Abstract
The chapter dwells upon the original research on the subject of analyses of aspects of international political communication employing the prognostic function of audiovisual media. Shown is certain, lesser-studied effectiveness of creative approaches and “artistic filter” in the field of political science. The author considers the problems and stresses on advantages of the use of narrative fiction audiovisual works as additional empirical sources in the research of international political communication.
TopBackground
When it comes to prediction, two recent works are still dominating public consciousness: Nassim Nicholas Taleb’s The Black Swan: the impact of the highly improbable (2007), as well as Nate Silver’s The signal and the noise: Why so many predictions fail, but some don’t (2012) reshaped the common opinion that predictions are either blind guesses or highly complicated analytics, providing new and improved models of how predictions work. At times controversial, such models were at times rather controversial (Callahan, 2008), but overall found steady following in wide circles. It is interesting to pinpoint a similarity with which Taleb’s book arrived in Russian-speaking region, very much reminiscent of 1967 case of J.R. Pierce’s book: it was also several years late and it also had a mistranslated title which replaces ‘the impact of highly improbable’ with zodiacal, fatalist and sensationalist ‘under the sign of unpredictability’. Essentially, while ‘communication’ in 1967 was replaced with ‘information exchange’ due to unfamiliarity with the term, twenty-first century Russia ironically deforms the title not for it to be understood better, but for a better marketing shtick.
What was, however, left intact was a universal concept of noise, which, as was already stated in Chapter 1 has very similar meanings across theories of international political communication, communication in general and prediction. To exemplify noise further we may return to an example of Geto Boys song ‘Damn it Feels Good to be a Gangster’, drawn previously in Chapter 4. Could it be considered as a legitimate prediction of first ever African-American President of the United States, given that as far as 1992 it had an African-American rapper portray POTUS vocally? That hardly would be a viable solution, considering that the song was written even earlier at an unspecified point in the 1990’s and mentions rather specific events that could be tied easily to cocaine craze of 1980’s. Retroactive pairing of the song with the footage of Barack Obama might strengthen the allusion, as well as confirmation bias regarding prediction. However, in this particular case what happened could just be called logical noise: we can totally see the logic behind pairing which happened naturally within the popular culture, however actual analytical elements were almost totally out of the process. It might seem rather similar to ‘le sens obtuse’, however in actuality it is similar as a form of inversion: whilst ‘le sens obtuse’ clearly states certain degree of critical deliberation put into creation of the scene/moment despite discerning the meaning is a hard-to-impossible task; logical noise is an opposite, in which logical deliberation was deliberately put into process with little to no meaning, an analogue, of sorts, of surrealism or Dadaism.
Key Terms in this Chapter
Donetsk: Industrial city in Eastern Ukraine, located on the Kalmius river. Formerly known as Aleksandrovka, Hughesovka, Stalin, Stalino, Yuzovka. Since 2014 and of the time of publication remains in the zone of the war conflict and a disputed region between pro-Russian separatists and Ukraine.
Mimesis: A term used in philosophy and literary criticism carrying a wide range of meanings including: imitation, nonsensuous similarity, receptivity, representation, mimicry, the act of expression, the act of resembling, and/or the presentation of the self.
Ryle, Gilbert: British philosopher. (b. August 19, 1900 – d. October 6, 1976).
Romano, Marco: A Sammarinese experimental filmmaker, director, writer and actor. Primarily works on YouTube platform. (b. April 4, 1994).
CW Television Network (The CW): American free-to-air television network, operated by The CW Network, LLC, a limited liability joint venture between The CBS Entertainment Group, ViacomCBS and Networks division of AT&T’s Warner Media. Founded on January 24, 2006.
Plethora: Large, excessive amount of something. Derived from a biology term meaning excessive amount of bodily fluid, usually blood.
Quasi-Concept: A concept which might be lacking in formal backing due to treating scientifically understudied areas. (Jenson, Harrison & Prange-Gstöl, 2013).
Renaissance: Period of European history characterized by transition from Middle Ages to modernity. Roughly covers fifteenth and sixteenth centuries.
Internet Movie DataBase (IMDb): Online database of information related to audiovisual content, owned and operated by IMDb.com, Inc., a subsidiary of Amazon. Originated by Col Needham in 1990 as Usenet group ‘rec.arts.movies’. Moved to Internet in 1993.
San-Marino: Microstate in Southern Europe, completely enclosed by Italy. Officially known as the Republic of San-Marino.
