in fact one's
perception has a blindspot for the human dimension and historical context.
Indeed this is
a similar charge made against the forerunner to modern simulation technologies
of representation: cybernetic approaches to representing war. Decades before
there were arcade-style computerized simulations of war there were more purely
mathematical computerized simulations of war in the development of cybernetics,
game theory, and operational research, which reduced war and the enemy to a
matter of numbers and equations. Advocates of that way of seeing war such as
Robert MacNamara, just like advocates for contemporary simulation technologies
argue for the appropriateness of these representations based on their
objectivity and military usefulness. But then, as now, the side-effect of this
"objectivity" is moral insensitivity.[7]
III. Virtual
Presence technologies of representation
A. What are the virtual presence technologies of
representation?
1) The
handheld videocamera: These include devices for capturing visual images of
and sound from subjects at short to medium distances away, the captured images
are then stored on videotape.
2) The
remote satellite uplink: These include the extension of satellite
communications technology where the equipment for transmitting audio and video
to a communication satellite became far less bulky and within the price range
of major news organizations. This also implies widespread coverage of the earth
by communications satellites and the electronic infrastructure back at the
television network headquarters to make immediate use of all this audio and
video being beamed back.
B. Characteristics and limitations of virtual presence
experience
If a weakness of
simulation technology is that it's representations do not resemble ordinary
human existence, then perhaps the opposite charge be made of virtual presence
technology. Virtual Presence technologies attempt to provide as familiar and
human-scale representation of what's going on as possible. The technologies
were designed to capture human beings doing ordinary human things and human
environments as they would look to a human being standing there. Sometimes
being bound to the human scale and being forced to use a repertoire of familiar
situations in creating representations can be distorting as well as will be
discussed below.
The one
of the main biases of virtual presence representations can be described this
way. What's happening live, at the other end of the communication vector
connecting the viewer to the event, is implied to be important. What's
happening away from the cameras at that moment or the events that led up to
what is happening in front of the cameras is implied to be not important (or at
least not "news"). Either effect can work to distort understanding of
what's going on by pointing attention away from where it should be. There is
the problem that people assume the camera doesn't lie when in fact is can
distract one's attention from more important truths which are about processes
and long-term trends not captured with a camera pointed at a particular place
or person. [8]
If the problem
with simulation technology is that it gives a false sense of omniscience, the
problem with virtual presence technology is that it gives the impression that
the essential truth of a situation can be derived from a series of
micro-stories about moments in the lives of individuals. As with simulation
technologies, this too can lead to blind spots in one's understanding of
events.
IV. The
Psychology of empathy's relation to the limitations of the technologies of
representation
Empathy has to
do with developing an emotional identification with other people. Related to
sympathy, or similarity of emotion, empathy can lead to sympathy but that this
similarity of emotion occurs because one can imagine oneself in the other
person's position.
A. The conditions which arouse empathetic responses
[9]
The word "model" below refers to a person with
which the observer might have an empathetic reaction towards.
There are two different but often co-present things in an
image which can lead to an empathetic response:
1) the causes of a model's expression of affect
(ex. being inside a burning building)
2) the model's expression of affect itself
Knowing the
cause of the model's expression of affect can be more powerful than the mere
expression of affect itself.
If one strongly
disapproves of the model as a person then one is likely to developed
anti-empathetic reactions (sad model = happy observer).
One must feel
relatively confident the affect being expressed is associated with a particular
emotion before one can strongly empathize with that emotion. (Is the model
crying from happiness instead of sadness?)
Similarly, when
there is no information on the model's affective response, it can be
anticipated (rightly or wrongly) based on knowing the events which occur
involving the model.
The verisimilitude
or realism of the portrayal of the model's affective response and the situation
surrounding the model are crucial in developing a response. High verisimilitude
leads to stronger empathetic responses.
B. How do these conditions relate to the limitations
of simulation and virtual presence representations?
1)
Simulation: Almost no representation simulation technologies can create
would show the emotions and the immediate circumstances that caused those
emotions of people on the other end of the viewing device in a way that mimics
what and observer on the scene would see. Civilians who view representations of
war created with these technologies are thus blinded to two crucial sources of
developing an empathetic response to what they see.
