On the mediatisation of warfare, viral content culture and the Abu Ghraib scandal
A photograph, stripped-back and in its most literal form, is simply a document that provides evidence of what has appeared before the camera. Since its inception, photography has been a vessel for the documentation of social injustice, wars, and tragedy; for camaraderie and unity, and above all, been a medium for which can speak more truth than the written word. The power of pictures spark change, shift social consciousness, probe debate and political discourse in a format consumers find easily digestible, illuminating issues by which may otherwise be ignored in a globalised, media-driven society. The often indisputable optical fact of images (Newton, J. 2013) as a visual truth-teller helps to further verify what is being told; though as mere representations of the real word, photographs fall victim to only being a subjective form of reality. It is up to us to determine whether or not we accept the truths we believe we are being told.
The mediatisation of warfare and violent conflict and the abstruse relationship between media and war is not a new or foreign concept. There is a seamless link between the depiction of war through media and war itself that can be derived from the first ever media: art, literature, theatre, print journalism and television, which have inherently shaped our interpretation of war and violence (Kaemph, 2013, p. 586). Mediatisation of war through iconic photography, despite limitations of photographs as subjective and “notoriously ambiguous”, has been vital in placing viewers in a specifically framed viewing position through the “language” pictures speak (Papadopoulos, 2008, p. 9). Mediatized war coverage, ultimately, is imperative to the restructuralization and debate of the dominant cultural narratives that we subscribe to; for example, the imperialist American narrative. Iconic photographs have proved substantial enough to reshape the narratives we have been told, and do more than simply show an event, but rather “say it all”, crystallizing the discourse created and creating a lasting impression on our global and collective memory (Hansen, 2015, pp. 265). Iconic photographs in our current media landscape, though eventually and inevitably becoming “removed from the public agenda”, through re-appropriation and circulation of scandalous discourse-provoking imagery become dormant in our collective visual memory even if they fade from our immediate thoughts (Papadopoulos, 2008, pp.11).
The scandal of Abu Ghraib, as the third-largest scandal of the decade, received 366 minutes of American media coverage and was absurdly comparative to a “fraternity hazing stunt” as claimed by Rush Limbaugh; a scandal that received undeniably widespread public attention for the torture, rape, murder, and sodomization of detainees in the Abu Ghraib prison in 2003 (Crosbie, 2014, pp.12). A reflection of a post-9/11 xenophobic sentiment, the Abu Ghraib iconic photographs represent a crafted and systematic humiliation of submissive Iraqi prisoners, in which Jasbir Puar, author ofAbu Ghraib: Arguing Against Exceptionalism, sinisterly described as a “neither exceptional nor singular event” (Jakob, 2017, pp.10). As synonymous with the war on terror, the intended trophy photographs at Abu Ghraib create an important question: were the photos so shocking because of the torture represented, or because of the eerily nonchalant attitude of the American prison guards taking the photos (Hoskins and O’Loughlin, 2013)? Were they shocking because they directly oppose the righteous American narrative? Where exactly does the iconic quality of the photographs originate? As images that are so obviously strikingly memorable, they ironically created a strong political discourse that undermines the narrative of America through their artifact-like quality, much like the tusks of elephants collected by hunters; the horror and violence stored statically forever to be re-circulated in wider culture through globalisation (Jakob, 2017, pp.100. ) The torture scenes at Abu Ghraib were intended to be photographed, a theatrical display of the power American soldiers had in an “intimate theatre of cruelty”, prisoners piled atop one another much like “circus acrobats” amongst the smiles of guards that recorded their every humiliation and every defeat (Eisenman, 2010,pp.101).
