So Wrong They're Right (1995)

A documentary about obsessive 8-track tape collectors, the film documents a cross-country trip looking for those passionate few for whom the 70s never died.

"Dispatches" Beyond Belief (1992)

Dispatches is a British current affairs documentary programme on Channel 4, first broadcast on 30 October 1987. The programme covers issues about British society, politics, health, religion, international current affairs and the environment, and often features a mole inside organisations under journalistic investigation.

On the evening of February 19th, 1992 Dispatches featured a special episode about Satanic ritual abuse. Days later, newspapers reported that the video was misrepresented. The clips of the alleged abuse were drawn from First Transmissions (1982), an experimental video produced by Thee Temple ov Psychick Youth (T.O.P.Y.) a geographically disperse occult collective committed to subverting mainstream media.

Presented by journalist Andrew Boyd, the Dispatches show promised to present, for the first time, the programmed claimed unequivocal evidence of Satanic abuse and ritual murder having been carried out in Britain. The show featured the testimony of an alleged survivor of Satanic abuse, 'Jennifer', and had been trailed heavily with reports in the broadsheet newspapers in the days leading up to broadcast. In particular, the show was able to shockingly broadcast clips of a tape that the British police had seized a decade earlier which, the programme makers claimed, was a home-video recording of a Satanic ritual killing. Over a hundred people called a helpline number advertised after the show ended.

Far from being a Satanic snuff movie, the video was quickly determined after broadcast to be performance art video by TOPY, an offshoot of a group of musicians and performers including Genesis P. Orridge's Throbbing Gristle and Psychick TV. Most shockingly of all, First Transmission had itself been funded by Channel 4.

The show was denounced in the media over the following days and weeks as a grotesque lapse of journalistic integrity. The programme stands as a particular testament to a moment in British social, cultural and criminal history at the height of the so-called 'Satanic Panic' which swept the USA as well as the UK in the 1980s. There is an extensive interdisciplinary literature on the programme and its associated impacts and phenomena, from historians, art historians, criminologists, psychologists and others. The overwhelming majority of commentary on Beyond Belief is critical of the programme.

A transcript of the broadcast has been shared online and there is considerable information about the programme to be found. The show itself, though, has never been repeated, and has never been made available online in full. The show has also proven difficult to access by professional researchers in archive holdings at Channel 4, or at the production company, Looktwice.

In November 2020, YouTube user 'RileyELFuk' made a 37 minute version of the show available on their channel which runs to the final credits. About 8 minutes of the 45 minute broadcast time (10:30pm - 11:15pm) are thus still missing. Comparing this upload with the transcript suggests that much of this time would have been taken up by advertisements before the show started, as only one page of the transcript, featuring the programme's introduction, are clipped from the film.

The role of computerised media in this program is interesting. It came out right at the cusp between the earlier cultural networks of mail and radio, clubs and cellars (to reference the site of satanic abuse) and the rise of the internet, where much of this culture exists today. Terrorism is even named as a source for the satanic abuse, in how its 'survivors' manifest PTSD. Computers feature in many of the interviews, often as a backdrop to interviewees appearing as 'experts' (never for the 'victims'). At the same time the psychological explanations for how 'victims' are effected by the 'abuse' is spoken of in terms of 'imprint', 'programming', 'memory', 'information' and so on. The allegations never come to any concrete point, with names of perpetrators, or even victims, apart from the anonymous 'witnesses' speaking on camera (considering one of the few 'witnesses' Jennifer, states in the programme she murdered her own child in a ritual sacrifice, it would not have been so difficult to check up on this). The visual media depicting the 'abuse' is seen as both evidence and the corrupting material that causes the apparent abuse. However, no origin of the material is even really established. Since it was colaged performance art, mostly featuring actors, this is understandable.

This program and what it represents is important because it shows us a time when many of the present-day folk devils and moral panics were finding their form, if not their content. Attempts to police this sort of media are still underway.

The entire collection of the First Transmission videos is available here

(First Transmission was a collection of video tapes that were made available through Psychic TV's mail order system in the early 80s. Fans of the band had to own all of the albums in order to qualify to be given the videos as a gift. Psychic TV and TOPY were a kind of cultural and cult pyramid scheme).