Also, remember
that one develops stronger reactions (either similar to or opposite from that
of the person being observed) if one knows whether one approves or disapproves
of that person's motives, goals, and prior actions. And since one cannot deduce
such things from present-obsessed representations the magnitude of one's
empathetic or anti-empathetic reaction is going to be reduced. Indeed, this is
a problem with both Simulation and Virtual Presence type technologies.
2) Virtual
Presence: In the contrasting case of Virtual Presence the model's
expressions of affect and their immediate situation are usually apparent and
presented with great realism. So even if the viewer is sometimes deceived as to
what is actually happening because of the selective choice of vignettes and
even if one is unsure of the motives and past actions of the people represented
we can still expect the viewer to have substantially more empathetic responses
to this category of representations.
V. The
problem of systematically distorted communication in public discourse
So what does it
matter if the viewing public's understanding of a war is biased towards greater
or lesser empathy with the combatants and innocent bystanders? Assuming one is
skeptical of the premises of both the left and right about what the
substantially best policy outcomes are, why should we care what sort of
opinions the public forms about when and how military force should be used?
Habermas
described what he called the ideal speech situation in his Theory of
Communicative Action.[10] This theoretical construct provides formal rather
than substantive guides by which to judge the goodness of public discourse.
Habermas argues that public deliberations produce the outcomes which are best
for society at large when all viewpoints are able to be considered fairly in
public deliberation. Moreover, he believes that public discourse breaks down
(becomes distorted, stops working for the benefit of all) when one of the
parties to the discourse conducts a strategic speech under the guise of
engaging in communicative speech. Strategic speech is defined as speech which
helps achieve some goal.
For our
purposes these goals could be changing the opinion of the public to favor the
leader's chosen policy or maintaining the public's undivided attention to their
television in order to boost ratings. Opposed to this is communicative speech,
where the goal is to help expand the membership of, and increase the scope of
the freely arrived at consensus within, a dialogue on the true nature of some
situation as well as what the group's priorities are and how they wish to
achieve them. This communicative speech is done by refusing to engage in
rhetoric that pushes the dialogue towards pre-selected conclusions or
substitutes other procedural goals not having to do with pursuing truth. For
Habermas, the teleology of public discourse ought to be that thing he calls
truth which only emerges from the process of (1) all parties getting to
contribute to the discourse (2) without it being manipulated to reach any
specific end which itself is not able to be challenged and modified inside the
discourse.
There is no
room in Habermas' ideal speech situation for argumentation which makes others
unable to challenge the rightness of one's ends by silencing those who
disagree. This silencing can be done through appeals to tradition or emotions
so strong as to cut off debate or through concealing one's ends and arguments
under the guise of something else so that others can not perceive that an argument
is being made and thus challenge it.[11] These ways of silencing opposition are
relevant to my argument since some technologies of representation can
facilitate these kinds of intellectual coercion and deception.
It is not only
human beings acting on hidden agendas which are responsible for driving public
discourse away from ideal speech situations. One need not prove intention to
manipulate others in order to show distortion, only that there is a silencing
or disdavantaging of some viewpoint. Habermas refers to this as Systematically
Distorted Communication. This occurs where those who are engaging in strategic
(manipulative) speech under guise of communicative (truth seeking) speech, are
not aware that they are doing so. It is the system in which the discourse is
occurring which is responsible for the distortions.[12]
A. "Everyone want big screen TV, no one see big
picture"
One can then
ask, how might it be that the Simulation and Virtual Presence technologies of
representation can contribute to this sort of Systematically Distorted
Communication Habermas writes about? It was noted above that both Simulation
and Virtual Presence technologies seem to be bound up with examining the
present to the exclusion of the past and future. This by itself would tend to
silence those who wish to argue publicly for policies based on historical
reasons or future effects since there is relatively little information being
provided to the public about these aspects of a question.
Indeed, some
other critical theorists such as Ellul and postmodernists such as Baudrillard
have noted connections between the technologically based speed of contemporary
existence and the limitations of a media which in order to keep from
overwhelming it's audience with information focuses narrowly on the present
using the only the most easily (if not accurately) comprehended, unreflective,
and cliché laden ways of representing events.[13] This can have effects from
making non-mainstream political figures such as Chomsky unpopular with public
affairs talk shows such as Nightline. Or it could have led TV reporters
covering the Kwangju Revolt in South Korea in 1980 to use the stock image of
yet another student demonstration to represent a far greater level of public
unrest. [14]
But what sorts
of distortion above and beyond these can we expect which are particular to each
type of technology of representation?
