After exploring media loss in a 19th century Europe last week, I mentioned I wanted to take that concept and look at how it applies to more recent and digitized media. Lindsay Freeman’s “Digitally Disappeared: The Case For the Preservation of Atrocity Evidence in the Age of Digital Epherimerality” discusses the repercussions of important events digitally disappearing. Freeman (2022) argues that digital disappearance became a human rights issue after social media platforms started being used as an archive for historical evidence, war crimes, and mass atrocities.
Something I never thought about before was the importance of some of the “harmful” content that gets taken down on social media platforms. Freeman (2022) makes the point that when content that is violent, pornographic, or harmful for any other reason gets deleted, important evidence that could have been useful gets destroyed. The people who make these decisions are the ones that have the most power, and their motivation behind what gets taken down is uncertain and hazy. The selective deletion continues to give them more power and allows them to tell real stories the way they choose to, while others are silenced.
Like I said and planned last week, this article is a perfect gateway for me to transition from giving historical context to exploring the current issues we are dealing with regarding digital preservation and online deletion. Adding the political aspect to my project has completely taken it to a whole other level and I am excited about the fact that it feels more organized and I have decided on the sections that I will be covering.
I haven’t done much this week as I have been sick, but I added more things to my pre production outline and made it into a slideshow on Canva simply for aesthetic reasons. I also found a lot of inspiration regarding the type shots I want to have and watched videos about filming, and how to film the shots I want specifically. I found some locations I am looking into renting and I will be shooting some scenes that will hopefully make it to the final cut of the project tomorrow or Wednesday. I want to apply for the Philadelphia Student Media Maker grant, so I am trying to figure out my budget for my project and thinking about some of the specifics such as duration so I can fill out my application. I started a budget proposal using a template but I am struggling with what to include, but it’s getting there. I’m hoping to do more for this project this week.
Freeman, L. (2022). Digitally Disappeared: The Struggle to Preserve Social Media Evidence of Mass Atrocities. Georgetown Journal of International Affairs 23(1), 105-113. https://dx.doi.org/10.1353/gia.2022.0017.
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