Democratised Media in the Digital Age: John Grierson and Travails of Political Propaganda
Jack Haydon Williams
Publication: Volume 4 Issue 2
Abstract | The ideals behind creative freedom often come into conflict with the stark realities of financial interest. Commercial image-making is subject to numerous compromises based on the general practicalities of a project and the financial obligations that sponsorship imposes on the autonomy of the content producer. Comparing the studio-based and state-sponsored models of production with the relative accessibility of today’s creative environment, this article will argue that whilst visual media production has invariably changed for the better in terms of representation, parallels still exist in how democratised media is subject to different levels of creative control. By examining John Grierson’s cinema of social purpose in conjunction with non-specialist digital media, the theory and formal significance of Britain’s Documentary Film Movement will be shown to harbour a contemporary resonance for the digital image-maker. In essence, the argument will examine the importance of immediacy and rapid expansion in film practice and intellectual spectatorship, and will further reveal the structural boundaries that explicitly and implicitly limit a creative’s medium of communication. The conflicted way in which we consider a concept like freedom within the democratic state is exposed by the means by which we can distribute our images of said state. By broadly examining the formal, philosophical, and political analysis of the idealised state, democratised media will be defined as an imaginative practice inherently stimulated by the misrepresentative forces of idealism.
Keywords | Documentary, Propaganda, Idealism, Democracy, Freedom, Free Will, Digital Media, Neoliberalism, Abstraction, Nationalism, Ethics, John Grierson, Hegel, Chomsky, Steyerl, Cinema Studies
Jack Haydon Williams (jackhwilliams46@yahoo.co.uk) is a PhD graduate from the University of Aberdeen, Scotland. He specialises in cinema studies and the practice-as-research study of British documentary. He has created a number of film projects that examine the influence of Scottish documentarian John Grierson on media production in the 21st century, exploring how his theory and cinematic canon resonate with the sociological potential found in digital filmmaking. His passion for creative expression has him directing, writing, editing, and scoring all his films.