[-empyre-] Transitions: "New Media and the Middle East"

[Isak Berbic]

Since the start of the events that have been unfolding in Tunisia, Egypt, in particular Tahrir Square I began a process of attentively watching and recording live broadcast by Al Jazeera, Al Arabiya and in contrast to Egyptian State television, other Gulf televisions, FOX, CNN, Bloomberg. 

What I find interesting is to follow the 'sound bites' that are selected and make their way from continuous LIVE broadcast (with delay) into a news summary feature, are sold to CNN etc; appear and re-appear on diverse channels. The almost absurd and tragic moment when a group of ‘pro-Mubarak’ supporters charged into the demonstrating crowd on horses and one camel. While this was a strange and short moment, it was clearly an attractive section of footage that circulated quickly. I can only make assumptions on whose fantasies played a role in the wide purchase and use of that particular clip.

With the Egyptian government suppression of communication systems; satellite broadcast, internet and telephones, journalists and  other people on the ground; the dominant camera angles have been from stationary cameras elevated on a balcony somewhere overlooking the football player sized actors on the ground. Since internet has been restored on 4th of February there has been a flood of “new” images from ground level bringing us closer to the events we saw earlier from the sky.




As a continuous process and as a visual reference for the purpose of my contribution to [-empyre-] this month I have started: 

http://isakb.blogspot.com

I invite you to take a moment to visit.


Thank you for reading.

Isak Berbic
February 5th, 2011
Sharjah, United Arab Emirates


      
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