By Kevin Kirner

Before receiving mainstream media coverage, the Occupy Wall Street (OWS) movement of late 2011 relied on the presence of citizen journalists and the prevalence of cameras to bring the demonstrations in lower Manhattan and around the globe to a wider audience. Untold hours of footage were captured. Demonstrators streamed footage to the internet in real time as well as uploaded clips to YouTube after the fact, while some footage still undoubtedly languishes unseen in obsolete smartphones and hard drives. Stylistically, the content on YouTube ran the spectrum from “unmediated” raw footage to professionally produced media packages and documentaries (especially once mainstream news networks began to cover the story) to hybrid remixes incorporating multiple stylistic elements. A piece’s position on that spectrum reflected content and ideology, which in turn influenced and implicitly and explicitly politicized methods of creation and production and even distribution. Every clip, no matter its positionality, reflected an authentic actuality indicative of the clip’s creators and its cultural production. Using different (and sometimes overlapping) stylistic, thematic, and production techniques, the clips allow for the creation of discrete historical knowledges.

“Raw” footage sits at one end of the spectrum of OWS footage uploaded to YouTube. Primarily focused on demonstrations and interventions with disruptive potential, these clips attempt to allow the viewer to emotionally experience the situation “on the ground.”

Protesters Clash with Police During Wall Street March, Violence & Arrests @ #occupywallstreet

In this mode, filmmakers present the footage straight from the camera, with no mediation apart from editing within the clip and the framing of the YouTube interface, including any written description the uploader might want to include. Unlike traditional docu-journalism, no reporter introduces viewers to the situation or interprets the actions portrayed therein.

Police Brutality – Times Square – Occupy Wall Street – 15 OCt 2011

The clips show a ubiquity of cameras through the crowd, blurring the lines between journalists and demonstrators, indicating the necessity of video coverage for the OWS tactics to function. Demonstrators seem conscious of the performative quality of their tactics; however, the performance itself is not enough. Documentation and distribution of the action is required along with another performance–that of the viewer. Without the “performance” of the viewer, none of the action functions or will have its intended effect. Viewers allow the demonstrations to disconnect from their specific temporality and physicality, increasing their ability to influence opinion and shape the political creation of the protest’s narrative.

Sick Deranged NYPD Police Mace Peaceful Woman at Occupy Wall Street Protest

Using Eric Barnouw’s modalities of documentary, the “raw” footage seems to function within his “observer” mode, where clips present events as they happen.[1] In this mode, the camera happens to be present to capture an event or action unfolding in real time. This footage would also align with the tradition of “citizen journalism” (CJ). Jay Rosen provides an apt definition: “When the people formerly known as the audience employ the press tools they have in their possession to inform one another, that’s citizen journalism.”[2] The filmmakers fulfill that role by using their cameras, smartphones, and YouTube to distribute footage of the events occurring. Additionally, as Richard Junger points out, CJ stands in contrast to “fortress journalism,” relying on a “two-directional flow of information [between creators and viewers]” and functioning as part “of American political and social culture much longer than Twitter, YouTube, or mobile phone cameras.”[3] However, the ideological nature of the filmmakers and the tactics used position the pieces “more closely with Barnouw’s ‘catalyst’ and ‘guerilla’ methods, where documentarians use their presence to influence or provoke a reaction.”[4] “To inform” is not the only goal of the filmmakers; their advocacy and desire to influence viewers is present both within the footage and in the decision to make the footage publicly available via YouTube.

In addition to and building upon the CJ tradition, these creators’ styles and production methods also connect to the alternative video movement of the 1960s and groups like Raindance Corporation, Videofreex, and People’s Video Theater. These groups sprung out of the introduction of easily portable and reusable videotape and began to provide a counterpoint to corporate news production and its centralized nature. The reason for their stylistic tendencies was twofold. As Stephanie Tripp describes, “the production practices adopted by these groups grew out of their countercultural affinities as well as the affordances of the new technologies.”[5] The accessibility of equipment helped to democratize production practices and also imbue specific practices with political meaning, regardless of the videographer’s intention. “Under the guerrilla model… stylistic innovation assumes a political role, even if it is not employed to convey any openly political message.”[6] Anything done in contrast to traditional production styles becomes, by default, connected with (or a signature for) an alternative mode of production. And in the instance of the raw OWS footage, it stands against corporately produced media, thereby associating its “on the ground” vérité style with the aims of the protestors. Style, production method, and content all become politically and ideologically linked.

