When I going through posts on the archive tour, Michael previous post about Safe Area Gorazde has an interesting perspective on the presenting of truth. As I argued in my blog post, the journalist should present the truth in the news to the public in whatever situations. However, Michael point out the scene in the prologue which we also discussed in class. When the men approach to Joe and Edin in a bar, he claim he knows the “real truth”about the war. However, Sacco said in the end that he do not want to contact with the guy. The reason that Sacco despise the man because is nearly impossible for present the reality by a single person. The memory of one’s state is easy to accept within the group of people who stand at the same viewpoint. So an individual interpretation might not seems reasonable for others because they are not wear “the same pair of shoes”. Therefore, Sacco gain his understanding of the war by interviewing different people in order to record multiple perspectives and forming a objective view. He is trying to restore the historical event by interviewing variety of people who were witness the events from their own angle of view just like putting pieces of puzzles to integrate a large image. Sacco doesn’t claim he hold the absolute truth about the war, instead he plays a third-party role in the book to preserve the original words of the interviewees and give them most of the space to advocate for their stories.

by Jackson

As I went through all the great blogs written by our class, I take a pause on AJ’s blog on “Safe Area Gorazde”. I’m surprise that he makes the connection between his passionate field as Journalism and Joe Sacco’s work. Joe Sacco is definite a role model for him to get the insight of what does the journalist do. But there is a tiny section in the book that give my a moment of shock as AJ mentioned. Is when Sacco hang out with Edin, Whit and some others the bar, the guy named F who sit just beside Joe pour his anger at him. Character F mad at Joe because he is an American Journalist who did not report on what happened in Srebrenica. In my opinion, the guy acted irrationally might because he was drunk but the anger also reveal some truths which relate to public opinions on journalism(journalists).

In Nowadays, more ofter the news could not convey a neutral position while interpret certain situations to its audiences. This let me recall what Dr Erickson always joke about in Politic class that people who always listen to Fox’s News is forming a “fixed direction” to perceive things happening around. On another hand, when journalists record of news, their discourses and body language must be decent and professional, which means no casual language or swear words. Now you guys now what I talking about, the hilarious video played in our sociology lecture is a great example for reveals the differences between “real” news and “fake” news. (Jonathan Pie)

Come back to the right track, is quite difficult follow objective and neutral positions for journalists while they presenting news, especially under the pressures such as from their supervisors or even political parties. However, is necessity to present the reality because it is crucial for the vast public to intake these information and forming a healthy interpretative community via medias. (technologies of memory)

JACKSON

The title of Fiona’s post “Colour…where are you?” really catch my interest to read about her post.Fiona argues in her blog about how black and white images which applied by Satrapi have more power to expressing traumas. I’m agree with her arguments, because Satrapi once said that if those violences scenes had been drawing with color then it will looks pretty unrealistic, on a interview which quoted in Chute’s essay. In my opinion, color black and white is the sharpest contrast in spectrum. That’s probably why most of our official/ formal paper must be written with black on plain paper instead of other pair of colors combination such as blue and yellow.Artists using these two colors in their works can manipulate readers’ attention to where they want you to see. Chute also point out Satrapi is not only good at drawing comic but also the techniques which she use to control the visualization of readers. Personally I consider long-standing of black and white comic(graphic narrative) won’t be extinct from public eye and it will continue to competing with another from of arts in society.

Hello to all  ASTU classmates,

It is being a busy week for me because some of my classes were doing fast this week, but anyway, we had finish reading of the comic book “Persepolis” by Marjane Satrapi and it gives me different images of Iran in 1980’s which are depict from a “10 years old” child’s perspective. In the past, my impression to Iran depends on a few superficial conclusions such as: Islamic states, internal war, corrupted government, aggressive civilians etcetera. However, this comic book had totally torn down my bias on Iran and make me realized that  people have the same human natures throughout the world although they might suffer under wars or reforms.

As the Class Bloggers this week, I read some of our classmates’ blogs and many of you talk about “Persepolis” and you all did a great job to analysis and connect it to your personal experiences. Some of the classmates have the same view as me about the illustrations in the book which are very powerful and eyes-catching. Harnoor is one of our classmates who especially good at drawing, talks about illustrations in the book from her professional view. Harnoor expressed that the black and white pictures are simplicity but it reflects strong emotions with assistance from texts. Another fellow classmate, Ben also has resonance on the drawing of “Persepolis”. He particularly mentioned about the style which Satrapi did on the drawings of mass dead (bodies) are very uniform and spiritual which make readers enhance their feelings while they are looking at the picture.

When I reading through the chapters, I had recognize many familiar terms or words relate to other classes in the Global Citizen stream, mostly the Politic Science lecture by Professor Erickson. I found many ideologies or political concepts appear on our politic textbook which are repeat in the comic . Benny in his blog pointed out the philosophy theory from Derrida that we learned on Politic lecture. Benny claimed he is an absolutely different person before starts reading “Persepolis” than after. In the past, we always received negatively news or images of Iran as a nation by local media. However, the book had totally switch my impressions of the whole country after I finish reading it.

In the end, this childhood story of a young girl Marji show not all people are evil and cold blooded mankind in the unrest regions around the world. They are all made of flesh and body. Despite the religion, Iranian has very similar things that we have, Bars, Bilingual schools, traffic congestion. Families over there also do party, drinking, listening to punk music. And most importantly we both share the same emotions when certain thing happened. The loves from Marji’s family members such as her Grandma, parents and maid recall many my own childhood memories within my families. I start to realize I’m grown up from such stable society and safe community compare to many in Iran. Although Marji’s family was live under the tremendous unrest and horrendous war against with Iraq, it seems like they always able to find happiness and confidence back after every sorrow happened. The story did torch to the mind of a 18 years old adult (me) and as USA Today commented on the back cover: “A mighty achievement [and] an inspiring coming-of-age story. ”So now it might be a good time to let myself into a deep think of my own journey of life.

Jackson Chen