Page 68 - Courting the Media Contemporary Perspectives on Media and Law

The Fate of the Iconic Sign: Taser Video 59

What are we looking at in Taser video? First, it is plain vanilla video -- we
are not looking at MTV – we are looking at something that appears
documentary and ―unedited,‖ if by ―editing‖ we mean complex juxtapositions
that arise from putting together video clips to tell a story or clips that have
been stylized through the use of video effects generators, whether aided by
transitions or not; the cut itself is a carrier of meaning. This is a data stream
with moving pictures and sound [Tasercam]. While it may run continuously
from the moment the video is turned on, it does not provide much context
about what was going on prior to deployment and nothing about what happens
after the Taser is turned off. The camera is attached to the gun so that viewers
are treated to what might be touted in another context as the ultimate
immersive first-person shooter experience, where the point of view the viewer
assumes is not that of the eyes of the officer above the gun, but that of the gun
itself -- lower down in the visual field, more a part of the action and less
connected to the head of the operator. Viewers can feel this disconnection
from the head, it is a visceral view. This point of view puts us in the action, not
just standing back and thinking about it; it seems to turn the standard trope of
photographic observation, particularly photojournalism, as non-intervention,
on its head. [Sontag, p.11]
Looking with the barrel of the Taser, we are not only there but our looking
itself is carrying out the action -- extreme action; pain is being inflicted.
Beings are subdued and brought under control, seemingly with the glance of
our eyes. We can see them fall and hear them cry out. Subsequent events do
not appear on the video snippets that are currently available. The actual
wounds, the actual pain, from the use of the Taser (or other stun devices) for
the most part leave no marks. It is what Darius Rejali has termed ―violence
you can‘t see.‖ ―Out of sight is out of mind. Niccolo Machiavelli once advised
princes to use stealthy violence because people will get less alarmed. He said,
‘in general, men judge more by sight than by touch. Everyone sees what is
happening but not everyone feels its consequences.‘" [Rejali]
So on the one hand the viewer is invited into the action as its agent and on
the other oddly distanced from the consequences of that action because the
viewer sees no visible wounds on the body, no blood, no broken bones, no
sounds of direct body contact that would be made if someone was hitting or
stomping on the victim. The person deploying the Taser can stand back
without personal risk as the other is temporarily immobilized and seemingly

widespread deployment of Taser technology can read a note arguing for municipal liability
for NOT supplying officers with these weapons.[Nevins]‘