Speaking under duress: visual and verbal elements of personal and political messages in captive videos

Abstract

Videos of living captives presented in the media are extremely influential and have broad implications even beyond the boundaries of the countries involved in the depicted events. This study is the first to present a comprehensive analysis of the visual and verbal contents of captive videos. This analysis of eleven videos of captives involved in seven abductions in three countries between 1986 and 2014 describes recurring media patterns, both visual and verbal, and suggests the functions they perform. Based on a multi-layered theoretical and analytical framework, the analysis reveals a unique genre consisting of four polar opposites reflecting both personal and political messages: visibility vs concealment, free expression vs scripted and coercive text, collective memory vs public agenda, and newsworthiness vs culture. The study delineates their unique co-existence in the generic identity.

¿Narrativas para la guerra o para la paz? La fotografía como diacronía periodística

“…Cohen, realiza 2 estudios. El primero, hace alusión al análisis de lo visual desde la teoría del framing o teoría del encuadre y la relación entre los elementos visuales y verbales en la captura de videos en vivo en dos contextos, el personal y el político (Cohen, 2017). El segundo estudio, destaca el papel de la fotografía en la construcción de la memoria colectiva para los israelís y los foráneos (Cohen, 2018).…”

Jihadist visual communication strategy: ISIL’s hostage executions video production

“…Previous research on Jihadist videos (Al-Ghazzi, 2014; Salem et al, 2008) has not focused exclusively on execution videos, and recent research specifically focusing on ISIL’s execution videos has been restricted either by subject (i.e. Foy, 2015, focused on US and UK citizens’ execution; Friis, 2015; Grebelsky-Lichtman and Cohen, 2016, focused on captive executions), or on time (see Tinnes, 2015, who studied video productions during five months in 2014). Additional research has attempted to address the historical significance of beheading video production (Zech and Kelly, 2015), as well as the relationship between French Revolution decapitations and ISIL’s beheadings (Patruss, 2016).…”

“…Visual communication research has recently investigated religious fundamentalism and its impact on global politics (Grebelsky-Lichtman and Cohen, 2016; Patruss, 2016). Recent transnational phenomena such as ISIL, 1 and specifically the group’s production of execution videos, create a need for better understanding the nexus between multimodal communication and extremist ideology.…”

“…Given that the Syrian Civil War (also deemed the first ‘YouTube war’, Morris, 2013) is the first to attribute a critical role in narrative construction to videos as user-generated content (Smit et al, 2015; Vandevoordt, 2015; Wall and El Zahed, 2015), it is necessary to understand the meanings and function of ISIL’s video production of hostage executions. Recent research has established that hostage videos ‘represent a unique and well-defined communication genre’ and that they constitute ‘an opportunity for disseminating political messages worldwide’ (Grebelsky-Lichtman and Cohen, 2016: 50). The aim of this research is to further the understanding of the inherent nature of the messages spread by ISIL, and the reasons why execution videos are selected as a medium through which to spread these messages.…”

“…This research specifically contextualizes and contributes to the global comprehension of multimodal communication interactions (i.e. visual–verbal–aural, see Grebelsky-Lichtman and Cohen, 2016;) and the role of their explicit discrepancies (Grebelsky-Lichtman, 2016) in framing fundamentalist ideologies. Our research questions are as follows: (1) What are the visual, verbal and aural devices used by ISIL to produce its execution videos?…”