Seeing and Believing: Religion, Digital Visual Culture, and Social Justice
Social media platforms are often denounced as “bubbles” or “echo chambers.” In this view, what we see tends to reinforce what we already believe, and what we already believe shapes what we see. Yet social movements such as Black Lives Matter rely heavily on the widespread dissemination of digital ph...
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| Format: | Electronic Book |
| Language: | English |
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| Fernleihe: | Fernleihe für die Fachinformationsdienste |
| Published: |
New York, NY
Columbia University Press
2023
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| In: | Year: 2023 |
| Further subjects: | B
Photojournalism
Political aspects
B Visual sociology B Digital Media Social aspects B Journalism and social justice B Photography Psychological aspects B RELIGION / Religion, Politics & State |
| Online Access: |
Cover (Verlag) Volltext (lizenzpflichtig) Volltext (lizenzpflichtig) |
| Summary: | Social media platforms are often denounced as “bubbles” or “echo chambers.” In this view, what we see tends to reinforce what we already believe, and what we already believe shapes what we see. Yet social movements such as Black Lives Matter rely heavily on the widespread dissemination of digital photographs and videos through social media. In at least some cases, visual images can challenge normative and normalized ways of grasping the world and prompt their viewers to see differently—and even bring people together.Seeing and Believing marshals religious resources to recast the significance of digital images in the struggle for social justice. Ellen T. Armour examines what distinguishes digital photography from its analogue predecessor and places the circulation of digital images in the broader context of virtual visual cultures. She explores the challenges and opportunities that visually saturated social media landscapes present for users and organizers. Despite the power of digital platforms and algorithms, possibilities for disruption and resistance emerge from how people engage with these systems. Armour offers ways of seeing drawn from Christianity and found in other religious traditions to help us break with entrenched habits and rethink how we engage with the images that grab our attention. Developing theological perspectives on the power and peril of photography and technology, Seeing and Believing provides suggestions for navigating the new media landscape that can spark what Armour calls “photographic insurrection.” "If anyone still questions the power of visual images to propel political action, the constant stream of videos circulating on social media-police killings of Black men and women, prisoners at the Guantanamo Bay prison camp, celebrating participants in the January 2021 Capitol uprising-have captured the attention of a nation. But exactly what those videos purport to show is often a matter of dispute. Interpretation is in the eyes and mind of the beholder. Deep disagreement to the point of physical violence both reflects the contested events these videos depict and threatens to further entrench political and social divisions. Visual images amplify, accelerate, and even generate vastly different storylines; they show us who and what we are. Whether we can or should believe what we see in visual media is a quandary as old as media itself. Because what we think we see "moves" us-emotionally and ethically-the stakes have always been high. Those stakes are, if anything, even higher now given the impact of our visually saturated media landscape, created by the confluence of digital technologies, smart phones equipped with digital cameras, and social-media platforms. Seeing and Believing focuses on the challenges and opportunities that this complex media landscape presents to us. It examines how these technologies are deliberately designed to influence what we see and how we interpret it. Seemingly godlike-all-seeing-in its reach and persuasive power, we underestimate our own power to resist. Untangling the often unconscious and unacknowledged normative cultural biases that have shaped the media ecosystem (marked by what philosopher George Yancy calls "the white gaze") and learning to see, think, feel, believe, and act differently can be greatly assisted by viewing our worship of technology as a theology and dismantling it with the tools of theology itself"-- |
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| ISBN: | 0231557760 |
| Access: | Restricted Access |
| Persistent identifiers: | DOI: 10.7312/armo20904 |