The transcript from the Dispatches programme is available here in two parts: https://arsoninformer.files.wordpress.com/2019/02/1992-feb-19th-dispatches-program-beyond-belief-script-part-1.pdf 

https://arsoninformer.files.wordpress.com/2019/02/1992-feb-19th-dispatches-program-beyond-belief-script-part-2.pdf

TV Party Documentary

The punk public-access cable show ran from 1978 to 1982 in New York City and featured everyone from Debbie Harry and David Byrne to Iggy Pop and Jean-Michel Basquiat. Here's a documentary about the show and the late-70s downtown art scene. Click on the image to access the doco.

Brion Gysin Teaching

Cut ups slightly modified by modern means with lecture by Bryon Gysin track 04 called "Teaching" from LP, live London 1982

Out of Orbit: The Life and Times of Marshall McLuhan (1999)

"Today it is the instant speed of electric information that, for the first time, permits easy recognition of the patterns and the formal contours of change and development" (McLuhan 1964 352).

Duration: 45 minutes

"Societies have always been shaped more by the nature of the media with which people communicate than by the content of the communication." - Marshall McLuhan

Marshall McLuhan, one of Canada's most influential and controversial figures, burst into the centre of media circles in North America with his strange and prophetic pronouncements - "electric light is pure information" - on advertising, television and the emerging computer age.

Known for his imaginative descriptions of the media environment, McLuhan coined the phrases 'the medium is the message' and 'the global village.' These two aphorisms still linger on the tongues of critics, philosophers and pop-culture makers as McLuhan's predictions and revelations continue to be proven true over and over again.

Initially celebrated, later doubted and recently resurrected, McLuhan has stood the test of time as one of the truly innovative minds of this century. Some of his statements are as fresh today as they must have been when he first appeared on North American televisions in the 1960s. "Where advertising is heading is quite simply into a world where the ad will become a substitute for the product," said McLuhan.

With the help of family, friends, and theorists, McLuhan is revealed. Deeply conservative, reserved, difficult, uncomfortable with the fame he sought, this very private man remained an enigma for most of his life. The documentary charts the course of McLuhan's life and work, his successes and failures, paying careful attention to the central principle of his work - the medium. Out Of Orbit also pays tribute to McLuhan, his message, and the way in which his theories and words have penetrated and influenced the consciousness of today's media literate society.

Original Air Date - November 30, 1999

Manufacturing Consent - Noam Chomsky and the Media

Manufacturing Consent: Noam Chomsky and the Media (1992) is a documentary film that explores the political life and ideas of Noam Chomsky, a linguist, intellectual, and political activist. Created by two Canadian filmmakers, Mark Achbar and Peter Wintonick, it expands on the ideas of Chomsky's earlier book, Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media, which he co-wrote with Edward S. Herman. The film presents and illustrates Chomsky's and Herman's thesis that corporate media, as profit-driven institutions, tend to serve and further the agendas of the interests of dominant, elite groups in the society. A centerpiece of the film is a long examination of the history of The New York Times' coverage of the Indonesian occupation of East Timor, which Chomsky says exemplifies the media's unwillingness to criticize an ally of the elite. Until the release of The Corporation (2003), made by Mark Achbar, Jennifer Abbott and Joel Bakan, it was the most successful feature documentary in Canadian history, played theatrically in over 300 cities around the world; won 22 awards; appeared in more than 50 international film festivals; and was broadcast in over 30 markets. It has also been translated into a dozen languages. Chomsky's response to the film was mixed; in a published conversation with Achbar and several activists, he stated that film simply doesn't communicate his message, leading people to believe that he is the leader of some movement that they should join. In the same conversation, he criticizes The New York Times review of the film, which mistakes his message for being a call for voter organizing rather than media critique.

OUTFOXED : Rupert Murdoch's War on Journalism

Outfoxed: Rupert Murdoch's War on Journalism is a 2004 documentary film by filmmaker Robert Greenwald that criticises the Fox News Channel, and its owner, Rupert Murdoch, claiming that the channel is used to promote and advocate right-wing views. The film says this pervasive bias contradicts the channel's claim of being "Fair and Balanced", and argues that Fox News has been engaging in what amounts to consumer fraud.

