Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2002/08/01
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]on 8/1/02 8:15 AM, B. D. Colen at bdcolen@earthlink.net thoughtfully wrote: > Not that any of the above should detract from the fact that Vietnam Inc. is > a really amazing, powerful, piece of anti-war propaganda. But your example > provides yet aother example of how documentary photography fails to change > the world. I have to believe that for a culture the size of the United States no single point source of information can cause a radical shift - unless it is of extraordinary impact. 9/11 is an example of such a shift - which appears to be relatively long-lasting: people feel insecure and seem willing to take action to reduce that insecurity. Over the long-haul, however, it's what the intelligence community likes to call a "mosaic" that changes public opinion. Just as no single view of the happening world, as John Brunner called it, can be entirely the truth, perhaps many points of view can present a better view. If this is the case, and I believe it is, then photo-journalism, video documentaries, prose, poetry, the visual arts, and novels all present a rich mosaic that affects the body of the population. I have to think that the Evening News, its images and its content had a profound effect on how the general population of the United States felt about the war in Vietnam. I know it did for those around me. I was in college during that time, and in the Navy. Adam Bridge - -- To unsubscribe, see http://mejac.palo-alto.ca.us/leica-users/unsub.html