StoryShowing | Kony 1 – Introduction
Abstract
Images had long conveyed politics through forms as varied as private paintings and public coins. If images are storytelling vectors (Fusari, 2017), visual artefacts were intended to re/shape human perception of current events and, consequently, their states of ‘being in the world’ (Heidegger, 2001); this is the reason why the visual quality of communication might be hard to disjoin from that of ‘performativity’ (Cartier-Bresson, 2018).
The polysemic (Barthes, 1977), if not fully open (Eco, 1989), quality of visual semiotics complicates identification of any framework of reference and adds to the need for practical and sensible research in digital communication (Fusari, in press).
Since the first US Presidential debate televised in 1968, a new interest surged towards the understanding and production of visual communication of politics. Increasingly so, images (both still and moving ones) have affected, if not thoroughly shaped, understanding of all recent political affairs, particularly so from the 1992’s Gulf War onward (Baudrillard, 1995; Kellner, 1992).
The 2012 Invisible Children (IC)’s campaign is here assessed as the milestone marking the potential for global impact acquired by socio-political visual-centred storytelling.
The intertwining of the digital with the visual has yet to be precisely arranged for socio-political storytelling; also, storytelling as a format and approach has increasingly gained relevance, adding new concerns to issues of veracity.
In response, this chapter advances the notion of ‘storyline’ in conjunction with that of ‘storytelling’: the resulting taxonomy aims to review specific notions of truth- and trust-fulness from a visual-centred perspective.
The chapter thus explores the requirements for communicating and understanding visual storytelling on digital media; by doing so, it addresses the extent to which ‘visual storytelling’ might be a notion fit for the job of disseminating today’s digital cultures.
Eventually, the chapter will question how to design visually centred communication formats and, in turn, engage these as storytelling of socio- political issues for digital platforms.
Keywords: Visual performance; visual storytelling; digital strategy; visual politics; storytelling; phenomenology
Introduction
Digital media engage material and symbolic projection of one’s identity/ies across personal spaces and social communities (among many: Tsatsou, 2009; van der Graaf, 2014; World Economic Forum Report, 2016). Ideas of state and society, of power and politics, have been quickly and consequently evolving. This seems to be particularly impacting processes of representation and self-representation across intertwined and overlapping practices on visual media (Fusari, in press).
In today’s continuously evolving scenario, the booming number of participants that digital and social media allow in, and empower to fully contribute to the communication game, further complicates understanding and engagement of political relations across societies and cultures, internally, regionally and globally.
Easiness of digital media production echoes immediacy of digital distribution; richness of available platforms reflects personal, social and cultural re/making of content/s (Engadget, 2020). In turn, the 24/7 all-permeating quality of digital communication and the fully personal usage each and every one (of us) has of it renders any identification for a consistent pattern truly futile, if not pointless.
As much as education focuses on verbal skill sets delivery, visual literacy development is left mostly, if not uniquely, to art schools (Greenaway, 2008). Furthermore, the same notion of the visual is both extremely difficult to pin down, and harshly disputed (for a basic orienteering see among many: Elkins, 2011; Mangani, Piper & Simon, 2006; Ritchin, 2009).
Visual semiotics, i.e. how that which is seen is interpreted by others, is a research field still coming out of the doldrums. The Saussurean and Peircean traditions are frameworks for verbal analysis that semioticians strive to specifically translate into bespoke visual-led grammars (see for instance: Kress & Van Leeuwen, 1996).
As such, today’s challenge might be reframed around the search to adapt for the visual, rather than merely adopt a grammar of semiotics; in turn, what could be the specific contribution of those with expertise in both the political practice and in visual literacy? Equally crucial, does the ‘visual’ quality of communication refer to a form, a channel or a dissemination strategy? For instance, is reading a verbal text ‘visual’ as it goes through the eyes? Does a ‘verbal’ description visualized in the mind of a reader remain ‘verbal’ or evolve as a ‘visual’ ekphrasis? In turn, focusing on different semiotic qualities, is the narration of a painting ‘verbal,’ ‘visual’ or ‘sonic’, or all of them together?
As Eco has long argued for,
To say that light is a medium is a refusal to realize that there are at least three definitions of ‘light’. Light can be a signal of information [as the result of electricity]. Light can be a message [I’m at home]; and light can be a channel [to read a book]. In each of these cases the impact of a phenomenon on the social body varies according to the role it plays in the communication chain.
(Eco, 1995, p. 139, emphasis added)
Unquestionably, at the core of today’s digital cultures, and growing, is the centrality the visual quality of communication has acquired. The number of, both private and public, digital images defies sensible assessment, as day-by-day individuals and groups storytell their existence. Whatever the estimate, it can be safely stated that there are more images produced in a single year than were ever throughout the whole history of photography (BuzzFeed, 2012).
As the first rule of communication (i.e. who speaks on behalf of whom, representing what?) might be increasingly more complex to clearly frame on digital media, current shifting cultures could finally provide scholars and practitioners with the opportunity to rethink the visual as both a ‘practice’ and a communicative ‘performance’.
