Image and Post Post-Truth
Image and Post Post-Truth

Author(s): Cosmin Prelipceanu
Subject(s): Fine Arts / Performing Arts, Visual Arts
Published by: Editura ARTES
Keywords: Post-truth; image; emotion; propaganda; manipulation; news; consensus engineer; chemical weapons;
Summary/Abstract: Nowadays, under the non-stop assault of over-information and the multitude of sources and media, the consumers of information (related to non-fiction audio-visual content) suffer from an overflow. They are oversaturated, blasé, disinterested, they have the feeling they know everything and are entitled to jump straight to conclusion (their own or ready-made conclusions). The content they cannot process is rejected. With such an audience, content creators diversify their arsenal of stimuli: shocking images and sound, partisan speech that confirms the viewer's own perceptions and beliefs. But mostly, emotions. Emotion is the most powerful stimulus applied to the viewer and has an enviable effect among content creators. The emotionally connected viewer will develop trust, dependence on the source of information and, in conjunction with other stimuli, will become susceptible to mobilization. It is a key effect in the study of disinformation and propaganda, which makes it possible to manipulate the viewer into acting in a certain way. In other words, emotion becomes a tool. It is used intentionally to trigger a certain reaction fro m the audience. Our research analyses the extent to which the need for emotion in the news shapes reality, that is the events as they happened, and how we would expect them to be covered on screen. We follow the methods that journalists use to give viewers as much of this stimulus as possible, once considered a foreign body in the news bulletin. And in the analysis of the media content (image and sound) we notice how two fields that once seemed utterly opposed by reference to objective reality (physical truth), journalism and artistic creation (fiction), ended up sharing a common ground, that of emotion emotion. The corpus of our analysis consists of CNN, BBC and RT television reports on the war in Syria during two of its key moments, the WMD attacks of 2013 and 2018. The study method we will apply is rhetorical analysis, proposed by Professor Guillaume Soulez from the University of Sorbonne. This is how we reach a second junction, because the French professor proposes discursive analysis for any kind of media content, whether fictional or not.

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