Screening Thought: Slavoj Zizek and Paul Taylor

Continental philosopher Slavoj Žižek and Paul A. Taylor (author of Žižek and The Media) explore the difficulty of conveying philosophical ideas within today's media.

Norman Mailer and Marshall McLuhan Debating 1968

"It's psychedelic. When you step up the environment to those speeds you create the psychedelic thrill. The whole world becomes kaleidoscopic, and you go inward by the way. Its an inner trip not an outer trip." Marshall McLuhan (1968)

"There is a way to pluck." Norman Mailer (1968)

Norman Mailer and Marshall McLuhan expound on violence, alienation, art and the electronic envelope. The clash of two great minds. (1968) www.cbc.ca

As an association to some of what is discussed in this video see Thomas De Quincey's essay online The English-Mail Coach. The idea of travel as work is described in De Quincey's essay.

The Beginings of Portable Audio

The first portable radio features in the 1961 series "The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis". The vacant beatnik Maynard G Crabbs seems to be a world of his own as the sound surrounds him.

i am Yoour Social Media Guru

This could offend you if your are either working as a social media consultant or are offended by course language.

The Obama Deception

Yesterday a good friend told me about a film he saw on the net that made an impression on him. It is called The Obama Deception and it deal with:

The Obama phenomenon is a hoax carefully crafted by the captains of the New World Order. He is being pushed as savior in an attempt to con the American people into accepting global slavery.

Last night I watched some of it with this blog post in mind and a critical eye at the ready. My thoughts congealed around the idea that power for 99% of the population is as distant as the moon. Conspiracy (and I will explain what I mean by that) is one way of bringing the conception of power closer to the mundaneness of daily life. To explain how I came to this idea I go back to the Goombungee school bus in the hot summer of 1983. The Australian government had just changed and after 8 years of centre-right leadership the adults who could had just voted in a Labour government led by Robert (Bob) Hawke, then holder of the beer sculling world record, a yard glass - approximately 3 imperial pints or 1.7 litres - in eleven seconds.

On my school bus sat several teenagers from religious families. I remember one of these kids speaking at length about Hawke "being pushed as savior in an attempt to con the American Australian people into accepting global slavery" involving a world bank and Zionist plots. There was even a prophecy from Nostradamus involved in his explanation (something about "a man with the name of a wild bird in a land yet undiscovered coming to power"). We on the Goombungee bus looked out over the eucalyptus scrub and dry fields and felt somehow involved in the functions of power by being privy to this 'truth'. The machinery of power may have been impossibly distant from us there in that hot tin box on wheels, but we understood something that perhaps others did not. There was a conspiracy at work and we had come into contact with it through narrative.

Later in my life, in 1994 I attended a lecture at Sydney University by Noam Chomsky (who no doubt is part of the same conspiracy as Bob Hawke but we on the Goombungee bus did not get much exposure to anarchist linguists so he was never in the story). I remember Chomsky touched on the idea of conspiracy theories in his presentation. He said that conspiracy theories are dependent on distance; if it is an enemy state it is not a conspiracy, it is intelligence (think Weapons of Mass Destruction in Iraq, the famine that has been going on in North Korea for a decade and so on). If the theory under consideration is closer to 'home' and involves one's own government then we are talking conspiracy.

In the decade and a half since I saw Chomsky speak, power has drifted even further away from the masses in many lands. With jobs moving to the new industrial economies of the East and governments moving upwards into a level of global blocs (NAFTA, EU, ASEAN and so on) the average citizen can be forgiven for feeling there is more to the story of government than what they are being told. The concept of politic agency at the individual level is not strong and healthy at the moment in many nations. It is here that the conspiracy enters into the fabric of political narrative. Conspiracy, such as The Obama Deception brings power closer to people via narrative and thereby provides a sense of mythic agency in relation to politics.

The tragedy of media such as The Obama Deception is not the possible degrees of truth value that can be related to it as a text. Rather, that political agency is translated into complex narratives and enacted out along reactionary lines of behaviour as a part of the political process (it has had 2.5 million views on just one of its YouTube sites) I find very disturbing. The more time people spend putting together the pieces of The Obama Deception puzzle (even if it is just in their minds) the less time is being spent on actually doing something to participate in the democratic political process. Of course the people behind The Obama Deception would say that there is no democratic process today. That's the way they want it. The result of such a narrative as The Obama Deception and "the man with the name of a wild bird" from 1983 is a negation of what few democratic rights we have remaining.

