Visibility suggests
that we can solve societal problems
by exposing and publicising them. The concept is from sociology, touted by media theorists such as John Thompson, and
is maybe the most widely-employed (and ironically under-discussed) tactic for problem-solving of
perceived social issues in the first world. It holds a privileged place over and above, for example, direct
political action, which is perceived as confrontational, aggressive, and
potentially destructive. This
is mainly to do with its ability to initiate change without widespread disruption.
Visibility maintains the social order whilst suggesting a
slight adjustment - not enough to overthrow government, but nevertheless enough
to generate tiny instability necessary for change. The approach is that the
system is capable of self-correcting through a mechanism involving public and
private dialogues and the 'fourth estate', the media, which is responsible for selecting, through the editing process, dialogues that will advance society. This idea has been in place
since the mid 20th
century with Habermas’ ‘Public
Sphere’ and his demarcation of a shift from a “representational” culture to one
of Öffentlichkeit,
but also predates him with much theory related to media systems, most of which
discuss the nature of visibility in some form or another. Exposure is, after
all, a key role of the media.
Its
adoption as a key method of problem-solving today is problematic. If one were
cynical, one might suggest that merely making a problem visible today, in an environment of 'crisis
proliferation', is not enough to cause any kind of meaningful change.
With this proliferation
occurring hand-in-hand with an
overwhelming explosion of image culture - lives exposed on Facebook,
invasions of privacy by the NSA among many others, and an endless stream of
well-meaning causes flooding your life... visibility
becomes rather a means, this
imaginary cynic would suggest, to give the appearance of progress
without ever having to undergo any actual authentic transformation on the part
of the individual. In street-level terms, just because I walk past a beggar
every day, doesn't necessarily mean, when my attention is finally drawn to
their existence, that I will act on it, either personally or at a ballot box. The main point about visibility
seems to be that it is totally not working. See all those images of melting ice
in the newspaper? Not exactly compelling anyone to act, are they?
