User:BrittanieJonidi/sandbox

Image events are staged protests for media dissemination. In our new technological age the spread of visual imagery across mass communications has become a popular way to promote protest and engage public participation. It is a postmodern form of argument involving images that promote protest and seek to stir public controversy. Companies have different communicative tactics for image events. Greenpeace's goal is not necessarily to stop ships from illegal whaling but to get a photo in direct action. Their mission is to get the photos to circulate on different news platforms and allow the public to start debate. Photos get released to the news and when the public is informed they will engage in controversy. Companies can track engagement online and use this data to produce more successful campaigns. Limitation's of image events include unethical campaigns and lack of public engagement, scholars like Richard King have critiqued the organization People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (Peta) for this.

21st century
Technology has become an integral part for the dissemination of messages. Scholars agree that changing public argument is influenced by technology and access to mass media. In the digital age, controversial visual images are replacing memorable words. Barthes relates visual and linguistic's as having influence on each other and in the context of image events this addresses the relation of media text and images circulating online.

Image events as data
Data can be described in different forms and images are a form of qualitative data. Image events can be tracked in real time online through community engagement on media platforms like websites, Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.

Argument in visualizations
Images form an argument of their own. Images can function to make claims, inflict emotions, and alter perspectives. How the audience encounters image events can change how the public views traditional data and information from traditional mainstream media.

Tracking
See also: Data Visualization

Interactions with the content we share can be tracked online for companies to view public engagement. Click path data can be used to track interactions with website cookies that analyze which content is most viewed. . GreenPeace uses surveys and focus groups to track public engagement.

Limitations
When tracking engagement online, data can be easily manipulated. Information disseminated to the audience can lose value when text are used alongside images after they are circulated. The openness of the image becomes lost when text from media sources recirculating the event provide an explanation. Unethical campaigns and lack of public engagement have been linked as a downside of image events, scholars like Richard King have critiqued the organization People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (Peta) for this.

Environmental image events
See also: Environmentalism

Image events were first discussed with an emphasis on environmental protest being captured and disseminated to the public.

GreenPeace
Any images that are copyright of Greenpeace can be used for personal or educational purposes if you reproduce the copyright information. Greenpeace uses vanity metrics to measure campaign engagement through website hits and uses this data to strategize impact. Early Greenpeace activism followed the idea of bearing witness and becoming an actor of change when being exposed to powerful images. Greenpeace uses the website Planet4 as an open source platform to track engagement in a way that encourages transparency and allows the public to comment on image campaigns.

EarthFirst!
In 1981, Earth First! produced an image event to gain attention about the environment by playing a large ribbon across the Grand Canyon Dam.

Political
An image of activist Rachel Corrie protesting in front of a bulldozer with a microphone and images of her burning the U.S flag were circulated across the globe.

Virtual Memorial's as Image Events
The Vietnam Veteran Memorial online has been argued to contribute to the commodified public memory that represents American soldiers in Vietnam as victims.