Description

Immediate dispatch from Somerset. Nice book in great condition. Pages in excellent condition. No notes or highlighting. See images. Fantastic book.

About the book >.>.> There is a text accompanying the photograph which tells us the family is part of an aboriginal community watching television in a remote part of Australia on the edge of the Tanami desert. It also suggests that their culture is under threat from what these people are doing and notes that the community have set up their own broadcasting organisation – the Walpiri Media Association ‘to try to defend its unique culture from western culture. Knowing this we will probably read the picture in a certain way. inferring a domination from the image. The picture can thus quickly be grasped as representing cultural imperialism. What follows is an attempt to understand what kind of domination is registered in images like these. In fact the picture invites us to see the television itself as the focus of domination. Its baleful light dominates the scene; all (or most) attention is fixed on it. The accompanying text speaks of Dallas and silentions Century… beamed to the Australian deserts by satellite”. But is it what the people are seeing that threatens their culture? Does imperialism lie in the contents of foreign programmes? If so how does this influence work? The screen appears to be blank; we can’t see what the people are watching. But doesn’t this blankness also signify our incapacity to know how alien texts are read and the cultural effects they may have? What are these people thinking as we view them as we might ourselves so easily be viewed gazing at the shining monster? (LL)