Hartley, J. (2004). “The Frequencies of Public Writing; Tomb, Tone and Time” In Jenkins, H. And Thornburn, D. (Eds) Democracy and New Media. MIT Press, USA, PP 247-269.
Hartley is addressing the concepts of mediation with particular attention to Time and in turn the time/space axis. One of his key concepts is that of the “Wavelength” he defines the experience of time in wavelengths, High, Medium or low. He seems to use “frequency” and “wavelength “ interchangeably however. All public writing have frequencies, and he further positions news /journalism as high frequency public writing. Within Journalism there are varying degrees of frequency. High covering the instant, hour, day week and possibly month, Mid as Month, season, quarter and year, and Low as generation, century, millennia. This was particularly informative to how I experience media in my everyday life.
The first time i considered this concept was not an everyday occurrence , but 9/11 highlighted the frequencies of media for me. When the twin towers fell I was on a plane at JFK airport. We saw the second tower fall from the windows of our plane which had been grounded and stuck on the runway for more than an hour. As soon as we could get off the plane, everyone was anxious to find a TV, to know what was happening, to obtain some meaning. However as we had been stuck on the runway for some time, the instantaneous live and continuous coverage had been going on for some time. I kept feeling like I had been watching for ages and I still did not know what was happening. I felt like they were talking about all this stuff I had missed out on. But in this type of news event there is an expectation from news media that you will watch continuously and that you will create your own meaning from the pieces of information, because the frequency of the telecast is the vital thing, not the provision of journalistic integrity. Only some days later did we start to see some sort of coherent summary of facts or theories, a possible meaning. Some years later I began to consider frequencies of images. I actually saw one of the towers fall, but for the life of me its hard to recall that image, the one I am stuck with is the one we all saw over and over again. I remember the official image. The frequency of that media image has altered my memory of my real time experience . My perception of the event is now the same as yours. This mediation of the event has created a community of people with shared experience.
By examining the different wavelengths or frequencies circulation of news media in particular, Hartley demonstrates that there has been a shift towards high frequency journalism. He argues this shift can be exemplified by shift from modernism to postmodernism. This argument employs his concept of a gatherer technology, which establish new “we” communities via new technologies of the public that are post-modern: commercial, private, volatile, migratory, dispersed and aimed at cultural identities not well served by the public sphere – for instance, the young, women, ethnic minorities and “foreigners” .” p263 .
Hartley furthers his argument by locating democracy in terms of citizenship and sovereignty in the realm of space the nation. The assumption here is that the nation is primarily spatially defined by its borders and location, a modern definition. It has been well argued among many Post modernists academics nations are a social constructs. However, Hartley argues that the what the technologies of democracy (print media, political parties and parliaments) did was to create the sense of the nation, a space of citizenship. He uses the concept of Hunter technologies to describe one of these democratic technologies “News media hunt out the alien and criminal among the population” P 263.
These arguments for me only started to have bearing once I also considered other frequencies in various public contexts as he describes them, such as frequencies of Knowledge, Meaning. This is where I start to understand the value and power we ascribe to different knowledge’s, and the different meanings we make from there. Here it starts to get post modern. His final argument is that looking at the shift in journalism from spatial (national) to temporal (network) communication , we need to consider time in terms of his concept of frequencies of media . These frequencies determine the shape of the public and their identities of individuality and community. There has been a shift from Territory to community, Rights/Duties to ethics/Practice, National unity to individual responsibility. This shift shows that democracy is not dying, but may have only migrated to a postmodern era, a faster, time-based one.
The concept of nationalism has always been dubious to me because it has always appeared so constructed . I have never felt particularly patriotic and fervently resist being told to feel sorry for Channel 9’s “little Aussie battler” and therefore appreciative of their renovations, just because it is rooted in a concept of the Anzac and mateship, fundamental concepts to the creation of our nation after ww1. I prefer the post modernist approach where my individual responsibility, ethics and practice can form the commonality of the community in which I identify myself. I will define my nation thank you very much.
Tags: 911, arts1090, Citizenship, democracy, F13B, frequency, mediation, Time