Viewing habits on YouTube also diverge from mainstream news consumption. According to a 2011-12 Pew Research Center report, “YouTube is a place where consumers can determine the news agenda for themselves and watch the videos at their own convenience–a form of ‘on demand’ video news.”[7] The à la carte nature of viewership and the YouTube platform’s ability to account for personal choice gives consumers much more control over what they choose to watch. While technological advances in production methods and equipment began the democratization of news, the platform on which it is consumed has had a far greater decentralizing effect. Additionally, while “the most watched topics on YouTube did not differ much from the news agenda of visual mediums in the mainstream press during [2011 and early 2012]” there were some exceptions.[8] Notably, “protest… was the second most popular topic on YouTube but was not among the leading subjects on network evening news.”[9] Demonstrators determined OWS constituted a newsworthy event, saw a lack of mainstream coverage, and decided to broadcast themselves using the tools available to them.

But if scenes of protest are some of the most watched content on YouTube and the OWS scenes in particular show the ubiquity of cameras, how might the footage be affected by that dialectic? Protest is what the audience wants to see (and they’re not getting it on the evening news), so other filmmakers are going to step into the gap. The actions portrayed, therefore, become performed with the acknowledgement that they are being created for distribution–that they are being done for the purpose of being watched. If, as Thomas Cripps claims, “everyone knows that the perfect source is the one made for the fewest eyes,” how might viewers interpret ostensibly “raw” footage created via a tacit agreement between demonstrators and filmmakers?[10] Is the authenticity or actuality of events portrayed somehow undermined by this tension?

However, the presence of digital tools, such as cameras, smartphones, and internet distribution actually provide a different level of authenticity to the viewer. As Sarah Pink points out, individuals are increasingly using digital devices and tools to mediate their own lives and interact with their environments.[11] The presence of cameras at street level in the “raw” footage reflects that reality. If demonstrators experienced the protests through a smartphone screen or a camera viewfinder, the viewer’s relationship to the events actually becomes closer to the demonstrators’ experiences. The viewer’s interactions with the screen mimics the the protester’s interaction with his/her environment via a camera or smartphone. The fact that demonstrators carried out these actions with an express purpose for consumption and viewers are now consuming them provides an additional, if complex, layer of authenticity, played out through distribution and consumption via YouTube.

These decisions regarding style, content, and distribution have several effects. Without an interpreter and told from street level, the clips allow viewers to draw their own conclusions about events occurring “on the ground.” They introduce the physical textures of the actions–cameras shaking, police shouting, mace spraying. They also incorporate the mediating qualities of the digital tools used by demonstrators. Told in first person, they reflect the democratic nature of the evolving documentary tradition, giving coverage and agency to those who would not otherwise have it and removing production and the creation of narrative from the hands of established media outlets and conglomerates. Finally, this raw footage provides a ready-made archive for future historical investigations of OWS, ready for context and analysis.

However, without the overt presence of a human interpreter or mediator as found in “traditional” documentary accounts, the “raw” footage does not explicitly acknowledge the mediation provided by camera framing and non-linear or elliptical editing. Without that voice, contextualization and framing must exist within the editing or externally, in a clip’s description. Because of this, the framing comes from stylistic cues, sometimes requiring viewers to posses additional literacy with the form to decode. Furthermore, the exclusive point of view denies competing interpretations of the events, turning the evolving democratic nature of the documentary tradition on its head with the unquestioned authority of the filmmaker. Usually, a “raw” footage clip is the work of one individual who functions as cameraman, editor, uploader, etc. The democratization of media occurs on aggregate, in the whole of YouTube. But on the individual, granular level, the pieces revert to authoritarianism as a creator’s point of view is privileged above all others. While the phenomenon is not exclusive to “raw” footage accounts, the collective nature of traditional film production (especially corporate news media) typically soften the edges of any one individual’s point of view. Additionally, like all archives, YouTube is not immune to concerns about curation and organization. And due to its nature as a digital tool, it may contain an inherent ideology within the structure of its data and operating system.[12]

Standing in contrast to the “raw” footage produced by individuals, YouTube also contains many professionally produced documentary accounts from mainstream news organizations. These were either broadcast on their cable and network channels and then posted to YouTube afterward or only uploaded to YouTube with no commensurate broadcast.

Al Jazeera English, Fault Lines – History of an Occupation and Occupy Wall Street: Surviving the Winter

These pieces contain multiple multiple traditions. The first part of the Al Jazeera English (AJE) piece relies on existing footage, similar to Barnouw’s “chronicler” mode and its usage of archival newsreel footage.[13] Much of the footage incorporated was most likely the work of demonstrators acting as citizen journalists, catalysts, and guerillas. The second part relies on a reporter’s on-screen mediation and interviews, acting at times like a tour guide and at others like a war correspondent. The shift in style between the two halves is revealing–in telling the history of OWS to the present moment, they had little footage captured by their own cameramen and reporters to include, supporting OWS’ assertion that mainstream outlets were slow in covering the protests. Here, YouTube functioned firstly as an archive and secondly as a distribution platform, providing images to illustrate AJE’s voiceover text, then publicizing the finished product.

