Freedom Tower workers go up on a lift as a U.S. flag waves in the foreground. (photo by Shannon Stapleton for Reuters)
“…You are looking at the miracles and missing the meaning behind the miracles.” –Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright
Guerrilla decontextualization is a somewhat ungainly term that falls more out of line than in line with similar coined phrases such as: guerrilla marketing, guerrilla filmmaking, or guerrilla street artist. These comparable terms have in common ideas of creative expansion or independent expressiveness.
Guerrilla decontextualization on the other hand belongs on the more sinister lexicon family branch of the term guerrilla warfare. It can be defined as the practice of extracting such elements of media technology as video clips, sound bites, and manipulated images for largely two purposes. One would be to intentionally misrepresent an individual’s character or intentions in order to decrease any measure of influence or authority they might possess in either public or private circles. The second purpose would be to make the individual or organizations utilizing such practices appear more powerful, concerned, or knowledgeable than they actually are. Moreover, although the technology aspect of guerrilla decontextualization is often a dominant element, other factors can sometimes override it.
Another way of defining it would be this: the act of taking specific incidents or facts regarding an individual’s or organization’s life out of their original narrative context and imposing on them an outright false or greatly exaggerated narrative context with the hope of causing the subject of said narrative as much damage as possible. One significant example of guerrilla decontextualization during the 2012 presidential election campaign, though obviously not promoted as such, was actually a throwback to the 2008 campaign. It happened when a super PAC group of republican strategists attempted to reignite the controversy over remarks made by Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright, Jr., President Barack Obama’s former pastor, during an impassioned sermon on abuses of governmental authority.
Confusing Sermons with Terrorists
To read the full post by Aberjhani please this link:
Guerrilla Decontextualization and the 2012 Presidential Election Campaign (Part 1 of 3) | Aberjhani | Blog Post | Red Room.
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