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The Power of Affect in Media

The Affect of Guilt and Shame

Orthentix
9 min readNov 20, 2017

The power of Affect in media is immense and a core reason for artists to create and produce media. To have an affect on the audience, to make them feel the emotional sentiment of the communication or message of the media. Affect, “Derived from the Latin word affectus, is a disposition. Affect is often, but not exclusively, used as a synonym for passion, sentiment, mood, feeling or emotion”. [1]. “It is a pre-personal intensity corresponding to the journey from one experiential state of the body to another experiential state of the body, implying an augmentation in the body’s or the need for an action. The power of affect lies in the lack of form and structure, or abstract. It is affect’s “abstractivity” that makes it transmittable, different to feelings and emotions, and because of this transmissibility, affect, potentially is such a powerful social force”. [2].

The two Affects I want to focus on today are the Affects of Guilt and Shame and the power of these in Digital media as a tool for cultural impact and social change. Dictionary.com, defines Guilt as “feelings of responsibility or remorse for some offense, crime, or wrong doings, whether real or imagined,[3], and Shame as “the painful feeling arising from the consciousness of something dishonorable, improper, or ridiculous, done by oneself or another. Or a fact or circumstance bringing disgrace or regret”. [4]. The following piece of media is an ideal example of use of the Affects, Guilt and Shame in Digital Media. This is a song distributed on Youtube by Indigenous artists, AB Original called January 26. This song brings awareness to the malignity of celebrating Australia day on January 26th, when this is the day that the Indigenous people of this land were killed, controlled and and massacred by the white settlers. The Indigenous peoples of this nation call Australia day Invasion or Survival day, the day they had to learn to survive against the new white settlers, the day they mourn their people and heritiage. “Australia Day is 26 January, a date whose only significance is to mark the coming to Australia of the white people in 1788. It’s not a date that is particularly pleasing for Aborigines,” says Aboriginal activist Michael Mansell. “The British were armed to the teeth and from the moment they stepped foot on our country, the slaughter and dispossession of Aborigines began.” [5]. This piece of Digital media promotes cultural equality and need for social change via the Affects of Guilt and Shame. When I listen to the lyrics I am immersed in these Affects feeling the Shame and Guilt of the suffering and oppression this culture has received over the past 200 years. For all of Australian society to be valued equally we have to change the date!

[5]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tZ9qeX4gUeo

January 26: Lyrics

[Verse 1: Briggs]
They said, “Hey, Briggs, pick a date” (okay)
“You know, one we can celebrate” (for sure)
“Where we can come together (yeah)
Talk about the weather, call that Australia Day”
I said, “How about March 8th?” (that’s a good one)
And we can do it on your Nan’s grave (got that, bitch?)
We can piss up, piss on her face
Get lit up and burn out like Mark Skaife
They screaming, “love it or leave it” (love it!)
I got more reason to be here, if you could believe it
Won’t salute a constitution or who’s underneath it
Turn that flag to a noose, put a cease to your breathing
I can’t get in my whip, I get a ticket for that
I get a DWB, and that’s a ‘Driving Whilst Black’
I turn the other cheek, I get a knife in my back
And I tell ’em it hurts, they say I overreact
So fuck that! (fuck that!).

[Chorus: Dan Sultan & Briggs (Trials)]
You can call it what you want
But it just don’t mean a thing
No, it just don’t mean a thing
(Hey, Briggs!) Fuck that, homie
You can come and wave your flag
But it don’t mean a thing to me
No, it just don’t mean a thing

[Verse 2: Trials]
I said celebrate the heretic anytime outside Jan 26 (anytime)
That’s the date for them suckers doing that sucker shit (that’s true!)
That’s that land-taking, flag-waving attitude
Got this new Captain Cook dance to show you how to move (move it)
How you wanna raise a flag with a rifle
To make us want to celebrate anything but survival?
Nah, you watching tele for The Bachelor
But wouldn’t read a book about a fuckload of massacres? (what?)
I remember all the blood and what carried us (I remember)
They remember twenty recipes for lamingtons (yum)
Yeah, their ancestors got a boat ride
Both mine saw them coming until they both died
Fuck celebrating days made of misery (fuck that)
While Aus still got the black history (that’s true)
And that shirt will get you banned from the Parliament
If you ain’t having a conversation, well then we starting it. [6].

