Crisis/Media: The Uncertain States of Reportage - a Report by Shuddhabrata Sengupta
16.Mar.03 The Sarai Programme of the Centre for the Study of Developing Societies, (CSDS) Delhi together with the Waag Society/for Old and New Media, Amsterdam, recently organized a workshop titled "Crisis/Media : The Uncertain States of Reportage". The workshop was hosted at Sarai-CSDS, Delhi. "Crisis/Media" brought together media practitioners, journalists, critics, activists, writers and students for an intense three days of reflection, dialogue and debate on the act of bearing witness, in and through the media on a world at crisis. The workshop opened with a provocation that stated "The crises in the media are the crises of the media." read more >>>
Arundhati Roy: Peace is War - The Collateral Damage of Breaking News
05.Mar.03 In response to a question at the end of her presentation, about recovering the possibilites inherent in reportage, Arundhati Roy spoke of the 'laziness of the use of language'. How this laziness needed to be fought; how every sentence had to be honed and polished, how even a 200 word report had to be made a weapon - because 'they' aka 'the motherfuckers', steal and co-opt language to suit their own twisted ends. read more >>>
The Truth as Casualty
05.Mar.03 Yogendra Yadav, chairing the session, joked about mistaking the topic of the session for 'Truth' and 'Causality', the two things disapperaing in the social sciences. Though the jokes were followed by Ifthikar Gilani talking about his own, near farcical experiences with the Intelligence Bureau and the Courts, it wasn't funny. read more >>>
Na Likhne ke Kaaran
05.Mar.03 In the Hindi session, 'Na Likhne ke Kaaran', the concerns about the media from the morning plenary, and the first session, as well as the preceding days, spilled over. read more >>>
Reflections on "Peace is War: The collateral damage of breaking news"
05.Mar.03 The morning session on the third day of the Crisis /Media workshop at Sarai was testimony to a packed auditorium. Writer activist Arundhati Roy was to present her paper on Peace is War: the collateral damage of breaking news. Shuddhabhrata Sengupta introduced Roy as one of the finest voices in India who has consistently spoken on issues of concern, be it possession of nuclear weapons in South Asia or the adivasi movements in Kerela or the epoch making Narmada Bachao Andolan in the valley. "Reasonable, strident and passionate" were a combination of words that he used to describe the essence of the voice of Arundhati. read more >>>
Crises of Everyday Life
04.Mar.03 Reports from the 3 panels of the 'crisis of everyday life' session. these panels dealt with the representation of women in the South African media, the connection of local voices in the Asia Pacific region, the media tactics of the European noborder network, independent media coverage of the economic crisis in Argentina, media attention for AIDS/HIV in north-east India and Indian medias coverage of sexual minorities read more >>>
The Ethical Qunadaries of Bearing Witness
04.Mar.03 In a presentation entitled, "The Ethical Quandaries of Bearing Witness" Ranjit Hoskote identified how truth is essentialized, cliched, and diminished by the media during crises. He discussed the causes of this phenomenon, which include: (1) 'repeatage' - the impoverishment of discourse by repetition. By repetition, cliches package situations of crisis. (2) the frequent sacrifice of contexts and frameworks in favor of 'the shallow present' (3) the way in which dominant and state-sanctioned narratives leave others inaudible and diminished. (4) the reformatting of notions of nation-state to suit popular beliefs. read more >>>
Gujarat and the Media: One Year After
04.Mar.03 Reports from the mornings plenary session on the media related questions that have been raised by the genocidal events that took place in the Indian state of Gujarat a year ago. Presentations where given by editors of mainstream newspapers, a media activist and a legal researcher/activist. read more >>>
Photos of the opening session
03.Mar.03 Below you find pictures taken during the opening session of the crisis media workshop at Sarai in Delhi. The opening session included a welcome address by Ravi S Vasudevanvan (Sarai-CSDS) and introductory dialogue between the workshops initiators Geert Lovink and Shuddhabrata Sengupta and a keynote from Danny Muller of the Iraq Peace Team. read more >>>
Crisis and perhaps CNN
03.Mar.03 When do you know that you are in a crisis? When things go drastically wrong? When your life collapses around you, the debris flaoting by like confetti? When you shift around listlessly, trying to mop up the pieces?
Nope. When you are on CNN.
That's what this Sarai-Waag seminar is all about. Crisis and what constitutes it. How it is read and read about. How it is defined and deliberated upon, and then decided about. read more >>>
Live stream from the workshop
03.Mar.03 The workshops at the crisis media will be streamed live onto the internet by
sound. To realize this we use a openbrick
as encoder device.
OpenBrick is a very small (180x118x40mm) and light (about 900g) and completely silent open platform which can be used as a micro-server, as a router or as a think client. It contains a fanless 300 Mhz x86 compatible 300Mhz Geode processor and 128 MB SDRAM. read more >>>
Reporting from Situations of Crisis
03.Mar.03 The conflicts of the individual and its relation to the influential external problems . This was the main issue of discussion by the three presenters Muzamil Jaleel, Indian express, Srinagar, Manoranjan Selliah, Independent journalist and Human Rights Activist, Colombo and A.BimolAkoijam, Visiting fellow, CSDS Delhi. read more >>>
A Medium that made a Difference
03.Mar.03 The afternnon session of the sarai workshop had Andrienne van Heteran and Katarina Zivanovic talking of an independent media B92 during the Balkan crisis. B92 was set up roughly about 15 years back in Serbia when there was a dire need of an independent media. It emerged as an alternate voice to the only two state owned media networks. B92 initially started as a radio station and tried to reach masses. read more >>>
Crisis/Media: The Uncertain States of Reportage - Announcement
30.Dec.02 Ever since the events of September 11, the image of a world in crisis is something that we have grown accustomed to. It is not as if crises have not had global dimensions before. Perhaps all that is different is the frequency, intensity and reiteration of the reportage of crises, an epidemic of images and data of a world out of sorts with itself, which marks and distinguishes the contemporary moment on a global scale. In times like this to attempt to be 'objective' or 'neutral' is to become a mercenary of power, a purveyor of platitudes. At the same time, we have little understanding of the complex professional and ethical dilemmas that bedevil the act of the media's bearing witness to our world. The crisis in the media are the crisis of the media. read more >>>
