This paper examines state’s adoption of activist’s visual strategies in order to promote and legitimize its own narratives. Specifically, it looks at the Israel Defense Force’s (IDF) new Combat-Documentation squad—a military force that trains soldiers as both fighters and photographers—as a case study. Based on interviews with seven former members of this unit, the paper shows how IDF has responded to the surge of eyewitness media online. It contends that IDF’s use of social media as a key platform to promote its own narrative reflects the growing centrality of the digital visual landscape as an arena in which struggles over information power unfold. Thus, the emerging visual practices by the military can be better understood as a contemporary means of state weaponization of information rather than a transparent vehicle for the advancement of justice.
“In one hand they hold a camera and in the other, a gun” is the tagline of the new squad. The understanding that the camera and the gun are both useful combat weapons emphasizes how militaries are developing strategies to operate in today’s media environment. Following the 2012 Israeli “operation pillar of defense” in Gaza—another war in which Israel’s human rights violations were exposed to the world by Palestinians, activist groups and international media—visual documentation was expanded from an exclusively home-front-based film unit to include the realm of the combat field.
Activists worldwide have generally supported state’s adoption of visual technologies (for example, activists’ support for police use of body cameras) because of their potential to enhance transparency and state accountability. Underpinning the reasoning for these initiatives is a deeply ingrained belief in the ability of images to serve as a transparent documentation record that could potentially expose wrongdoings. Similarly, IDF’s initiative was welcomed by some Palestinians and activist groups. These trends, though, should make us pause for a moment.
Not only has visual information been long weaponized as a tool of governmentality, control and surveillance (e.g., Tagg, 1988; Mirzoeff, 2011; Parks, 2018), but also the conditions of what constitutes state power have changed significantly with the rise of digital information technologies (e.g., Price, 2015). In this sense, states' attempts to gain control over visual information creation and distribution is not surprising. The findings of this study, then, shed light on the nature of the visual practices implemented by the IDF, which is learning how to tap into key public platforms where activists have thus far been relatively successful in enhancing narratives of resistance. The analysis shows how instead of being a means for advancing transparency, the camera in the hands of combat soldiers is becoming a weapon on par with others.
Mirzoeff, N. (2011). The right to look. Critical Inquiry, 37(3), 473-496.
Parks, L. (2018). Rethinking media coverage: vertical mediation and the war on terror. New York, NY: Routledge.
Price, M. E. (2015). Free expression, globalism, and the new strategic communication. New York: Cambridge University Press.
Tagg, J. (1988). The burden of representation: Essays on photographies and histories. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press.