Media Evidence

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In the book, Unfair by Adam Benforado, he addresses how the flawed judicial system effects how things are adjudicated by covering such things as the use of media as evidence. It has been promoted as a type of neutral evidence that shows things in an objective and neutral manner and has even been used and accepted by the Supreme Court to decide cases for or against you.

First and foremost, we are all human and we are all subjected to human frailties. Example, “At any given moment, our race, gender, age, profession, politics, religion, the time in which a person lives, the culture and social culture in which a person is raised and lives, the power relations or power dynamics of social connections, i.e., family, friends, associates (tribal connections, etc.), the person’s sensory input modes such as sight dominance or tactile dominance, etc. their internal environment, the social external environments and then their perceptions as to movement (theirs and others), how they therefore read body language especially facial along with tone of voice and word intonations, etc. effects perceptions and perspectives in a unique way.” - Compilation of Mr. Benforado’s quote and mine.

In another source, an article by Wim Demeere on “Framing Videos,” he presents some interesting comments and theories on how we are affected by how the video, and that would include photo’s too, can be framed to convey an agenda coloring how those who watch said video or view said photo to come to a conclusion that may or may not be true or even factual.

Here are a few more quotes from his excellent book that convey how this effects the so called neutral and objective manner we assume means factual evidence, i.e.,

“When we watch a video, listen to a recording, or look at a photograph, we feel as if we are viewing things in an objective, neutral manner. But then, not everyone does see things the way we do. We operate under the illusion that reality enters our brain through our senses unfiltered.”  - Adam Benforado, Unfair

“If different people with different backgrounds and identities can look at the same events and see very different facts, is it also possible that the same person can look at the same events and see very different facts depending on how information is presented? Humans can forget, get confused, or lie and yet all of us assume that a photograph or video provides us with an accurate record of exactly what happened.”  - Adam Benforado, Unfair

“We assume that photo’s and/or video’s present a neutral, unfiltered account of events but we either forget or just don’t know that the photo and/or video are effected by how the particular camera angle or viewpoint influences the shot that changes the way we make sense of the scene displayed by the photo and/or video. We, humans, get caught up in what we are seeing (much like watching movies and/or television drama’s), without considering how we are seeing it or what we might be missing. All of our seemingly neutral media hold the potential to bias assessments of what transpired and who was to blame.”  - Adam Benforado, Unfair 

I liken this effect to the movie and television industry, an industry that works on drama and how they can influence your feelings all in the name of ratings and therefor profit. We are fooled into thinking time is condensed into a mere one and a half to two hours. We feel and believe that weeks and months pass, all within a movie’s two hour run.  

This movie and TV effect permeates our very existence and that influences those video’s and pictures that the legal system and social communities believe strongly as neutral and objective and irrefutable as evidence of legal wrong doing, or if you are lucky, as legal justification in actions taken in self-defense, etc. 

Nothing is as it seems and to blindly accept media as irrefutable neutral objective truth is a mistake. I also give example that when you have a line of twelve individuals where the first has some factoid whispered into their ear with instructions to pass it on in the same manner where the results coming out the other end tend to be different exists. I cannot tell you how many emotional discussions I have had with friends about a movie we watched where we all thought we saw something we would have assumed all of us perceived as “The same.” 

Framing uses these frailties of human nature to work in an agenda, usually a media agenda to sell stories through emotionally driven drama methods. It warrants remembering the old saying, “Buyer beware or Viewer Beware!”

Bibliography (Click the link)