The Affects of Guilt and Shame are particularly noticeable with these lyrics from Briggs, “I said, How about March 8th? And we can do it on your Nan’s grave. We can piss up, piss on her face”. [6]. I would react in the same manner as Briggs, as would anyone if society was celebrating the day my peoples were murdered, by drinking and partying on my peoples land and possibly burial grounds, its a disgraceful act to celebrate Australia Day on January 26.

Briggs and Trials from AB Original use the format of American Hip-hop, as this is the media they consumed and chose to be valuable and part of their identity, but they contextualise the subject matter or narrative from the perspective of a Indigenous youth to bring awareness to the social issues of their people, for example health, incarceration, and deaths in custody, in hope to open up a channel of conversation on a national level where everyone is given an equal voice. Hip hop music is the perfect tool for mass impact in this situation, as it not only models the media that these communities consume, but also represents their point of view culturally and conceptually. Desert Pea Medias’, Toby Finlayson explains “The funny thing about remote Indigenous communities is the stories and media they ingest is predominately mainstream media. They don’t get all the awesome alternative music and the youth-focused conscious media.They get top 40 and very displaced stories from America, so they’re really into urban music, Tupac and Biggie and gangster rap”. [7]. Research has been completed into the realms of Affects and Digital media, with conclusion that the technology not only serves as a channel for the expression of the affections of the people or subjects in the media, but also contributes to model these affections. Society has become accustomed to the conventional use of digital technology, leading to its reveal as the prevailing guise of emotions in our time. [9]. Therefore Digital media in the case of Guilt and Shame, would not only represent these Affects in the Media but also use these Affects to influence and provoke social change in the audience. Hip-hop is taking steps in the right direction, leading with thought, emotion, and not violent action. It is inspirational and can arouse, it can open people’s eyes, minds and Affect them in a way that words on their own cannot, leading to action and impact. It cuts through the noise of the politicians and oppressors, who think they know what it’s like and what people want to hear, with no reality to their convictions. The beat penetrates and breaks down barriers and social divide. The poetry holds onto you and is dispatched to the outside world communicating the shape of oppression and a rallying cry that can advance progress, impacting society due to the power of Affect. [8].

“There’s a massive shame thing for young Indigenous people all over the country, and it comes from a couple of generations of shameful political, social history, and being taught that your culture and your identity is worthless. That confidence to be seen, proud and to tell your stories is not supported enough in Australia”. [7].

[10]. Retrieved form https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RRvTpFec12o&list=RDRRvTpFec12o

The power of Digital media and the Affects of Guilt and Shame in the above example in infinate. This song is called ‘They Took The Children Away’, and was composed by Indigenous Australian artist, Archie Roach and performed by contemporary indigenous Australian artists AB Original and distinguished Australian artist and storyteller, Paul Kelly. The narrative describes the in-justice and hardships that the Australian Indigenous experienced during the times of the ‘Stolen Generation’, when the white settlers took the Indigenous children from the communities and families, as a mis-judgement that they could better serve these children. The Affect in this example is not only immense but also intense. This was filmed as a live performance at the APRA Awards, which is a massive event for the Australian music industry, then uploaded onto Youtube for streaming distribution. Therefore, not only had the power and opportunity to Affect the mainstream music industry but also for this Affect to be consumed by the globalised audience of the internet, making this into a predominantly larger event or aesthetic experience.

“In the realm of the virtual art, art work is no longer an object as such, or not only an object, but rather a space, a zone, or what Alain Badiou might call an event site, a point of exile where it is possible that something, finally, might happen. At any rate art is a place where one might encounter the affect. Such an accessing of the event might involve what Henri Bergson calls attention: a suspension of normal motor activity which in itself allows other planes of reality to be perceivable, an opening up to the world beyond utilitarian interests. Following Bergson we might say that as beings in the world we are caught on a certain spatio-temporal register; we see only what we have already seen (we see only what we are interested in). At stake with art, then, might be an altering, a switching, of this register”. [9].

[11]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=783hwpJTjlo

Art in the context of the Internet has affected the way we experience art by redefining the aesthetic experience or taking this to a new context of the digital age where not everything online is art but everything can be appreciated as art, as it was created or produced by a person in a community for culture and society. A perception immediately produces an Affect within the body, and only later is this Affect transformed into a recognisable emotion. The power of Affect in Digital media is potentially colossal as it has the possibility to reach a larger populace, due to the conventional use of Digital media, the internet and viral sharing. The Affect expressed in the Digital media is what makes it sharable or possibly viral, leading to an opportunity for greater audience reach leading to a larger impact for social change in society.

