The underlying ideologies and apparatuses of mediation: the call for multi-media scholarly literature
In the Manifesto for Critical Media, Faden argues other forms of scholarly literature that are not text-based, need to be addressed as professional practices (e.g. forming an academic publisher, or at least this issue should be discussed thoroughly), especially the fields that need to engage with media images and sounds. Although I could not agree with some of his other bold statements, I am with him on this point not only because the reference or usage of them are becoming inevitable (e.g. we hardly describe a TV commercial precisely just by text), but also to foster the critical engagements of both the contents and forms, creators and audiences.
I think the form is one of his main ideas, that we should not take the text-based and traditional structure (thesis, evidence, conclusion) for granted. This reminds me of the Ways of Seeing, which I have identified the affordance of book and video. Now I start to think although Berger produced the TV programmes first, the form of his presentation still followed the “academic style”, which probably because he has received this type of education (i.e. the rhetorical mode). I do not mean to judge which one is better, but as Berger reminds the audience to be critical, I think it is equally important for the creators/producers to be critical (and creative) as well (here's an example by Faden which introduces and embodies the idea of fair use).
Even Faden claimed “From here forward I put my faith in media over text, screen over paper”, he also explained (which he adapted Ong’s ideas, 1982) that one form of communication would not replace another (e.g. oral and alphabetic culture), instead, they influence and change each other. It sounds to me that he stepped back a little and agreed that the traditional journal articles were still important in some aspects.
Is YouTube a suitable place?
Kuhn (2010) has discussed the YouTube policy regarding copyrighted content, which further expanded the issues from academic area to public concern. She focused on the fair use of the contents, which can be seen as the “land” for all the critical UGC to grow in my opinion. Kuhn also suggested how YouTube (as a big corporation that has an even bigger parent company – Google, and its cooperation with other media conglomerates) may obstruct that through banning some user’s videos unreasonably and cultivate the habit of self-surveillance on the site, or more generally the remix of videos. I think it is dangerous when many people can be both producers and audiences nowadays, and they are directed to “the rhetorical mode” unconsciously by YouTube, which stops the society to be more critical as a whole.