Forever etched into the collective consciousness of the Middle East, Abu Ghraib served as substantial proof of the “subjugation, disempowerment and suffering” of Iraqis and Middle Easterners at the hands of American soldiers (Mokhtari, 2009, pp. 151). Abu Ghraib was the document that provided vital evidence of the unnervingly nonchalant state of callous human rights abuse in the Middle East and international power asymmetries. Sergeant Jamal Davis, a perpetrator to the violence as one of the convicted American soldiers, characterized Abu Ghraib as an event that would not have been investigated if it were not for the photographs – “there would have been no Abu Ghraib” (Ghosts of Abu Ghraib, 2007). The impact of Abu Ghraib as a mediatized, and in turn, globalised scandal is rooted in the reason its photographs exist in the first place: “symptomatic of a wider disease”, they represent, according to the Doha Gulf Times, a narrative and subconscious belief that all Muslims are radical extremists and terrorists and that ignorance, racism, and brutality go hand in hand (Mokhtari, 2009, pp. 151). Its impact was twofold; in the West, Abu Ghraib served as an important contradiction to the narrative constructed of America by President Bush at the time as noble, and — disturbingly — fun (Sontag, 2004) , and in the Middle East, it served as a meaningful reminder to re-connect to the notion of human rights as opposed to remaining disillusioned, and ultimately disempowered (Mokhtari, 2009, pp. 153).
What inevitably follows from shock, is accommodation. What follows from accommodation is an unfortunate indifference. Our ability to stomach the grotesque, the revolting and scandalous comes as a result of journalism itself; fast-paced and focused on the most interesting points of scandal that can be blamed on the familiarity of atrocity and the normality of suffering (Taylor, 2000, pp. 136). Following the invasion of Afghanistan in 2003 were 600 recorded government-related documents of torture, yet the torture only became real in the eye of the public subsequent to the release of the Abu Ghraib photographs, invoking indisputable “archives of suffering” in a format easily digestible and interesting to the public: gruesome, sexual, humiliating and, above all, scandalous (Robillard, 2006, pp.11). Though they fit perfectly into the schema of the “grisly and taboo” and precisely followed the linear path to gaining public attention, the Abu Ghraib photographs eventually and inevitably succumbed to the price of compassion fatigue; its repulsive and outrageous overtones eventually becoming “ordinary, remote or inevitable” (Taylor, 2000, pp. 137). What followed from their outbreak was a characterisation of abuse as a result of isolated, deviant behaviour from guards improperly trained and disciplined, and did not resemble the US and its army, supported by reports signed by Antonio Taguba (Lautsen, 2008, pp.125). What does this communicate about the role the public plays in accepting the narratives we are told? How shocking, gruesome or tragic does an event need to be to create real and lasting change? How do these issues stay with us?
While a naked Iraqi prisoner is forced to masturbate, Private Lynndie England gives a thumbs up with one hand and a lock-and-load with the other, a cigarette dangling from her mouth among three other prisoners who stand hooded, hands covering their genitals; a disturbing snapshot of one of many photos taken at Abu Ghraib (Tucker and Triantafyllos, 2008). What proved even more disturbing was its subsequent memeification, bastardisation and re-appropriation into wider Western culture via the rapid processes of globalisation. Turned into a “humorous everyday practice” in 2005 was the phenomenon of “Doing a Lynndie”, wherein the subjects of the photograph replicate the iconic pose; by 2006, there were 827 publicised replications of the image on the British blog “Bad Gas”, coined as “the Internet’s latest 15-minute phenomenon” (Hristova, 2013, pp. 431). Through the ability of globalisation to rapidly spread iconic visual images across a wide audience and through an array of media forms, we were able to twist pain and suffering into a meme – the normalisation of torture and hate seem much further removed when it is served to us as humour.The normalcy of torture through the memeification of Lynndie England only mirrors the institutionalization of enhanced interrogation techniques into the regime of the American soldiers by their superiors, exacerbated by a sociopolitical underpinning of xenophobia and demonization of Arabs and Muslims which ultimately allowed soldiers to detach themselves from their humanity and follow protocol (Alkadry and Witt, 2009).
In a world flooded with inconsequential images, the role of the iconic photograph becomes clear; to forever capture stories that desperately require public attention, to create conversations, generate discourse, and ultimately push for change. It was the iconic photography inside Baghdad’s most notorious prison that forced the West to look introspectively on its subscription to a dominant American narrative of nobility and honour, and finally, contemplate the horrific and wanton abuse inside the microcosm that was Abu Ghraib.
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