Week 4 Assignment (Sophia Mager)

 

1. Are camera images more prone to aiding in memory or forgetting? Is there a best way to “authentically” capture a memory? Or is any mode of memory subjective and incomplete?

The Sturken reading makes really interesting points about how memory is largely subject to change and is, in many ways, fluid. Images are a really interesting mode of memory capture to consider. One of the noteworthy points the piece makes is that, perhaps counterintuitively, images cause forgetting - through the absence of image but also the capturing of one moment, thereby erasing or understating another. This is important in the context of Japan, where images of the catastrophic impacts of Hiroshima, for example, were hidden in government archives until much later. On the other hand, images were important in this time to counteract any negative stereotypes pushed by the government and show the normalcy of all the people held in the internment camps. It is interesting to consider the balance between images showcasing something but also playing a role in forgetting.

2. In what ways do governments cover ups of wrongdoing and injustice perpetuate forgetting and the erasure of memory?

As outlined in the documentary, the government reportedly had intelligence that Executive Order 9066 of 1942 was entirely unnecessary and that there was in fact no Japanese threat on the West Coast. The documentary goes on to highlight the psychological damage inflicted upon 120,000 innocent people, who only four decades later began to gain public recognition and reparations by the government. 

3. The Bishop reading says that journalists “are drawn into a symbiotic relationship with powerful sources of information” (93), and “instead of examining the validity of the government’s claims, journalists…accepted and disseminated the information” (72). What are the implications of blind acceptance? In what ways are journalists responsible for the upholding of racist and harmful sentiments?

The Bishop reading makes many interesting points about journalism, and especially the role journalists played in furthering the government’s post-Pearl Harbor messages about Japanese Americans. The press’ coverage of Japanese Americans was instrumental in perpetuating the lies pushed by the government, and their coverage often coincided with unreasonable and unfounded policy decisions.