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Creating the Witness: Documenting Genocide on Film, Video, and the Internet

Online ISBN:
9781452948812
Print ISBN:
9780816676224
Publisher:
University of Minnesota Press
Book

Creating the Witness: Documenting Genocide on Film, Video, and the Internet

Leshu Torchin
Leshu Torchin
Lecturer in Film Studies at University of St. Andrews
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Published:
1 November 2012
Online ISBN:
9781452948812
Print ISBN:
9780816676224
Publisher:
University of Minnesota Press

Abstract

Since the beginning of the conflict in 2003, more than 300,000 lives have been lost in Darfur. Players of the video game Darfur Is Dying learn this sobering fact and more as they endeavor to ensure the survival of a virtual refugee camp. The video game not only puts players in the position of a struggling refugee, it shows them how they can take action in the real world. This book examines the role of film and the Internet in creating virtual witnesses to genocide over the past 100 years. The book asks how visual media work to produce witnesses—audiences who are drawn into action. The argument is a detailed critique of the notion that there is a seamless trajectory from observing an atrocity to acting in order to intervene. According to this text, it is not enough to have a camera; images of genocide require an ideological framework to reinforce the messages the images are meant to convey. The book presents wide-ranging examples of witnessing and genocide, including the Armenian genocide, the Holocaust (engaging film as witness in the context of the Nuremburg trials), and the international human rights organization WITNESS and its sustained efforts to use video to publicize human rights advocacy and compel action.

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