What if, for instance, a State Department (SD) spokesperson tweeted as themselves and then repeated exactly the same note as the spokesperson on the SD’s official Facebook page? Or the other way around? What is the impact of which precedes what in a dissemination sequence, and consequently, on its analysis? Furthermore, how to assess an image being referred from another source in support of one’s arguing? Or incorporated in a TV interview or, again, being shown live at a White House’s briefing? In other words, how to draw a line between different Personas (Jung, 1990, p. 123) communicating the same, as well as distinct, multimedia message/s on parallel and multiple digital platforms? Furthermore, how do ‘audiences’ decipher overlapping dynamics engaging the message, the platform and communicative threads of digital actors? Finally, who does still have the time to attentively, consciously, if not, intentionally, manage and appreciate all this in today’s speeding-up cultures and politics?
If current digital cultures, whatever form they may take, are appreciated as visual/visual-centred/visual-led (Qualman, 2018), should effective visual competency be prioritized over verbal ones? Equally, how/should those who have power in their gift be aware of the strategic use of visual-led communication and storytelling practices for political action?
As far back as the early 1990s, Muzi Falconi (2004), with many others, signalled the extent to which communication had already become an autonomous player in the production and consumption of socio-political and cultural values. Thus, as communication becomes so much more than just a tool for the trans- mission of knowledge, it should be appreciated as knowledge in itself, and, hence, as truly ‘agentic’ (Bandura, 1999; Coole, 2005).
In turn, as political actors critically engage with the rapid evolution of multimedia formats across digital platforms, it would seem unavoidable for them to incorporate sensible notions of visual storytelling into their political thinking and daily practice. This chapter will therefore review the mission, strategies and implementation of political actors’ agenda by reference to two major goals:
- To incorporate the visual and emotional qualities of communication for digital practice/s as effective ‘storytelling’;
- To master techniques and visual methodologies for the strategic planning and dissemination of storytelling as socio-political ‘storylines’.
This chapter originates from the acknowledged centrality of visual communication, with its own bespoke features, to advance an operational definition of digital politics by means of visual storytelling. To do so, this essay relies on the 2012 IC’s groundbreaking campaign to indict Commander Kony. By reference to the media quality of the campaign, the chapter aims to investigate the relation between visual storytelling for socio-political communication to recommend its integrated application as strategic storylines.
By exploring how to strategize media channels and communication operations across online and offline worlds in a target-oriented and responsive manner, the chapter advances a revised framework for the analysis and practice of visual politics on digital media. Final recommendations and identified best practices are suggested as merely temporary takeaways because of the volatile nature of current media developments.
Storytelling as an Agent of Order
As briefly introduced above, digital communication ‘is’ and ‘works’ across multiple and overlapping semiotic fields. These features seem to be particularly difficult to strategically manage because of [1] the multi-media and multi-platform quality of the digital; [2] the increased, and continuously increasing, role of the visual and [3] its very personalized usages. As a result, storytelling might be a notion to be revamped to structure some order in today’s chaos.
Storytelling is today’s buzzword. It is all-pervasive and more and more referred to as the new Holy Grail resolving each and every communication issue. Indeed, ‘man is a storytelling animal by nature’ (Eco, 1984, p. 509), and storytelling could be rightly appreciated as a pivot, if not the pivot, for all forms and formats of communication, from the visual to the verbal.
Because of its communicative quality, it could be argued that storytelling, by extension, should be approached as a solution equally applicable for cultural and political issues. Though, if everything is a ‘story’, including, possibly, the same storytelling format, then, as a practitioner, I’m puzzled by what this might signify and, operationally, lead to.
In view of its massive usage, storytelling has been equally referring to the practice of telling a story and that of understanding one, as much as, frequently, both of them at the same time. Beyond the practices above mentioned, as it were not enough already, storytelling could also be referred to as a process. Even journalism, as acutely noted by Ronson,
…walks a line. Journalism is storytelling. We wait around for the best bits – the most engaging, extreme, colourful moments – and we stick them together, ignoring the boring stuff, turning life into a narrative.
(Ronson, 2012, p. 71)
Though, as he concludes, ‘there’s shaping a story and there is making things up’. To bring some clarity, this chapter argues for an epistemological differentiation between the concept of ‘storytelling’ and that of ‘storyline’. Any differentiation between the two notions must not be approached as an academic exercise, but, instead, intended as a much-needed taxonomy for today’s dissemination of overlapping digital cultures.
For the present context, storytelling is differentiated from storyline as follows: the former is the final result of multiple media forms, such as, for instance, the visual, the sonic and the verbal, as combined to purposely communicate. The latter, ‘storyline’, is the produced storytelling as strategically disseminated by means of target-oriented operations; these operations are media-driven and platform-informed to specifically tailor the storytelling content for distinct, yet fully integrated, digital storylines.
Both notions incorporate the idea of combining form with content with their most revealing difference being their consequentiality: one storytelling is translated into bespoke storylines when it is strategically disseminated by means of dedicated operations including, but not limited to, the apt usage of digital channels and online/offline platforms.
If the above framework is accepted, it consequently follows that all socio-political actors that are part of today’s far-reaching communication system, from small community centres to international NGOs, from local stakeholders to United Nations agencies, face the challenge of continuously re/tuning production strategies to translate (visual) storytelling into strategized storylines. The case study of the IC’s campaign will be used to explore in detail this set of considerations.
