Crisis-Readiness and Media Witnessing

Abstract

Contemporary media saturation requires us to rethink the notion of crisis. This paper characterizes crisis not in terms of isolable moments and significant events, but as a generalized and routine background condition—a persistent crisis-readiness. It is sustained and performed by a new media configuration: an assemblage of mediation, representation and experience that we call “media witnessing.” Focusing on how media witnessing foregrounds the immanent decisiveness of everyday existence, the interconnectivity and unpredictability of mediated networks, and the mutual vulnerability of dispersed publics, the paper calls for an understanding of crisis as a perpetual condition of transformative possibility.

Notes

1. The film is designed to resemble a video file recovered from a digital camcorder. It begins with a disclaimer stating that the footage about to be viewed is of a case designated “Cloverfield” by the U.S. Department of Defense, which was found in the area “formerly known as Central Park.”