Orgad, Shani. Representation and the Global Imagination.
McAnany, Emile
Orgad, Shani. Representation and the Global Imagination. Malden MA:
Polity., 2012. Pp. xiii, 230. ISBN 978-0-7456-4379-3 (cloth) $69.95 ;
978-0-74564380-9 (paper) $24.95; 978-0-7456-8085-9 (e-book) $19.99.
This book is another attempt to understand how the growing flood of
images and stories in the wide variety of media available to people can
impact their imaginations in such a way that the explanation avoids the
Scylla and Charybdis of either complete domination or complete
resistance on the part of recipients. The author wishes to explore the
expanding reach of representations to a global audience and its supposed
consequences. She is careful to note, however, that she has no intention
of dealing with audience reception in the book, but rather to stick with
an analysis of representations themselves. The other claim in the book
marks it off from many previous such studies in that she focuses on the
role imagination plays in this process. The major referents in this are
Castoriadis (1975) and Appaduri (1996) from whom the argument takes its
inspiration, at the same time from a global audience perspective. The
book also argues that the representations with which we are constantly
surrounded from a variety of media contain both positive and negative
inflections but that they also contain contestations of accepted
meanings. Finally, the author finishes the Introduction with a quote
from Stewart Hall (recently deceased master of this arena) that
"there is no law which can guarantee that things will have
'one true meaning'... work in this area is bound to
interpretative--a debate between not who is 'right' and
'who is wrong' but between equally plausible, though sometimes
competing and contesting, meanings and interpretations" (1997).
The main analysis chapters are devoted to what the author calls
"imagining others" (Chapter 2) through natural disasters from
the 1755 Lisbon earthquake to the 1985 African famine to the 2012 Haiti
earthquake; "imagining ourselves" (Chapter 3) representations
of nation to others by examining the riots in the poor suburbs of Paris
in 2005; "imagining possible lives" (Chapter 4) about
migration; "imagining the world" (Chapter 5) by analyzing the
New Year's celebrations broadcast on CNN and other smaller
celebrations; and "imagining the self" (Chapter 6) with four
examples of how media news tries to personalize major stories with one
or two people as stand-ins for the entire group. Chapter 1 is a review
of literature on which the analyses are based; and Chapter 7,
conclusions.
Orgad lays out both premises and challenges in the literature of
representation in the first chapter. Citing both the "mimetic"
and "constructivist" approaches, the author clearly opts for
the constructivist approach (citing Hall again) and reviews the work of
Thompson, Foucault, and Said. The concern about power is central to
these analysts and is adopted by Orgad. The author does not, however,
simply leave the discussion at that but makes it clear that both the
domination and the active audience approaches are valid but not
exclusive. The explication of the Global Imagination is extensive and is
undoubtedly the main contribution of the book. It argues for an
understanding of how people are able to grasp the events and people who
are "at a distance" from themselves on both a cognitive and
affective level.
Of the analytical chapters that follow the literature review, there
is a somewhat uneven level of insight. The first on natural disasters is
familiar to many readers and draws them in so that they grasp the issue
of how people far from disasters are drawn into the reality of the
experience. This has both positive and negative consequences: a sympathy
and desire to do something to help as well as the danger of stereotyping
and distancing. The third chapter concerning the representation of a
nation also seems both familiar and persuasive. Dealing with the French
riots in the poor ethic suburbs of Paris in 2005, readers will grasp the
issue of how national and international representations might differ and
what that might lead to in terms of political sensitivities, yet both
add to the understanding of what the riots "mean." The chapter
on migration also is familiar and the binary representations by both
sides in the U.S. (pro- and anti-immigration) are understandable. But
the author contends that the complexity is not well represented by
either side. For the first time in these chapters, Orgad suggests that
the new media like Twitter and Facebook blur and enrich the
simplifications of other media representations. Chapter 5 on the CNN
broadcast of New Year's celebrations around the world also appeals
to readers' own experiences with this phenomenon. The analysis is
somewhat predictable in that these are "media events" that are
long on spectacle and clearly reductive and market driven. The other
examples of local celebrations are clearly different but the conclusion
of the chapter is less convincing. The final analytical chapter is
perhaps the least satisfying because it tries to make a point of how
other peoples' individual stories make ourselves the object of the
story. Orgad uses four examples that do not seem to hang together and
the conclusion seems somewhat labored.
The book has chapter notes, and extensive bibliography and an
index.
References
Appaduri, A. (1996). Modernity at large: Cultural dimensions of
globalization. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
Castoriadis, C. (1975). The imaginary institution of society.
Cambridge: Polity.
Hall, S. (1979). Representation: Cultural representation and
signifying practices. London: Sage.
--Emile McAnany
Santa Clara University