This Film Is Not Yet Rated

This Film Is Not Yet Rated is an independent documentary film about the Motion Picture Association of America's rating system and its effect on American culture, directed by Kirby Dick and produced by Eddie Schmidt. It premiered at the 2006 Sundance Film Festival and was released into select theatres on September 1, 2006. The Independent Film Channel, the film's producer, aired the film later that autumn. The MPAA gave the original cut of the film an NC-17 rating for "some graphic sexual content": scenes that illustrated the content a film could include to garner an NC-17 rating. Kirby Dick appealed, and descriptions of the ratings deliberations and appeal were included in the documentary. The new version of the film is not rated. The film discusses disparities the film maker sees in ratings and feedback: between Hollywood and independent films, between gay and straight sexual situations, and between violence and sexual content

Joaquin Phoenix on Late Show w/ David Letterman Feb 11 2009

Occasionally the ridiculous veneer of a media image is perforated. I think Joaquin Phoenix does a brilliant deconstruction of David Letterman, through the device of silence.

Mailer and McLuhan 1968

"Violence is essentailly a form of the quest for identity" Marshall McLuhan


Norman Mailer and Marshall McLuhan expound on violence, alienation and the electronic envelope. The clash of two great minds. (1968)

A Portal to Media Literacy

Presented at the University of Manitoba June 17th 2008. (for those of you waiting for the Library of Congress presentation, it will be posted July 19th-ish.)

From Stephen's Lighthouse:
http://stephenslighthouse.sirsidynix....

"Many of you have probably seen Kansas State University prof Michael Wesch's thought-provoking video, "A
Vision of Students Today". http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dGCJ46...

Recently Dr. Wesch spoke at the University of Manitoba where he explained the the basis of this video in a talk entitled, "Michael Wesch and the Future of Education." I found it fascinating! He describes how he so naturally incorporates emerging technologies into his courses from the smallest seminar type class to the largest lecture theatre filled class.

More importantly he not only talks about the technologies but how he encourages extraordinary participation and collaboration from his students by engaging them in meaningful learning activities.

Although the video is 66 minutes long...pour a coffee, iced tea or glass of wine and enjoy this dynamic presentation from a master teacher."

CNN Holographic Reporter on Election Night 2008

Claimed holographic image of live person on CNN November 4, 2008

"To survive, the spectacle must have social control. It can recuperate a potentially threatening situation by shifting ground, creating dazzling alternatives- or by embracing the threat, making it safe and then selling it back to us" – Larry Law, The Spectacle- The Skeleton Keys

Hans Jurgen Kreuzer, theoretical physics professor and holography expert at Dalhousie University, told CBC news in Canada that the so-called holograms were simply 2D images superimposed onto the TV broadcast.

The images were in fact tomograms, or images captured from all sides - in this case by 35 high-definition cameras set in a ring inside a special tent - reconstructed by computers and displayed on the screen.

A real hologram would have meant the images were projected into space, which did not occur as Blitzer and Cooper could not see their interview subjects.
CNN and Fake Hologram

modern mass media manipulation and risks for democracy

UK movie maker Peter Watkins talking about modern mass media manipulation, democracy, education, history, social movements, neoliberalism, communism and consummerism. 30 minutes, french subtitles.
Peter Watkins (born October 29, 1935) is an English film and (once) television director. He was born in Norbiton, Surrey, lived in Sweden and Canada for many years, and now lives in France.
After studying acting at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, Watkins began his television and film career as an assistant producer of short TV films and commercials, and in the early 1960s was an assistant editor and director of documentaries at the BBC. All of his films have either been documentary or drama presented with documentary techniques, sometimes portraying historical occurrences and sometimes possible near future events as if contemporary reporters and filmmakers were there to interview the participants. Watkins pioneered this technique in his first full-length television film, Culloden, which portrayed the Jacobite uprising of 1745 in a style similar to the Vietnam War reporting of the time. In 1965, he won a Jacob's Award for Culloden at the annual presentation ceremony in Dublin.