skip to main content
US FlagAn official website of the United States government
dot gov icon
Official websites use .gov
A .gov website belongs to an official government organization in the United States.
https lock icon
Secure .gov websites use HTTPS
A lock ( lock ) or https:// means you've safely connected to the .gov website. Share sensitive information only on official, secure websites.


Title: Pixel politics and satellite interpretation in the Syrian war
The pixel is a fundamental element of contemporary visual culture, with pictorial and perceptual properties that affect the interpretation of the digital composition as a whole. Despite its importance, however, the pixel remains a neglected object of analysis in cultural sociology and critical media studies. To advance a framework of pixel studies I present a hermeneutical approach. Empirically, I focus on the pixel’s political and socio-technical dimensions through satellite images of violence in the Syrian conflict zone (2011–2017). Through interviews and observations, I study the satellite programmers, technicians, archeologists, and anthropologists who comprised an interdisciplinary effort to interpret satellite pictures of archeological damage and other forms of cultural violence during the war. Their interpretations, some of which were the basis for consequential decisions by US policymakers, involved isolating as few as two pixels on the screen. To explain what this entailed, I draw on theories from Alberto Romele and Don Ihde to situate the pixel within a hermeneutic circle through which satellite images were ‘read’ at different levels. My findings have implications for broader sociological and media studies critiques of the epistemic status of digital media in light of their deep interrelations of politics, technology, and people.  more » « less
Award ID(s):
1754992
PAR ID:
10386482
Author(s) / Creator(s):
 
Publisher / Repository:
SAGE Publications
Date Published:
Journal Name:
Media, Culture & Society
Volume:
45
Issue:
1
ISSN:
0163-4437
Format(s):
Medium: X Size: p. 19-35
Size(s):
p. 19-35
Sponsoring Org:
National Science Foundation
More Like this
  1. Optical imaging through scattering media has long been a challenge. Many approaches have been developed for focusing light or imaging objects through scattering media, but usually, they are either invasive, limited to stationary or slow-moving media, or require high-resolution cameras and complex algorithms to retrieve the images. By utilizing spatial–temporal encoded patterns (STEPs), we introduce a technique for the computation of imaging that overcomes these restrictions. With a single-pixel photodetector, we demonstrate non-invasive imaging through scattering media. This technique is insensitive to the motion of the media. Furthermore, we demonstrate that our image reconstruction algorithm is much more efficient than correlation-based algorithms for single-pixel imaging, which may allow fast imaging for applications with limited computing resources. 
    more » « less
  2. Beswick, K; Morony, W (Ed.)
    Digital Mathematics Storytelling is a construct I’ve used to elicit mathematics stories within multiple communities in multiple countries. The framework, based on the idea counter-storytelling, has come from multiple iterations of digital mathematics storytelling workshops from youth and mathematics teachers. In this paper, I reflect on what I’ve learned about the power of storytelling for connecting mathematics to community, cultural, and family identities. But I have also seen how digital media can become weaponized, particularly in the ways it has created a new form of consumerism. In this paper, I make the argument that digital mathematics storytelling not only helps to elicit narratives around mathematics identity, but also helps forge a new critical digital media literacy within our field of mathematics education. 
    more » « less
  3. Digital Mathematics Storytelling (DMST) is an innovative educational approach that leverages the power of storytelling to connect mathematics with community, cultural, and family identities. Through this method, educators help youth and teachers develop critical digital media literacy, addressing the educational and societal impacts of digital media as well as fostering mathematical exploration. This poster presents the ways that a DMST workshop for youth who have recently migrated to the U.S. (voluntarily and involuntarily) opened up space for the exploration of mathematics, digital, and cultural identities and literacies as connected to the ongoing aftereffects of colonization. 
    more » « less
  4. Misinformation causes serious harm, from sowing doubt in modern medicine to inciting violence. Older adults are especially susceptible—they shared the most fake news during the 2016 U.S. election. The most intuitive explanation for this pattern lays the blame on cognitive deficits. Although older adults forget where they learned information, fluency remains intact, and knowledge accumulated across decades helps them evaluate claims. Thus, cognitive declines cannot fully explain older adults’ engagement with fake news. Late adulthood also involves social changes, including greater trust, difficulty detecting lies, and less emphasis on accuracy when communicating. In addition, older adults are relative newcomers to social media and may struggle to spot sponsored content or manipulated images. In a post-truth world, interventions should account for older adults’ shifting social goals and gaps in their digital literacy. 
    more » « less
  5. News media structure their reporting of events or issues using certain perspectives. When describing an incident involving gun violence, for example, some journalists may focus on mental health or gun regulation, while others may emphasize the discussion of gun rights. Such perspectives are called “frames” in communication research. We study, for the first time, the value of combining lead images and their contextual information with text to identify the frame of a given news article. We observe that using multiple modes of information(article- and image-derived features) improves prediction of news frames over any single mode of information when the images are relevant to the frames of the headlines. We also observe that frame image relevance is related to the ease of conveying frames via images, which we call frame concreteness. Additionally, we release the first multimodal news framing dataset related to gun violence in the U.S., curated and annotated by communication researchers. The dataset will allow researchers to further examine the use of multiple information modalities for studying media framing. 
    more » « less