The summer of 2014–when the Islamic State seized Mosul, Iraq’s second city; captured vast swathes of eastern Syria; and declared itself a latter-day Caliphate–marked a turning point in the history of photography, one that pushed its already contested relationship with reality to its very limits. Uniquely obsessed with narrative, image management and branding, the Islamic State used cameras as weapons in its formative years as a Caliphate. The tens of thousands of propaganda photographs captured during this time were used to denote policy, to navigate through defeat and, perhaps most importantly, to construct an impossible reality: a totalising image-world of Salafi-Jihadist symbols and myths. Based on a deep examination of the 20,000 photographs Charlie Winter collected from the Islamic State’s covert networks online in 2017, this book explores the process by which the Caliphate shook the foundations of modern war photography. Focusing on the period in which it was at its strongest, Winter identifies the implicit value systems that underpinned the Caliphate’s ideological appeal, and evaluates its uniquely malign contribution to the history of the photographic image. The Terrorist Image travels to the heart of what made the Islamic State tick during its prime, providing unique insights into its global appeal and mobilisation successes.

This book explores 'civic engagement' as a politically active encounter between institutions, individuals and art practices that addresses the public sphere on a civic level across physical and virtual spaces. Taking a multidisciplinary approach, it tracks across the overlapping discourses of politics, cultural geography and performance, investigating how and why physical and digital spaces can be analysed and utilised to develop new art forms that challenge traditional notions of how performance is political and how politics are performative. Across three sections - Politicising Communities, Applying Digital Agency and Performing Landscapes and Identities - the ten chapters and three interviews cover a wide variety of international perspectives, all informed by innovative ways of addressing the current crisis of social fragmentation through performance. Providing access to many debates on the theory and practice of new media, this book is of significance to readers from a broad set of academic disciplines, including politics, sociology, geography, and performance studies.

A truly international, authoritative A–Z guide to five centuries of propaganda, in both wartime and peacetime, which covers key moments, techniques, concepts, and some of the most influential propagandists in history. This fascinating survey provides a comprehensive introduction to propaganda, its changing nature, its practitioners, and its impact on the past five centuries of world history. Written by leading experts, it covers the masters of the art from Joseph Goebbels to Mohandas Gandhi and examines enormously influential works of persuasion such as Uncle Tom's Cabin, techniques such as films and posters, and key concepts like black propaganda and brainwashing. Case studies reveal the role of mass persuasion during the Reformation, and wars throughout history. Regional studies cover propaganda superpowers, such as Russia, China, and the United States, as well as little-known propaganda campaigns in Southeast Asia, Ireland, and Scandinavia. The book traces the evolution of propaganda from the era of printed handbills to computer fakery, and profiles such brilliant practitioners of the art as Third Reich film director Leni Riefenstahl and 19th-century cartoonist Thomas Nast, whose works helped to bring the notorious Boss Tweed to justice.

Seminar paper from the year 2016 in the subject Communications - Movies and Television, grade: 1.0, University of Mannheim (MKW), language: English, abstract: The documentary genre has recently gone through challenging times as the 21st century and its culture are characterised as both postmodern and “post-documentary”. This means that an attitude towards knowledge has evolved that rejects modernity’s belief in universal truth and its privileging of techno-scientific modes of discovery – such as documentary film. As a result viewers treat grand narratives about political ideology in media with suspicion. Consequently, questions arise around how political documentaries are able to voice social critique and bring about change in this new context without getting accused of outright manipulation? In order to answer these questions, this work analyses Joshua Oppenheimer’s The Act of Killing (2012) and The Look of Silence (2014) about the 1965 killings in Indonesia. Oppenheimer employs an innovative approach as never before have mass murderers been recorded in the making of a film about their crimes (TAoK), nor has there ever been a film where a victim confronts the perpetrators while the perpetrators are still in power (TLoS). This work looks at the potential for feelings of closeness with the perpetrators and victims resulting from the complementary film documents. The findings show that Oppenheimer avoids ideological claims by inviting viewers to immerse themselves in the lives of the protagonists. Viewers shall draw individual conclusions that are stimulated by a heightened perceptual experience of the filmic world.

Theories of performativity have garnered considerable attention within the social sciences and humanities over the past two decades. At the same time, there has also been a growing recognition that the social production of space is fundamental to assertions of political authority and the practices of everyday life. However, comparatively little scholarship has explored the full implications that arise from the confluence of these two streams of social and political thought. This is the first book-length, edited collection devoted explicitly to showcasing geographical scholarship on the spatial politics of performativity. It offers a timely intervention within the field of critical human geography by exploring the performativity of political spaces and the spatiality of performative politics. Through a series of geographical case studies, the contributors to this volume consider the ways in which a performative conception of the "political" might reshape our understanding of sovereignty, political subjectification, and the production of social space. Marking the 20th anniversary of the publication of Judith Butler’s classic, Bodies That Matter (1993), this edited volume brings together a range of contemporary geographical works that draw exciting new connections between performativity, space, and politics.

This insightful book explores the relationship between theater and digital culture. The authors show that the marriage of traditional performance with new technologies leads to an upheaval of the implicit “live” quality of theatre by introducing media interfaces and Internet protocols, all the while blurring the barriers between theater-makers and their audience.

How climate propaganda narratives shape our (mis)understanding of the world, and how to propagate a future of repair and regeneration instead. In Climate Propagandas, Jonas Staal reveals the propaganda narratives—and the divergent realities they evoke—that shape the climate crisis in the public imaginary. It is often said that the climate crisis is a planetary one, but the devastating impact of climate crisis is distributed unequally and its related ideological positions are as vast as they are irreconcilable. A liberal might argue the crisis is the result of individual consumer behavior, whereas a libertarian sees an opportunity for geoengineering markets. A conspiracist might not believe the climate is at risk, whereas an ecofascist sees a chance to double down on the argument about who has the superior racial right to survive extinction. With an artist’s eye and an activist’s sense of urgency, Staal explores how these stories are told and visualized through popular film and television, internet culture, climate fiction, art, architecture, and industrial design. If life-threatening propaganda narratives have conjured our present climate catastrophe, Staal suggests, then surely stories of regeneration can propagate new planetary futures for all. His book identifies narratives that don’t follow the path of mass extinction, but rather seek repair and regeneration of a world in crisis.