Publication details
Observing the other : imaginative geographies of czech news media
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| Year of publication | 2014 |
| Type | Appeared in Conference without Proceedings |
| MU Faculty or unit | |
| Citation | |
| Description | We live in a globalized transnational world where flows are more usual than stableness. Flows include flows of people, ideas or images. Yet these flows aren’t accomplished corporeally by most people, because they are often perceived inside homes while consuming various media products of newspapers, television, new digital media, etc. portraying distant places. The paper offers an analysis of media representations of distant places created by Czech news media. News, and particularly foreign news, is a very influential tool in establishing perceptions of places and events. Because news is a media genre that is often supposed as the one capable of the objective reflection of events, it is also the one that is able to “cultivate” ideas and opinions about far places where represented events happened. Nonetheless media representation can never be pure reflection of events and places because both creation and consummation of media representation is influenced by culture, ideologies and discourses. In these, picturing far places connected with picturing Otherness is one of the most prevailing characteristics nowadays. In the paper the media representations of foreign news are analysed through Said’s concept of imaginative geographies. For Said (1978) imaginative geographies are about production of place images. Images have their own meanings that shouldn’t be supposed as reflecting real complexity of the place. Rather these meanings dramatize remoteness and difference. For Gregory (2000, 2004) imaginative geographies are constructions that fold distance into difference through a series of spatializations, and he sees their spatial representation as inherent to power relations. Said used imaginative geographies in his critique of Orientalism, but with wide media influence nowadays it is more useful to think about them as more differentiated between various parts of the world. In addition imaginative geographies are able to influence agency towards presented places - they are performative. In our contribution the concept of imaginative geographies was subdivided into three dimensions: textual, geopolitical and performative. On the examples of media representation of Syria, USA, Mali and North Korea it is shown how imaginative geographies inside media representation differentiate. While imaginative geographies of Syria and USA evoke Lived space in those places, imaginative geographies of Mali and North Korea don’t. While Lived space of Syria becomes one of radical Otherness and emotional separateness, Lived space of USA is one of complexity and emotional proximity. On the other hand Mali and North Korea are spatially homogenised and differs in the focus on creation of specific simplifying image: while North Korea is carefully portrayed as the “enemy other”, Mali is a place of non-existent ordinary people and emptiness. These matters are problematic, because, as Silverstone (2007) says, to appear in media often means the world and is able to influence moral sensibility to other people. |