Private Images and Public Debate

(Published by myself in the Age , Opinion section today . The recent discovery of a number of videos of young Australian soldiers brandishing military weapons and skylarking on the popular video sharing system, Youtube, perhaps comes as no surprise given the shear volume of material now contained on services such as this. From the bedroom to the battlefield, increasing amounts of seemingly innocent everyday occurrences are now recorded and distributed by individuals not always aware of the context in which their productions may be received, reported upon and politicised. 

The individual amateur photographer, accustomed to recording the private world in which they live-and distributing it to, say, friends or family through the innocuous family album or home VCR-may not always appreciate a would-be global audience with its myriad of somewhat treacherous political contexts. Videos of soldiers playing with guns are not altogether unusual in themselves-any more perhaps than videos of mechanics playing with cars-but what is unusual, is when the images are placed on systems such as Youtube, they become significant in new ways and blur the line between public and private as they may be applied to public debates unimaginable by the original creators. This is what happened with the Australian soldiers inIraq , and it is not the first time that the Western forces in the region have had to go on the defensive because of private images leaked by soldiers to the public through an otherwise tight media regime. There are in fact, surprisingly few restrictions placed on Australian soldiers in Iraq in terms of private photography, except in sensitive military operations or in Abu Ghraib prison. But when this private photography becomes public-which is increasing easy to do through systems such as Youtube and Flickr-then the context and thus the meaning of the images may change. Thus what were once naïve private images possibly taken for siblings or friends of high jinks with fellow soldiers become public, then they become reconstituted as images of the military's 'disciplinary malaise' and 'cultural insensitivity'. What were once casual snaps possibly only intended for sympathetic fellow travellers, they now become public images of broader military chauvinism and incompetence. When personal images are recorded and placed online they become public property and a 'media archive' ripe for picking should an event such as the death of Private Jake Kovco due to a mishandling of a weapon in a Baghdad barracks occur. Images can be taken from this archive and used in fresh media contexts on television and newspapers to support a number of political agendas. Increasingly, everyday people can record the world around them but what they see and record may be, for better or worse, of interests to the major broadcasters and print media. Take for example the story of 'Tammy' a 17 year Singapore girl who filmed herself having sex with her 21 year old boyfriend on her camera phone. As the story goes, the camera phone was stolen by a jealous rival and the video ended up on the Internet. The video became extremely popular and circulated around the world and the story became headline news in many of Asia's leading newspapers. This case may be extraordinary, but nevertheless young people are increasingly recording themselves in compromising positions and distributing it among their friends and other contexts in which they may not have complete control. Youtube, and a number of other online video distribution services, now allow video uploads directly from your mobile phone. Mob logs or systems that allow mobile phone users to upload images and videos are increasing popular, so much so that Textamerica, one of the largest moblogs already has half a million users. A brief search of Textamerica doesn't reveal too many risky or controversial images, partly because it has systems in place to prevent this occurring, but other systems are not so strict in policing their content.

Youtube has numerous easily found videos of people smoking joints and late night drunken parties. These videos could result in all sorts of embarrassment and recriminations should the authors be revealed in less tolerant contexts. There are videos of illegal car racing and other illicit activities that could be reconstituted in all sorts of campaigns and circumstances never imagined by the original producers. The more of the stuff there is, then the more that other media have to choose from to drive their message home to support a particular agenda. An increasing amount of all sorts of citizen made media is ending up in the main stream press, but as the Australian soldiers' case reveals, this is not always envisaged by the people who made it. Caution must always be exercised when uploading video to an online distribution services or distributing it among friend as the community that you envisage will be viewing it may be a lot less discrete or sympathetic that you initially imagined.

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One response to “Private Images and Public Debate”

  1. ag Avatar

    Excellent article, Mr Bellamy. Have referenced it on ICT Rights.

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