Dispatch from the war zone: Kyle Chayka on the effects of using social media to document war

Social media platforms are another front in 21st century warfare, and people have increasingly turned to them to narrate and share their personal war experiences. From Syria to Ukraine, images and videos circulated on YouTube, Twitter, Facebook, and TikTok have chronicled the human impact of conflict in real time. In this essay, Kyle Chayka analyzes how these glimpses affect both those in the war and those watching it online.

Kyle Chayka, "Watching the World's 'First TikTok War,'" The New Yorker, 3 March 2022

 

1. How do war videos circulated on social media help “create a sense of intimacy” between those in a conflict and those watching it? Focus on one TikTok video example from the war in Ukraine included in the essay. How might the feelings and sense of intimacy created by this video affect the various stakeholders in the conflict, such as civilians in Ukraine, people outside of Ukraine, governments, or corporations?
   
2. What are two major drawbacks to using a social media platform like TikTok to share and consume information about a war, such as the conflict in Ukraine?
3. Chayka uses metacommentary to organize his argument for his readers. Review the metacommentary templates listed in Chapter 10. Find an example of metacommentary in Chayka’s essay that you think works particularly well. What does this metacommentary do for Chayka’s readers? How does it enhance his writing?
4. In his essay, Chayka references the work of Susan Sontag, an American philosopher who wrote about the politics and ethics of war photography. Watch this short interview with Sontag, in which she reads a passage from her 2003 book, Regarding the Pain of Others: “We truly can’t imagine what it was like. We can’t imagine how dreadful, how terrifying war is; and how normal it becomes.” (3:17) What strikes you as important in this passage or interview? How do you think Sontag might respond to Chayka’s essay? Do you think there is a meaningful difference between traditional war photojournalism and broadcast news and the user-generated videos and images shared on social media? Why or why not?

Comments

[Chole48]

On the impact of social media like TikTok on war, I agree with Susan Sontag in the article that photos have a deeper meaning than videos when it comes to documenting war, and that a photo taken at the scene can be remembered for generations. I remember seeing Robert Capa's The Falling Soldier in my history book when I was in elementary school. That was the first time I had a visual understanding of war and death. To this day, I still can't forget the soldier falling backward with a bullet in his body in the picture. But the traditional way of reporting on war, in which war correspondents walk on the edge of death, is also dangerous. According to what I learned online, Robert Capa was killed in Vietnam. Capa's ultimate sacrifice in Vietnam The way people receive news has changed dramatically, with the growth of social media such as Tiktok. In World War II, people learned about the war on the radio, and in the 1960s, people learned about the Vietnam War through the evening news on TV. And now, we can learn about war news through social media at anytime, anywhere. While short videos are faster than traditional reports from war correspondents, they are also full of fake news. For example, when a residential building was shelled in Chuguyev, eastern Ukraine, on Feb. 24, Anadolu Agency photographer Wolfgang Schwan took a picture of a wounded person at the scene. The photo was soon made into a video and went viral on Tiktok. However, some media outlets pointed out that the photo was not taken in Ukraine but was an old photo taken during a gas explosion in Magnitogorsk, Russia, in 2018. This lack of credibility is not a minority opinion. There are Various fake videos are flying around on TikTok. For example, the rumored video of the Kyiv Ghost battle that shot down six Russian fighters in one day is, miraculously, a scene from the air combat simulation game Digital Combat Simulation. There is also the video of the Ukrainian soldier who moved countless netizens to say goodbye to his girlfriend in tears, which is a clip from the movie "The War of Chimeras."

[Tiana & Deana]

Accessibility to the internet has given the world brand new means to document current events. As illustrated in the article above it’s been used to document the Ukraine war. Direct videos from the people experience the horrors of war uploaded straight to social media for people to see exactly as it is happening. On one hand, it is a incredible insight into what war actually is and looks like, but on the other the social media aspect has lead to people faking videos that spread misinformation about what is really going on. In the digital era everything is digitized, progress, political information, your interests, and war too. It’s the beginning of a whole new era of how we see and receive information from events. Although the traditional photographic journalism is still very much a part of how we see the world, social media is minute by minute, real time, live journalism. Unfortunately, as said previously, it is hard to know what is real and what is fake news. I agree that you can not replace the way traditional photographic journalism records history in some ways but in other ways social media has it's own way of recording history as it unfolds right before our eyes. I believe this world has room for both journalistic ways.

[regie]

Nowadays, people use social media to stay updated on various events happening around the world. In the article about the Ukraine war, the country receives sympathy from people through the social media platform TikTok in just one clip. It is also true that what people post on social media can be believed by many people without hearing the other side of the story; therefore, everyone should be cautious when posting on social media, as the saying goes, "Think before you click." Aside from that, journalism used TikTok to document the war between Ukraine and Russia to inform people about what is going on in the country since TikTok has a larger user base than Facebook, and journalists in not just using TikTok to join on the trend. TikTok is one of the best apps for staying updated through the video clips captured in real life and is considered a reliable source.