RT Documentary, American Spring: Occupy Wall Street

In contrast to the AJE piece, the Russia Today (RT) Documentary film does not include an on-screen reporter, instead allowing the roaming camera to provide the images from the ground. Informants directly address the camera in interviews; the cameraman’s voice asking questions is edited out from the finished piece. Interestingly, American Spring borrows the “on the ground” aesthetic of the “raw” guerrilla-style footage, providing a stylistic legitimacy and authenticity to this representation of the demonstrations. While acknowledging the cameraman’s presence as a performative actor in the situation, the piece maintains more objective distance than the “raw” footage, making the tone clear–this filmmaker is not associated with the demonstrations. However, the usage of both the “on the ground” and “raw” footage by traditional media outlets, especially without voiceover mediation, allows those outlets to attempt to co-opt the style and therefore the message, to give their own broadcast an additional level of truth–that of authentic experience in addition to its traditional televisual authority.

In considering these pieces, Barnouw’s “advocate” mode, specifically its focus on “probing issues,” may fit, apart from his focus on propaganda (though an agenda is present).[14] The interviews, especially, could position the documentarist as historian or anthropologist engaged in an ethnographic tradition. In addition to “chronicler” with usage of “raw” footage, they also contain elements of “observer,” “rejecting the role of promoter” in telling the story of the OWS demonstrations.[15] However, the stylistic purity of these pieces may matter less to viewers than their content. As the Pew Research Center report describes, a “merging of styles” is occurring on YouTube, as organizations “incorporate citizen documentary  in its raw form as part of their news content. Citizens… lean toward being documentary eyewitnesses, but in sizable numbers are turning to journalistic storytelling… And consumers seem comfortable moving from one style of video to the next–viewing based on the news event rather than on the entity providing the video or the format used to produce it.”[16] The fluidity, adaptability, and appropriation shown by traditional news outlets begins to blur the lines of Barnouw’s documentary traditions.

Both pieces show an attempt to find one person in the demonstrations to help explain the nature of OWS’ collective action to the viewer. Traditional news production seems to struggle with the idea of direct democracy, seeking out and willing itself to find a power structure containing elites. In this instance, traditional docu-journalism may not have the vocabulary to describe or is struggling to translate the mob into informational modes it knows how to relay to viewers. Consequently, their struggle begs the question–can the hierarchical nature of traditional journalistic production effectively explain, present, or show the concerns of a political movement like OWS? The skepticism with which many traditional news media outlets viewed the demonstrations reflect the way in which these news organizations viewed the world–their ideology–which in turn influenced their production methods and difficulty explaining the phenomenon of OWS.

As a result, these news organizations fell back onto what they understood best–themselves. Both these filmed pieces and other written journalism at the time showed a fascination with portraying the media team put together by OWS.[17] [18] With an almost child-like curiosity, mainstream news outlets seemed amazed at the ability of OWS to control and disseminate their message, implicitly suggesting a propagandistic relationship between the individuals manning the Twitter feeds and Livestream channels and the events on the ground. However, by falling back to their realm of familiarity and focusing on the OWS media team, the mainstream outlets gave a rare window into how news media constructs narrative. As a side effect, the comparison between what the OWS media team was doing and what the professionally produced pieces were doing became clear: both pushed a narrative agenda.

This comparison becomes most explicit in a third type of representation. In this style, considered a “remix,” filmmakers edit together existing clips from guerrilla footage, professional news productions, classic films, archival newsreels, interviews, public speeches, music, sound effects, and more.

Noam Chomsky Videos, Occupation Nation “An Occupy Wall Street Documentary” (FULL)

In Occupation Nation, framing and interpretation is provided by “olde-timey” intertitles, not voiceover or an on-screen reporter. By including “documentary” in the film’s title, it’s clear what tradition in which the creators want it to be considered, though the remix style finds classification difficult by Barnouw. With its focus on combining “fragments of actuality,” it echoes the films of Dziga Vertov, who Barnouw places in the “reporter” mode.[19] But where Vertov’s work was mainly an individual endeavor, the remix mode is a collective production effort (even if the creators of individual clips had no knowledge of the future recontextualization of their work). By its appropriative nature, the remix borrows (or steals) from many different styles and pieces, incorporating disparate cinematic and journalistic traditions. Additionally, because the remix derives its meaning and emotional response through the collision and juxtaposition of images and traditions, it connects more readily with Sergei Eisenstein’s theory and practice of montage. Furthermore, it aligns with Eisenstein’s belief in the inherently political nature of cinema; where Eisenstein’s films advocated for communism, the OWS remix addresses inequality. OWS ideology carries through to the production method of the remix, relying on collective democratic usage of image and sound.

