I just finished reading this article profiling Frank Rich of the NY Times (Harvard Magazine, March 2007), and really enjoyed his insights on the power of the visual, especially video. The visual power mostly held by traditional media since the 60's is being scrutinized and debunked through grassroots media more than ever. From the article: “The power of the visual is enormous,” Rich continues. “My generation grew up with Walt Disney building Disneyland. Disney created the idea that you could have an artificial reality, a Main Street, U.S.A., that is spotless and perfect. That has now spread everywhere, from gated communities to towns built according to a planned image. We’ve seen a whole theme-park-ization of society and culture.”... ... the alternative world of “guerrilla media”—like blogs and the on-line video available at YouTube—“have the effect of loosening the establishment’s grip on the control and shaping of information,” Rich says, citing the example of Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney: YouTube has been flooded with viewers seeking the video of his debate with Senator Edward M. Kennedy during a 1994 senatorial campaign in Massachusetts, in which Romney expressed views diametrically opposed to his current positions. “Spin can now be deflected very, very quickly,” says Rich, “not by counter-spin, but by documentary evidence that can be disseminated so quickly and vividly in the new digital world.” If such grassroots media are restoring balance to the marketplace of information, it may be not a moment too soon, because images and the meanings they evoke have become so dominant as to seed the culture with vast distortions, Rich charges. “It’s a cultural pattern now: empirical reality doesn’t penetrate as well as it should,” he says. “I have to hope that given the price we’ve paid in Iraq, as a society we’re going to learn something from this. With the world a more dangerous place than ever, and after the wreckage of the Bush years, America has got to get its act together and address these problems. If we can’t agree on what the facts are, then we have no hope. We need to distinguish between facts and showmanship, facts and propaganda. If you can’t agree on the fact that the house is burning down, you can’t put out the fire.”