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Session Submission Summary

Theme Interactive Poster Session: Images, Immersions, Investigations: Plurality of Perspectives on Hong Kong’s Umbrella Movement (2 Posters)

Sat, June 11, 17:00 to 18:15, Fukuoka Hilton, Grand Foyer

Session Submission Type: Panel

Abstract

Language constrains the way we speak; images shape our mind; and mainstream media are in the hands of the dominant; however, protesters in social movements voice out and attempt to gain the means of spectacle through social media.

Our panel aims to draw on a plurality of perspectives to study communication power. Our presenters from diverse backgrounds and disciplines approach social movements from the perspectives of visual communication, ethnography, film studies, and journalism. We attempt to understand how protesters, researchers, filmmakers and journalists can make a difference in democracy through communication.

Umbrella Movement and the Protesters:
Focusing on Umbrella Movement in Hong Kong, one of our presenters will discuss how the protesters reconstructed the hand gesture from the movie, The Hunger Games, as a symbol of resistance from the perspective of visual communication.
Protesters are often being referred to as a homogeneous mass; to challenge this, one of our presenters, from an ethnography perspective, immersed in the environment of the Umbrella Movement and has endeavored to understand the heterogeneous views of the protesters. In the proposed panel session, he will also discuss the limitations of doing ethnography regarding language and cultural barriers.

The Representation:
How are the protesters and Umbrella Movement represented? More importantly, how can we, as filmmakers, journalists and researchers, represent the Movement and its protesters? One of our presenters will demonstrate how Kracauerian cinematic realism can be used as a framework in interpreting his own experimental documentary film on the Umbrella Movement. Drawing on a different documentary mode, another presenter covered Umbrella Movement by focusing on the protesters’ voice. They will both discuss how filming and editing are in the documentary film’s artistic and communicative developments.
How do social media affect the way of news gathering and dissemination in the midst of Umbrella Movement being unfolded? Our presenter will expound on this topic from a journalist's perspective by looking at spatial shifting, visual maximizing, news-value identifying and event-orienting.

The Connection:
Social movements happened in different places. To broaden our discussion, one of our presenters has conducted a comparative study of social movements, composed of Umbrella Movement and its counterpart in Pakistan. In the proposed panel session, he will identify shared patterns and context-specific differences.

Our panel provides an innovative session format. In addition to paper presentations, we have video presentations - excerpts of the two documentaries filmed by our presenters will be shown to illustrate how image functions to archive and to inspire. Together with our presentations drawing on different perspectives, we enable a cross-disciplinary dialogue on Umbrella Movement in particular and social movements in general.

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