The story I want to retell is about the misuse of media and the usage of false news. In my sequential recut project, I want to illustrate how dangerous and powerful media can be. There is always a limit to what can be put inside a frame, and information can be tweaked around with just a little edit. The misusage of media has always been a common problem in our past history and still is in today’s society. One example that this problem has occurred is during the Gwangju Uprising, also known as May 18 Democratic Uprising, which occurred from May 18, 1980 to May 27, 1980. During this period of time, only false news that favored the military forces of Chun Doo Hwan were published. Reporters that were actually in Gwangju trying to gather information and spread the truth behind the movement were threatened, and their reports were strictly restricted from the media. Several people were even labeled as North Korean spies and were sent to jail because of their attempt to report the truth about the movement. Because of this, the truth was hidden, and the whole country outside of Gwangju was misinformed about the situation. The media that were actually reported portrayed many Gwangju civilians as North Korean spies and justified the violence of military against them as an act to protect the innocent civilians of South Korea. In reality, the military were armed against the innocent Gwangju civilians regardless of their age and gender and ruthlessly slaughtered approximately 606 innocent people within that period. With the help of a german journalist Hinzpeter, the first media containing the truth that were hidden under the rule of Chun Doo Hwan was finally exposed through not even Korean media but through German media, leaving many shocked because of the difference between what the korean media has been reporting and what was really happening.
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why fake news can be so powerful and dangerous – they can magnify things to cover up what’s really important
Final Draft:
Using an image of an orange, I’ve created an animation loop to abstractly portray the contrast of what is seen through our eyes versus what it really is. I created an image of what looks like an apple, but as it gets peeled, it is revealed to be an orange. I intended to convey the idea that we tend to easily and quickly judge things based on just what we see without questioning it. In order to understand it, we need to peel it, see the inside, observe it indifferent angles, feel it, etc.
The audio is from an interview with Orson Welles who states “we were fed up with the way in which everything that came over this new magic box, the radio, was being swallowed…We wanted people to understand that they shouldn’t take any opinion pre-digested, and they shouldn’t swallow everything that came through the tap, whether it was radio or not.”
I believe this concept is a really important topic to think about because it is still relevant in today’s society and will be relevant in the future. The misuse of media transcends time and place.
As social media has become a profound source of information and as almost anyone are allowed to have access to it, false information and fake news can now be found more common. They can quickly go viral and quickly disappear as new “interesting” informations are introduced to grab people’s attention.
If the Gwangju Uprising was to happen in today’s society, it would have been hard for the government to make people believe the fake news now that social media exists.
