Zoom Out

The media portrayal of the Lebanon protests has been a fascinating subtext to the politics of the last few weeks.  I argued a few weeks ago that the Arab satellite television coverage of the opposition protests in Beirut had decisively shifted Arab public opinion by showing passionate, peaceful Arab protests demanding freedom and democracy, thus tapping in to the deeply felt "al Jazeera narrative" identifying with the Arab people against Arab regimes.   The massive Hizbollah protest rather took the wind out of the sails of that storyline, turning the storyline from "Arab people against Arab regimes" into "the Lebanese are divided, again."   

The importance of the media here makes the question of how the media has framed the various protests really important.  I want to try to weave together a couple of different themes here, in a preliminary and suggestive kind of way:  the "Zoom Out" controversy;  the different resonance of close-ups as opposed to wide angle crowd shots for different audiences;  the intellectual gymnastics by which people try to argue that "their" protests are more authentic than the other side's protests because they are (bigger/more liberal);  and some other stuff too.

First, "Zoom Out."  There has been an ongoing discussion in the Arab press (not just in blogs) about the "Zoom Out" point:  when Bashar al Asad suggested that the media was exaggerating the size of the protests by using close-ups and flattering camera angles, protestors took up the challenge with signs (often written in English) saying "Zoom Out."  Al Safir has had the best ongoing discussion of this over the last few weeks; but the discussion has extended to al Quds al Arabi ("the lies of the Lebanese satellites and the misery of Syrian television" is one example) and al Sharq al Awsat (Diana Muqlid's "War on Zoom!" for one) and many more.

What really struck me was that the coverage of the opposition rallies did tend to focus more on individuals than did the coverage of the Hizbullah rally.  The television cameras got far closer to the protestors, making them more human, more accessible, more "like us."  That the cameras also tended to pick out pretty girls shouldn't surprise anyone who's ever watched television, or who remembers the coverage of, say, the protests against the Iraq war.   While the pictures of attractive young Lebanese women no doubt stirred something shallow in the loins of a certain viewing demographic, to me this humanizing function was more important.  Americans could identify with these protestors not just because they were demanding the "right" things but because we saw faces, could recognize what Chuck Tilly would call the "repertoire of contention", and could decipher signs in English.   

The close-up coverage was therefore a strength, not a weakness, at least until the Hizbollah rallies.  When half a million people swamped Beirut, the television coverage that I saw (on al Jazeera) was almost all wide angle (see these screen shots).  This conveyed power, excitement, intimidation, organization... and it offered a near-paradigmatic visual of "the Arab street," with all of its baggage. Far fewer close-ups on individual faces here, far less opportunity for identification.  The effect was distancing rather than inviting:  the viewer had to respect the power, but was not invited to identify with the individuals.  For the Hizbollah rallies, the wide angle played to their strength by showing the genuinely impressive size of the protests.  "Zooming in" might have humanized them, although the absence of attractive young women with English language signs might have blunted the "identification" potential;  but at the cost of blunting the power conveyed by the sheer mass of people in the streets.   

So for the opposition rallies, the tendency to close ups offered the strength of identification, humanizing the protests, allowing for identification, at the cost of allowing questions about the real size of the protests.  Hence, the call to "zoom out" by their critics - which would presumably demonstrate the real weakness of the protests - and then taken up by the protestors in a show of defiance.   If the cameras did "zoom out", they might have confirmed the size of the protests - but at the cost of the humanizing and identification.   

Which brings me to the intellectual gymnastics. While I was as swept up as anyone in the excitement of the original Beirut protests, I couldn't help but be amused at how these protests were suddenly embraced as authentic expressions of the popular will by a stable of pundits who had long insisted that (1) the "Arab street" didn't matter, and (2) mass rallies did not express authentic public opinion.  What, don't you remember that whole bit back in February 2003, when millions of people around the world marched against war with Iraq, and we were told that this was insignificant because many millions more people had stayed home to watch TV, or had gone shopping? 

Anyway, back to Lebanon. After the Hizbollah rally the enthusiasts needed to explain why one set of rallies was authentic while the other was not (for the record, I think that both rallies should be taken seriously, and don't agree with the attempts to delegitimize either the opposition or the Hizbollah rally - both matter).  One big line of argument was that the Hizbollah protestors were bused in, coerced, were props for a top-down organization focused on leaders, were lower-class and ill-educated;  while the opposition protestors were freely choosing to protest, were swept up in the spirit of enthusiasm, were idealistic.  In short, the opposition was composed of "individuals" while the Hizbollahis were just a "mass." 