Additionally, the remix turns the concept of archival newsreel footage on its head. Instead of using existing clips for their informative content, it treats the news broadcasts as a primary source, ripe for cultural and social analysis through the surrounding clips presented and the audio’s counterpoint. By providing images of what was happening “on the streets” next to reactions from “official” sources such as pundits and politicians, the remix asks viewers to consider both images in a new context, undermining “official” meanings and narratives. By including multiple sides, the remix can allow for a broader historical context surrounding the demonstrations.

While the remix mode may allow for historical contextualization, its address is overtly political, with absolutely no question of its point of view. It relies on those politics in the mode of production, leading to another type of authenticity in its representation. The editing techniques used grants the piece the ability to show its position rather than explain it in words. However, contradictory voices are only presented in a manner that instantly renders them ineffectual, primarily through editing strategies. While it’s obvious about its politics, some viewers may discount its message simply because of that ideology. Additionally, the remix technique requires a degree of media literacy and skepticism typically not asked of the viewer by traditional docu-journalism. The remix asks viewers for different levels of engagement, both emotional and intellectual, to connect with its message.

While these three styles and methodologies of documentary do not comprise the entirety of OWS representation, they provide a framework through which to consider the content, production techniques, and ideology embedded within the clips and films. Because of the demonstration’s focus on documentation and the accessibility of YouTube, a myriad of footage exists, exponentially more than other protest acts occurring since the introduction of film and digital cameras. With these pieces, method, style, and content all inform each other, creating necessarily politicized films. Additionally, because of easily accessible filming equipment and, more importantly, the rise of YouTube as a distribution platform, viewers have the choice of consumption. Because of the “two-directional flow of information,” viewers now perform a different role within the creation of documentary accounts.[20] This interaction between viewer, filmmaker, content, style, and production method creates and reflects political and ideological realities, leading to different historical understandings of social and cultural movements.

[1] Eric Barnouw, Documentary: A History of the Non-fiction Film (New York: Oxford University Press, 1974), 231-253

[2] Jay Rosen, “A Most Useful Definition of Citizen Journalism,” Press Think, July 14, 2008, http://archive.pressthink.org/2008/07/14/a_most_useful_d.html.

[3] Richard Junger, “An Alternative to ‘Fortress Journalism’? Historical and Legal Precedents for Citizen Journalism and Crowdsourcing in the United States,” in Alec Charles and Gavin Stewart, eds, End of Journalism: News in the Twenty-First Century, (Oxford, GBR: Peter Lang AG, 2011). Accessed July 7, 2016. ProQuest ebrary.

[4] Kirner, “YouTube Response,” (HIST 442) June 15, 2016.

[5] Stephanie Tripp, “From TVTV to YouTube: A Genealogy of Participatory Practices in Video” in Journal of Film and Video 64, no. 1-2 (2012), http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.5406/jfilmvideo.64.1-2.0005.

[6] Ibid.

[7] Pew Research Center: Journalism & Media Staff, YouTube & News: A New Kind of Visual News, Pew Research Center, July 16, 2012, http://www.journalism.org/files/2012/07/YouTube-the-News-A-PEJ-Report-FINAL.pdf.

[8] Ibid.

[9] Ibid.

[10] Thomas Cripps, “Film: The Historians’ Dangerous Friend,” Film & History: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Film and Television Studies, Vol 5, No 4, Dec 1975, https://muse.jhu.edu/article/402924.

[11] Sarah Pink, Doing Sensory Ethnography, 2nd Edition, (Los Angeles: Sage, 2015), Ch. 6.

[12] Tara McPherson, “Why are the Digital Humanities So White? Or Thinking the Histories of Race and Computation” in Debates in the Digital Humanities, http://dhdebates.gc.cuny.edu/debates/part/4. McPherson is concerned by the opaque nature of how operating systems function and the potential for them to posses or act an ideology.

[13] Barnouw, 198-212.

[14] Barnouw, 139.

[15] Barnouw, 231.

[16] Pew Research Center, http://www.journalism.org/files/2012/07/YouTube-the-News-A-PEJ-Report-FINAL.pdf.

[17] Sam Schlinkert, “The Technology Propelling #OccupyWallStreet,” The Daily Beast, Oct 6 2011, http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2011/10/06/occupy-wall-street-protests-tech-gurus-televise-the-demonstrations.html

[18] Alysia Santo, “Occupy Wall Street’s Media Team,” The News Frontier, Oct 7, 2011, http://www.cjr.org/the_news_frontier/occupy_wall_streets_media_team.php.

[19] Barnouw, 61.

[20] Junger, “An Alternative to ‘Fortress Journalism’?”