On The Listening Post this week: How the video of a Black man’s murder set the United States ablaze. Plus, drone investigations from on high.
Caught on camera: Police brutality and racism in Trump’s America
Racially charged social unrest has been sweeping America on a scale not seen in decades. Showdowns are taking place in city after city between demonstrators and police, as authoritarian noises and tactics come from the Trump White House. From the phone camera that captured the police killing of George Floyd, to Twitter flagging how dangerous the president’s tweets can be, to all those videos showing police attacking journalists and then finally to the lengths that the White House will go to to get a photo opportunity – there is no shortage of media angles to this story.
Contributors:
Siva Vaidhyanathan – Author, Antisocial Media: How Facebook Disconnects Us and Undermines Democracy
Meredith Clark – Assistant Professor in Media Studies, University of Virginia
Tiffany Cross – Author, Say It Louder! Black Voters, White Narratives and Saving Our Democracy
Mary Frances Berry – Professor of American Social Thought, University of Pennsylvania
On our radar:
Richard Gizbert speaks to producer Meenakshi Ravi about how the demonstrations in the US have delivered the perfect opportunity for some international media – for example, state-run outlets in Iran and China – to take pot shots at America.
Eyes in the sky: Gathering evidence with drones
Sometimes capturing an image or a single video can have a transformative effect. Anyone contending with state violence, whether they are in Minneapolis, Hong Kong or the Middle East, knows that sometimes all they need to make their case – to expose illegality – is the right picture. But there are some places that satellites and phones cannot go. That is where drones come in. Television journalists love drone images for the perspective and scope they provide. Advertisers use them for their cinematic quality and effect on consumers. But drones are also being used to provide irrefutable, photographic evidence of human rights abuses and illegality. The Listening Post’s Tariq Nafi looks at drones and how they are being used in investigations across the world.
Feature contributors:
Josh Lyons – Director of Geospatial Analysis, Human Rights Watch
Juan Bergelund – CEO, UAV del Peru and Country Manager, Peru Flying Labs
Kelly Matheson – Human rights attorney and Director, Video as Evidence programme, Witness
