As part of our fourth instalment of our ASTU 100A blog posts, we are to look even farther into the discussion of life narratives. As in my literary review, I analyzed how media plays a role in life narratives and global events. Everyone nowadays has some form of social media that is just a few taps away. Easy access, easy distraction, easy information. It is no secret that social media takes away from the now, providing easy escape from human interaction, and, of course, from homework. However, it is also the fastest way out there to spread news world wide. For the better or the worse, media provides information from the here and the now.
The earthquake on January 12, 2010 left Haiti destroyed, taking around 300,000 people with it. After that day in 2010, the media swarmed in, insistent on catching the newest pieces of information about the devastation, focusing on the big pictures rather than the individual stories. Dany Laferrière’s book relays his experiences during, and after, the earthquake, providing a different outlook on how to tell the story of such destruction, along with some of his thoughts about the media. He sees the media as trying to spin their own stories, instead of telling the one that is already so blatantly visible, sharing that “[t]he worst thing about is not this succession of misfortunes, but the absence of all nuance in the camera’s cold eye” (Laferrière 79). As he identifies the motives of the media, he is able to identify his own sides of the story. He is able to see himself as a Haitian and an outsider, documenting his experiences through the eyes of both. While the media generally tends to fit their stories to the interests of the Western societies, Laferrière distinctly strays from that aspect, relishing in the fact that he’s not just a Western pleaser, but also a victim in this tragedy. Through his autobiography, he was able to bridge the relationship gaps between the personal and public, and the personal and historic spheres which had held Haiti at arms length from the rest of society for so long. With the interconnectedness of media and life narratives, it is interesting to see how Laferrière uses his story to and knowledge about the ins and outs of media to share his story.