I think you can see where I'm going with this:  the media coverage - whatever the intent - perfectly fed into this line of argument.  The television images of individual opposition protestors and overpowering Hizbollah masses helped make these interpertrations ring true (note here that I'm not saying anything at all about the  reality of these protests, whether they were "really" authentic or sectarian or manufactured or exaggerated or whatnot - I'm only talking about the coverage).  Since then, the focus of the opposition (and of LBC and Future TV) has been to cast question on the authenticity of the Hizbollah protests, to try to cast them as bused-in Syrians or as unthinking pawns, poor Shi'ites doing what their imams told them to do.

Wow, this post has gone on way longer than I expected, and I'm way over my blogging time limit for the day.  More later, I guess, but this should at least get some discussion going! 

Comments

[Hassan]

Excellent post AA, very objective and analytical. Though I have to disagree with your comment about a lack of attractive Shi'ite girls at the rally. I'm from south Beirut originally, and I can tell you from personal experience that our chicks are just as hot, though far less pretentious.

[praktike]

okay, but when you get to the level of ideology, doesn't the "zoom out" make sense? I mean, you'd be kidding yourself if you tried to make the case that HA's philosophy is individualistic ... it's manifestly not. So while I do see the difference in coverage, I don't think it's *entirely* unwarranted.

[dan]

fantastic analysis. you write that "If the cameras did 'zoom out' [at the opposition rally], they might have confirmed the size of the protests - but at the cost of the humanizing and identification." but the point is to make these protests palatable to the western viewer. it's not the size of the protest that matters, since numbers (and arabs, for that matter) are abstract anyway -- it's the individuals involved, the real-live people, the photo-op cute girl. on the other hand, an arab "mass" automatically strikes fear into the heart of the architypical western tv viewer.

[the crossfader]

very good point. interesting.

[Nur al-Cubicle]

Particularly good post among much goodness here chez Aardvark.

Suggests liberal democracy promoting invidualism vs. individual suppressed in the interests of the collectivity, or, by extension freedom vs. fascism. Subtile in their camera angles they are, young Luke.

[hk]

I suspect that "identifiability" might be pertinent for the Western audiences, but I'm not sure if it's so important for the "real" audience, i.e. those in the Middle East, who don't have strange preconceptions of "Arabs." There have been, if I recall correctly, studies that showed that abstract statistics convey a lot more influence with TV viewers than "human drama" stories--I think the study by Kinder and Iyengar on unemployment figures, but I forget. Their conclusion, at any rate, was that the "human drama" story may get the viewers to sympathize with those portrayed, but does not convince them of the magnitude of the problem. The raw numbers do, even if they engender no particular sympathy. While Arab TV viewers no doubt enjoyed looking at the pretty Lebanese girls with the opposition rallies, seeing the sizes of the Hizbullah rally no doubt convinced them more as who the Lebanese masses were following. If anything, it could have helped convincing them that the first set of protests really didn't represent the "masses," but only a relative handful of privileged elite--whether it's true or not.

[Leila]

My local paper (Oakland Tribune) described the Hizbullah protesters as a "mob" which "swarmed" Beirut. One wonders if those cute Christians swarm? And how many Christians does it take to make a mob? Or is it just those verminlike Muslims that swarm around in mobs?

Just wondering. (BTW the previous comment was sarcasm. I think the use of "mob" and "swarm" are ethnic slurs)

[kassandra]

Leila, look at the latest issue of Spectator magazine, "Revolution Made for TV", makes the demonstrators sound like teeny boppers.

[Nur al-Cubicle]

Battle of the masses todayin Beirut. Ample shots of hot Lebanese chicks.

[Nur al-Cubicle]

oops...masses.

[Chan'ad]

Great post Abu. I've just been watching the coverage of today's anti-Syria protests on al-Mustaqbil and it was interesting to see one person holding a sign saying "Zoom In, We are all Lebanese". Nice comeback.

But I actually feel that the coverage on Arab television has television has been pretty much the same for both the pro and anti Syria protests. I only noticed a zoom in/out difference in the coverage in the Western media.

[the aardvark]

Ha! Chan'ad, check out the post above, written while you were posting this comment. I think we saw the same "Zoom In" sign on al Jazeera at the same time!