Alterity — A Category of Practice and Analysis

Preliminary Remarks

“Media exist because there is alterity” — so reads the first sentence of an introduction to media theories. [1] We need media to ensure that the position of alterity (the different, the Other) can be articulated, because “[a]lterity means an ‘other’ that initially denies access, that requires a third party to guarantee its conveyance, symbolization, preservation, transfer or communication.” [2] At first, a position of alterity seems to resist being made accessible. […]

Political Alterity in Pathé’s French and British Newsreel Coverage of the May 1968 Events in Paris

This article compares how French and British newsreels reported the May 1968 events in Paris. The May 1968 events, which began as a series of protests at Paris Nanterre University, soon became one of the year’s defining features, as anti-capitalist demonstrations spread from the university campus to nearby factories and onto the Paris streets. In documenting these events, contemporary newsreels used various strategies of alterity […]

Otherness in the Context of Martin Luther King’s Assassination in Les Actualités Françaises of 1968

Alterity relies on identity. There is no Other without any kind of self-conception — neither for an individual, nor for a culture. [1] Various concepts of alterity, as well as research projects focusing on alterity and the concept of otherness, speak for an increasing interest in the approach to alterity as related to identity. [2]

Politics and Political Alterity in the Spanish NO-DOs of 1968

Dealing with newsreels today, in the flowering of the digital era, might deem some-how antique, worn out, and/or old-fashioned. The triumphalist orchestral music and the enthusiastic prosody of the voiceover superimposed on grainy, black-and-white footage certainly transposes the spectator to the past. In Spain’s case, this footage can even trigger unpleasant Proustian memories, since NO-DOs (from Noticiarios [News] and Documentales [Documentaries]) are closely associated with Franco’s dictatorship (1939–1975).