Third International Conference on Communication & Media Studies

Abstract

This paper is situated within the emerging field of digital migrations studies, and examines the role of digital media in the transformation of identities in the infinite process of becoming as we (re)imagine ourselves in the digital era. I am exploring this from the relational perspective of online reality engagements of migration whereby the notion of a “migrant” is not necessarily attached to particular bodies in predetermined ways. Theoretically, I discuss the Gigardian notion of mimetic desire as a mechanism of becoming a migrant in online reality films. The films subjected to analysis include The Displaced, directed by Imraan Ismail and Ben C. Solomon in 2015, and Fight for Fallujah, directed by Ben Salomon in 2016 for the New York Times. Methodologically, I explore the possibilities of sensory cartography methodology which foregrounds the primacy of senses and affect when analyzing digital experiences of online intimacy. I argue that while expressing something that cannot really be talked about is specifically enabled by linguistic/textual, affective, and corporeal experience of online reality, “the unspoken” paradoxically halts the possibility of transcendence in becoming a migrant in ethico-politically tenable way which may have global significance. Turn to affect through digital media has a critical bearing on understanding a “self” especially when mimicking intimacy when being exposed to the plight of another.