The ABC of Tactical Media Response
This week's reading, David Garcia and Geert Lovink's The ABC of Tactical Media, introduced me to the term "tactical media". While I first understood tactical media to be synonymous with alternative media sources, it seems that it has more to do with interventionist ideals and media art activism. After gaining a further understanding of what this term means, it was easier to relate it to artists I know of, such as Eva and Franco Mattes, who use the democratization of media access to subvert and critique the dominant public media order.
Although I can understand tactical media as it is described here in terms of the 1960s counterculture or the homogenized and exclusive nature of media in the 1990s, I would argue that tactical media manifests itself in different ways now that people across the world online are being given a platform through social media. I can't help but draw similarities between tactical media and online "trolling" of larger media groups. Examples that come to mind are interviewees on live television saying crude and inappropriate things, the creation of parody accounts of our president, or websites like The Onion that are meant to generate virality through misinformation. Although media giants continue to monopolize information, ordinary people online have found increasingly creative ways to infiltrate and ridicule these media giants. Although decentralized "hacktivist" groups like Anonymous might be lacking in the aesthetic art portion of tactical media, I believe they may fall into this category. Do you think these groups qualify as tactical media?
"The ABC of Tactical Media." Garcia, David; Lovink, Geert. pp. 1-3. Published May 16, 1997.
Although I can understand tactical media as it is described here in terms of the 1960s counterculture or the homogenized and exclusive nature of media in the 1990s, I would argue that tactical media manifests itself in different ways now that people across the world online are being given a platform through social media. I can't help but draw similarities between tactical media and online "trolling" of larger media groups. Examples that come to mind are interviewees on live television saying crude and inappropriate things, the creation of parody accounts of our president, or websites like The Onion that are meant to generate virality through misinformation. Although media giants continue to monopolize information, ordinary people online have found increasingly creative ways to infiltrate and ridicule these media giants. Although decentralized "hacktivist" groups like Anonymous might be lacking in the aesthetic art portion of tactical media, I believe they may fall into this category. Do you think these groups qualify as tactical media?
"The ABC of Tactical Media." Garcia, David; Lovink, Geert. pp. 1-3. Published May 16, 1997.
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