2008 Woodie Awards
Der Derian speaks at PSUC about infoterror and media
Joanna Knight
Issue date: 10/5/07 Section: News
Originally published: 10/4/07 at 5:12 PM EST
Last update: 10/4/07 at 5:11 PM EST
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James Der Derian is an author and professor at Brown University, where he directs the Global Media and the Information Technology, War, and Peace Projects for the university's Watson Institute Global Security Program.
An author and a producer of documentaries, Der Derian has provided commentary for, among others, MSNBC and the BBC.
He appeared on campus last Friday to address issues of infoterror and global media.
Speaking in Hawkins Hall's Krinovitz Auditorium, Der Derian began his presentation with a video clip of Donald Rumsfeld speaking three years ago before the Council of Foreign Relations.
Rumsfeld had derided the slow pace of the government to adapt to realities of war in a media age, saying that "for the most part, the U.S. government still functions as a five and dime store in an eBay world.
Today we're engaged in the first war in history-unconventional and irregular as it may be-in an era of e-mails, blogs, cell phones, Blackberrys, Instant Messaging, digital cameras, a global Internet with no inhibitions, cell phones, hand-held video cameras, talk radio, 24-hour news broadcasts, satellite television. There's never been a war fought in this environment before."
Der Derian called the media's impact on international relations "profound," and declared the management of the media "as significant a challenge as the management of nuclear technology in the last century."
The transmission of images in real time, he said, has made it possible for people to circumvent the authority of the Pentagon in an unprecedented way.
This "democratization of media" has created a new need for "critical filters to separate the meaningful from the meaningless, the manipulative from the informative."
Media now is "not just a transmitter of events but a trigger of them, as well. It records, relays, represents and informs our response - or lack thereof - to certain events."
Der Derian said through e-mail that he thinks "the Iraq war has left a lot of people feeling burned, by the government and by the media that failed to fulfill its investigative/watchdog responsibilities, which partially explains the resurgence of interests in alternative media like blogs."
As media has the power to "change the way we deal with the 'other,'" he said, it also has the power to help us understand and mediate differences.
"Irreconcilable conditions of hostility," Der Derian wrote in an essay for the World Economic Forum, result from people going "to war not only out of rational calculation, but also because of how they see, perceive, picture, imagine, and speak of each other."
Der Derian noted that the "Soviet-style disinformation" that might have characterized media misrepresentations in the past has given way to a "creative ad-hocism," in which false representation can come from the bottom as well as the top.
Der Derian's appearance was sponsored by the Office of Global Education, the American Democracy Project and the President's Office.
An author and a producer of documentaries, Der Derian has provided commentary for, among others, MSNBC and the BBC.
He appeared on campus last Friday to address issues of infoterror and global media.
Speaking in Hawkins Hall's Krinovitz Auditorium, Der Derian began his presentation with a video clip of Donald Rumsfeld speaking three years ago before the Council of Foreign Relations.
Rumsfeld had derided the slow pace of the government to adapt to realities of war in a media age, saying that "for the most part, the U.S. government still functions as a five and dime store in an eBay world.
Today we're engaged in the first war in history-unconventional and irregular as it may be-in an era of e-mails, blogs, cell phones, Blackberrys, Instant Messaging, digital cameras, a global Internet with no inhibitions, cell phones, hand-held video cameras, talk radio, 24-hour news broadcasts, satellite television. There's never been a war fought in this environment before."
Der Derian called the media's impact on international relations "profound," and declared the management of the media "as significant a challenge as the management of nuclear technology in the last century."
The transmission of images in real time, he said, has made it possible for people to circumvent the authority of the Pentagon in an unprecedented way.
This "democratization of media" has created a new need for "critical filters to separate the meaningful from the meaningless, the manipulative from the informative."
Media now is "not just a transmitter of events but a trigger of them, as well. It records, relays, represents and informs our response - or lack thereof - to certain events."
Der Derian said through e-mail that he thinks "the Iraq war has left a lot of people feeling burned, by the government and by the media that failed to fulfill its investigative/watchdog responsibilities, which partially explains the resurgence of interests in alternative media like blogs."
As media has the power to "change the way we deal with the 'other,'" he said, it also has the power to help us understand and mediate differences.
"Irreconcilable conditions of hostility," Der Derian wrote in an essay for the World Economic Forum, result from people going "to war not only out of rational calculation, but also because of how they see, perceive, picture, imagine, and speak of each other."
Der Derian noted that the "Soviet-style disinformation" that might have characterized media misrepresentations in the past has given way to a "creative ad-hocism," in which false representation can come from the bottom as well as the top.
Der Derian's appearance was sponsored by the Office of Global Education, the American Democracy Project and the President's Office.
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