Tenth International Conference on The Image

Abstract

Knowledge is a social process. While information can be used for the creation of emancipatory politics and networks of communities, it is increasingly employed as a tool of mischief, to reduce stability, create friction, social polarization, mistrust and extremism. Digital literacy, ethical journalism and building resilience to propaganda and fake news have become critical endeavours which depend on the ability to co-create symbolic images imbued with social significance. What we have witnessed in the last decade is an increasingly technologically immersed narrative which uses images to advance populist and extremist ideologies. These, in their turn, undermine democracy and its practice from within. It is the aim of this paper to interrogate the cultural and social meaning of information in its digital image form, generated and used in propaganda and disinformation campaigns. Through a series of case studies, we shall attempt to demonstrate how digital narrative and the use of cultural archetypes in reproducing images of power become tools of mischief, reducing stability, creating friction, bringing forth social polarization, generating mistrust and sparking extremist ideologies. Subsequently, we shall propose different uses of information to create resilience to propaganda and enforce the creation of emancipatory politics and networks of communities linked by shared policies and interests and fueled by universal, cosmopolitan and humanitarian values.