Reading-“The Uncertainty of Documentarism”, Hito Steyerl
Steyerl talks about how the “unbroken belief” of the documentary form is challenged. What does Steyerl mean by this? Certain movies and films are based on a true story. How does truth inform the fiction? How might fiction inform the truth?
The “unbroken belief” that Steyerl talks about is the conventional definition of documentaries that they are supposed to record reality. Thus, Steyerl said this because some documentaries nowadays do not record reality so much as they used to be. “Expression instead of representation: this is the level upon which the CNN-images reveal their truth (Hito Steyerl).” In other words, some documentaries, like the CNN documentary that she constantly brought up in the article, don’t illustrate the reality but focus more on the expression.
Fiction is always based on a certain existing truth. Without the basis of truth, fiction won’t be so convincing. Thus, truth informs fiction by undermining certain features behind it.
On the other hand, fiction extends the truth with its imagination and can guide or predict certain truths in the future. Just as indicated in the last part of the article, documentaries that focus more on expression than representation “cannot show what is always present (Steyerl)” but show some future perspectives.
What is the significance of the authenticity and representation of the truth in the media that you consume on a daily basis? What is the role of a live broadcast?
The media that I consume on a daily basis are mainly two different categories, namely, entertaining social media and news. For entertaining social media, I think the significance of the authenticity and representation of the truth is not so much compared to the news. Because for me, the social media that I look at are just for entertainment. The authenticity doesn’t matter so much as long as the delivery of the content is entertaining enough. However, the news, on the other hand, requires authenticity because I think its job is to deliver authentic information to the audience neutrally (which, unfortunately, none of the news platforms nowadays can achieve).
The role of the live broadcast, for me, is to increase the level of authenticity in a moving image. I’m saying this because live broadcast is synchronous, it then seems to be more authentic than the edited moving images. This authenticity here doesn’t necessarily mean that it would be 100% accurate and wouldn’t be manipulated, but at least people who watch it would believe so. It’s just like people’s attitudes towards photographs as described in Fred Ritchin’s article “In Your Own Image.” Thus, by conducting a live broadcast synchronously, the authenticity of a media could be enhanced.