“Large-scale emotional contagion in the digital realm has another focus of interest in the viral spread of content. This is one subject that has been researched especially in the field of advertising and marketing, where the authors agree that generating emotions via Affect, is a requisite so that a video or song can be shared in the digital realm. As explained by Dafonte, The decision to share a viral video is caused, on the one hand by motivations that have to do with the psychological or emotional needs of the user potentially sharing the clip, and on the other, with the motivations related to the viral video itself. The decision to share a viral video ad stems from the meeting of both these spheres in the individual”. [9].

[12]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3-wMbFntrTo

This final above piece of Digital media from Indigenous Australian artists Briggs, Gurrmul and Dewayne Everettsmith, as a sequel to Archie Roache’s, ‘They Took The Children Away’, this one is ‘The Children Came Back’. This finalises the discussion of the Affects of Guilt and Shame in the media, highlighting and expressing the end goal of healing, connection and equality for all of Australia’s peoples. The power of Affect in Digital Media is exorbitant, creating an impact that leads to transformation through social and cultural change.

Footnotes:

  1. Shepard, Ben. (N.d.). The Chicargo school of media theory: affect [Article]. Retrieved from https://lucian.uchicago.edu/blogs/mediatheory/keywords/affect/
  2. Shouse, Eric. (December 2005.). Feeling, emotion, afffect [Article]. Retrieved from http://journal.media-culture.org.au/0512/03-shouse.php
  3. Dictionary.com. (N.d.). Guilt: definition [Website]. Retrieved from http://www.dictionary.com/browse/guilt
  4. Dictionary.com. (N.d.). Shame: definition [Website]. Retrieved from http://www.dictionary.com/browse/shame
  5. Golden Era Records. (September 7, 2016.). AB Original: January 26 [Youtube]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tZ9qeX4gUeo
  6. Creative Spirits. (N.d.). Australia day — invasion day [Website]. Retrieved from https://www.creativespirits.info/aboriginalculture/history/australia-day-invasion-day
  7. AB Original. (N.d.). January 26: lyrics [Website]. Retrieved from https://genius.com/Ab-original-january-26-lyrics
  8. ABC. (January 27, 2017.). 7.30 with Leigh Sales: Band A.B. Original on their song January 26 [News stream]. Retrieved from http://www.abc.net.au/7.30/band-a.b.-original-on-their-song-january-26/8215742
  9. Turnbull, Samantha. (Feb 1, 2017.). ABC news: Hip hop engages Indigenous teenagers in social change [Article]. Retrieved from http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-02-01/hip-hop-engages-indigenous-teenagers-in-social-change/8229232
  10. Whitt, Greg & Reid-Cleveland, Keith. (N.d.). Uproxx music: Exploring the intersection of hip-hop and social justice [Article]. Retrieved from http://uproxx.com/realtalk/hip-hop-social-justice-intersection/
  11. Serrano-Puch, Javier. (2015.) eEmotions and Digital Technologies: Mapping the Field of Research in Media Studies [Article] . London School of Economics & Political Science, London: WC2A 2AE.
  12. APRA AMCOS. (April 5, 2017.). Paul Kelly with A.B. Original and Dan Sultan: Took the Children Away [Youtube]. Retrieved form https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RRvTpFec12o&list=RDRRvTpFec12o
  13. Nerdwriter1. (Janruary 6, 2016.). How art can transform the internet [Youtube]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=783hwpJTjlo
  14. Briggs. (July 2, 2015). The Children Came Back, feat Gurrumul & Dewayne Everettsmith [Youtube]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3-wMbFntrTo
  15. O’Sullivan, Simon. (2001.). The aesthetics of affect: thinking art beyond representation [Article]. Routledge: England, UK. DOI: 10.1080/09697250120087987. Retrieved from http://www.simonosullivan.net/articles/aesthetics-of-affect.pdf

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Orthentix
Orthentix

Written by Orthentix

Music Producer l Artist l Writer l DJ l Radio Host — Her blogs cover topics of musicology, music production, philosophy & media culture www.orthentix.com

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