1)
Simulation representations and SDC: One can expect that the public's
empathy with participants in a military conflict will be diminished by the
proportionately heavy use of simulation technologies in creating
representations of events. It follows then, that those who wish to make appeals
against using military force or for terminating its use because of the
suffering caused to the combatants and noncombatants will be disadvantaged
since the visual evidence of that suffering is absent in the information people
are receiving about the issue.
2) Virtual
Presence and SDC: One can also expect that the public's empathy with
participants in a military conflict will be intensified by the proportionately
heavy use of virtual presence technologies in creating representations of
events. So in that case one can expect that justifications for the suffering
associated with the use of force based on the that force's being necessary for
prevention of greater suffering in the future (from an expanded civil war in
the Balkans, more intense famines in Somalia, nuclear proliferation leading to
more nuclear war in the middle east, economic depression in the united states,
etc.) will be disadvantaged since the visual evidence for such counterfactual
claims is absent in the information people are receiving about the issue. Of
course they would be largely absent in simulation representations as well, but
the difference is that now the claims of those advocating an avoidance of or
end to the use of force based upon suffering now have a wealth of information
which they can draw upon in making their arguments.
B. Summary
Several scholars of technology's relationship to society
have argued that the nature of one's means can shape one's ends. I make a more
specific version of this argument. Technologies developed for representing
events in the world are shaping perceptions about those events. Specifically,
two categories of such technology, when used to represent violent international
conflict, have predictable effects on the attitudes audiences form about the
events depicted. These effects are predictable because of three things.
· First, there are differing inherent limitations to the
representations created with each category of technology.
· Second, psychologists have discovered rules for the
activation or suppression of empathetic responses in audiences.
· Third, the inherent limitations of one category of
representation technology structurally exclude several of these things which
must be part of a representation in order to arouse an empathetic response.
So, if audiences view mostly representations created by
this particular category of technology (which I call Simulation), one should
expect a small role for empathy will in the formation of audiences' attitudes.
Conversely, if the audience views mostly representations created by the other category
of representation technology (called Virtual Presence) whose representations
include many of the elements necessary for empathy, then one can expect a large
role for empathy in the formation of audiences' attitudes.
Assume
further one knows which policies on the use of force less empathetic audiences
can be expected to prefer in a particular situation. One could then infer that
the greater the proportion of all representations that use Simulation
technology in reporting about a conflict, the less resistant the public would
be towards policy options which an empathetic response would make them averse
to. Again, the opposite is true of Virtual Presence technologies. The more they
are used in coverage of a particular conflict, the more the public can be
expected to favor policy options which are suggested by an empathetic response
to those shown on the screen.
If one finds the above relationship between technologies used in reporting and the public's formation of a favored policy option plausible then there is reason for concern. There have been persuasive theoretical arguments by Habermas that public deliberations produce the outcomes that are best for society at large when all viewpoints and perspectives have an equal chance of being considered in public deliberation. In the case here two relevant viewpoints are the viewpoints founded on an empathy for those represented in the news and viewpoints founded on other concerns. The theory goes: no side in a debate should be silenced or have the presentation of their arguments encumbered any more than any other side's. But, when the techniques used to collect and present the information used to inform public debate structurally disadvantages one side relative to another this is not the case. This does not bode well for the constructive and democratic participation of the public in decisions to use (or cease using) force abroad. News producers and policy makers both ought be more sensitive to the negative impact these technologies of representation can have on democratic participation and use them more responsibly recognizing the need for balance between them and for a supplement to them which will overcome both technologies' obsession with the present.
VI. Acknowledgements
I want to thank Thanks to Richard Brown, Ken Conca, Susan
J. Buck, McKenzie Wark, Dennis Pirages, Michael J. Shapiro, Patrick Regan, and
Virginia Haufler for their comments on earlier versions of this paper. I also
want to thank Bruce Sterling and James Der Derian for their inspirational
writing on the relation of simulation technology to politics.
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Manufacturing
Consent, documentary film,
released 1994.