Blog Post: Justin Iwata

When I called for questions at the end of our presentation, I expected to be dismissed. I expected to get a polite applause, maybe a nod from my peers and professor for an analysis that was nothing special. What I got, however, was a question directly accusing me and my fellow group members of being bias, unethical, and slanderous. I was asked when I had last traveled to Beijing, who my sources were, and what gave me the right to choose images of China that did not reflect the progress China had made. Immediately the tension in the room became tangible, the atmosphere suffocating.After taking a hard gulp, I tried to explain to my classmate that we chose these images because frankly they were the first to queue when I Googled China and the Olympics, or they were the images that were included in the BBC, CNN, and the Wall Street Journal articles we used. I further tried to explain that our presentation merely tried to explore and analyze the image management behind China and the Olympics, and to discuss what images were being reproduced, synthesized, and manipulated to codify public opinion. We, I stated, placed no value ascriptions and took no stance on whether this process was benevolent or malign, true or false. But as I am sure you have guessed, this would not cut the mustard.

I was quickly rebuked for choosing images of China that she believed unfairly portrayed the People’s Republic as she exclaimed that our sources were bias because “BBC and CNN lie!” While I still disagree with her last statement, I do understand her concern. Susan Sontag author of Photography, accurately points out the widespread belief that the “genius of photography lies in its ability to render an objective portrait…so that the photographic result shall not be encumbered with subjective intention”, or more commonly put a picture cannot lie. Therefore, when we see a powerful image of a place, a person, or an action we take that image and we make it the truth. We allow that image to create a pseudo environment, a duplicate world which we believe to be more truthful than the world we experience through our five senses.

The Olympics are typically a time of fanfare, jubilance, and goodwill amongst all participating nations - but not this time. China has undergone immense scrutiny and received considerable criticism on issues both international and domestic. To support these negative campaigns the media has flooded the public with stories and anti-China images. After reflecting on this, I now understand the pain, the anger, and the mistrust that my peer was expressing. To her it did not matter what my intentions were. What mattered to her was that I took these images to be true, reproduced them for a larger audience, and in doing so codified an image of the People’s Republic that in her mind was not true. She understood the power of those images, the emotions they engendered, the truth they would inevitably create, and I helped this process along.

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