More, Thomas (Sir): An English philosopher, lawyer, statesman, Renaissance humanist. (b. February 7, 1478 – d. July 6, 1535).
Hologram: An image (sometimes quasi-three-dimensional) made with the use of light diffraction.
Universal Code of Movies: Authors term for an unaccounted complex of universally understood instruments of non-verbal communication, which is used commonly and perfected by audio-visual media, such as movies/films, television, web video, etc.
Anti-Mimesis: Philosophical position opposing Aristotelian mimesis, with ‘life imitating art’ being a key concept. One of the main proponents was Oscar Wilde.
Life Imitates Art: See anti-mimesis.
Sammarinese: Citizens and people of country of San-Marino.
Anxiety: Feeling of uneasiness and worry, usually generalized and unfocused as an overreaction to a situation that is seen subjectively as menacing.
Arrowverse: Media franchise and fictional ‘multiverse’ (system of alternate fictional universes), encompassing as of 2020 several dozens of TV series, feature films and short films based on DC Comics characters (Adler, Berlanti & Kreisberg 2015; Akil, 2018; Berlanti, Guggenheim & Kreisberg, 2012-2020; Berlanti, Johns & Klemmer, 2016; Berlanti, Johns & Kreisberg, 2014; Berlanti, Johns & Goldsman, 2018; Berlanti & Johns, 2020; Bilson & De Meo, 1990-1991; Cerone & Goyer, 2014; Certo, DeWoll, Guggenheim & Mericle, 2013; CW, 2015; 2016a; 2016b; 2017; 2018; Dries, 2019; Geda, Tucker & Guggenheim, 2017; Guggenheim, 2015-2017; Spaulding & Geda, 2017-2018; Spaulding, Berlanti, Certo, Guggenheim, Hernandez, Aldrich & Geda & Register, 2018) and having numerous others incumbent as ‘parallel earths’ (Ayer, Roven, Suckle, 2016; Burton, Hamm, Skaaren, Guber & Peters, 1989; Burton, Waters, Hamm & DiNovi, 1992; Carver, Amir & Dalzine, 2018; Corrado, Kim, Levine, Levitz, Parker & Rasaphangthong, 2015; CW, 2015; 2016a; 2016b; 2017; 2018; 2019; Dauberman & Verheiden, 2019; Donner, Puzo, Verheiden, Newman D., Newman L., Benton & Spengler, 1978; Gough & Millar, 2001-2011; Jenkins, Heinberg, Roven, Snyder D., Snyder Z. & Suckle, 2017; Kalogridis, Giuliano & Horwitz, 2002; Kapinos, 2015; Lester, Donner, Puzo, Verheiden, Newman D., Newman L. & Spengler, 1980; Martinson, Semple & Dozier, 1966; Sandberg, Gayden & Safran, 2019; Schumacher, Batchler L., Batchler J.S. & Goldsman, 1995; Schumacher & Goldsma, 1997; Semple, Dozier & Horwitz, 1966-1968; Singer, Dougherty, Harris & Adler, 2006; Snyder Z., Goyer, Nolan, Roven, Snyder Z., 2013; Snyder Z., Terrio, Goyer, Roven & Snyder D., 2016; Snyder Z., Terrio, Whedon, Berg, Johns, Roven & Snyder D., 2017; Wan, Johnson McGoldrick, Beall, Cowan & Safran, 2018; Yan, Hodson & Kroll & Robbie & Unkelees, 2020; CW, 2019).
Stus, Vasyl: A Ukrainian poet, literary critic, translator and journalist. Active member of the Ukrainian dissident movement in USSR. His works were banned in Soviet Union and he himself was imprisoned until his death in Perm-36 (see). The Donetsk National University (relocated to Vinnytsia) is named after Vasyl Stus (under variant name Vasyl’ Stus) since 10 July 2016. (b. January 6, 1938 – d. September 4, 1985).
Tumblr: American microblogging and social networking website. Founded by David Karp in 2007.
Photosensitive Epilepsy (PSE): A form of epilepsy in which seizures could be triggered by visual stimuli forming patterns, oftentimes flashing lights, bold, regular or moving patterns. Affects approximately one in four-thousand people (5% of overall epileptic population).
Ghost in the Machine: British philosopher Gilbert Ryle's description of René Descartes' mind-body dualism as introduced in former’s book The Concept of Mind (1949). Theorizes the existence of mind independent to that of a body.