Remixing Obama Hope:
Generating Counterpublic Rhetorics with Mobile Augmented Reality
Countering Rhetorical Isotropy
In the previous section, I used the image-recognition functionality of AR technology to help identify common rhetorical practices of counterpublic remixes, practices first identified and described by Edwards. As we take up digital visual studies, such use of AR can be an engaging and productive way to identify and analyze how these remix practices configure into other counterpublic rhetorics. But we can also enact these practices ourselves through AR. One of the most exciting rhetorical affordances of AR technology for digital visual studies, in fact, is providing an emerging digital-public platform through which mobile device users can create and access multimodal counterpublic remixes, remixes which can function as distributed acts of counterpublic resistance.
As Foucault writes, acts of resistance are “distributed in an irregular fashion: the points, the knots, the focuses of resistance are spread over time and space in varying densities” (96). In addition to the counterpublic remixes described above, which were highly visible in their resistance against some aspect of Obama Hope (e.g. changing “Hope” to “Hype” to communicate disdain for the genres of political campaign marketing), other types of counterpublic discourse against Obama that were spread over time and space in an irregular fashion were more difficult to discern. In this section, I describe how many of these more spatio-temporally dispersed counterpublic rhetorics developed in response to what I term “isotropic rhetorics,” or perceived cultural narratives that a public image or text may unintentionally come to reinforce and re-present. Such isotropic narratives can sometimes work to elide these less visible or audible counterpublic rhetorics. Counterpublic remixes generated through the multimodal affordances of AR, as I aim to ultimately show, can help counteract such “isotropic” narratives that popular public images like Obama Hope may intentionally or unintentionally perpetuate.
As an image indelibly associated with the election of the nation’s first Black president, interpretations of Obama Hope from white Americans could potentially perpetuate the idea that “American racism is a thing of the past” (Darity). Of course, as the rise in police violence against Black Americans continues to demonstrate, systemic racism is a persistent reality for many Black Americans, a reality that should not be ignored in favor of the narrative that “we have overcome” historical and systemic racism through the election of Barack Obama (Cullors). Counterpublic remixes distributed through AR have potential to interrupt such isotropic phenomena by providing access points to networks of counterpublic texts that challenge the source image and/or a dominant idea reinforced through its rhetorical circulation.
“Isotropy” is a scientific concept used in the field of physics to describe substances or phenomena that maintain a uniform value regardless of their direction of travel. The term is a combination of the Greek words “iso” (meaning “equal”) and “tropos” (meaning “way”). An isotropic antenna, for instance, emits omnidirectional sound waves according to the same degree of intensity and duration.
Figure 6. This graphic illustrates the omnidirectional uniformity of an isotropic radiation. Isotropic radiator animation by Chetvorno. Attribution: Isotropic radiator animation by Chetvorno. Licensed under CC0 1.0.
Isotropic antennas do not really exist; they are merely a theoretical reference point used to calibrate actual antennas. In reality, antennas are anisotropic, meaning they emit wave particles with uneven intensity that shift according to the direction in which they travel. “Isotropy,” in other words, is a theoretically uniform, but physically impossible, distribution of energy from a central source.
Isotropy is a useful conceptual apparatus for thinking about the rhetorical circulation of public images, which, much like the isotropic antenna, are, in theory, designed to induce uniform public response but, in practice, instigate a range of inconsistent counter-rhetorical effects. Certain public images work toward a theoretically uniform model of distribution by confining complex events in a single frame and working to attune public action to a consistent rhetorical wavelength. For instance, images of three-year old Alan Kurdi, the Syrian boy whose body washed ashore in 2015 after his family tried to escape a refugee camp, prompted international outrage over the growing Syrian refugee crisis. Tragic or striking public images in particular can be powerful rhetorical objects for galvanizing public action and shaping public perceptions about particular events, issues, and communities. In her book About to Die: How News Images Move the Public, Barbara Zelizer points out that public images, particularly emotionally powerful ones, operate according to a subjunctive logic by focusing on “what could be rather than what is” (14).
Public images like those of Kurdi strive to, ideally, establish a consistent wavelength of rhetorical energy with the aim of galvanizing a desired public response (e.g. outrage) and channeling it toward collective action (e.g. work toward global solution to the Syrian refugee crisis). To “organize and maintain” a disparate group of strangers, the image must galvanize according to a consistent, replicable, and uniform logic that maintains semi-uniform rhetorical force regardless of the context in which it is placed. Without a doubt, the images of Kurdi crystallized a powerful moment of global tragedy, and its circulation on social media helped galvanize a public identity united through shared feelings of anger and heartbreak. Indeed, during the height of the image’s circulation, refugee charity organizations reported donation increases of 70% in some cases (Henley, et. al.). However, in the wake of his son’s death, Alan Kurdi’s father lamented the fact that despite the amount of global attention that the image of his son received, the death toll of Syrian refugees continued to climb (Dearden). In this case, the isotropic function of the image—galvanizing a public through a uniform rhetorical message—perpetuated a contradictory perception of the Syrian refugee crisis as intransigent and potentially unsolvable. “If images of a dead child cannot move the world to action,” so this collective public logic went, “then what will?”
Political images like Obama Hope also strive for an ideal rhetorical distribution model akin to the isotropic antenna: they seek to create uniform rhetorical effects in a diverse public audience (i.e. vote for Obama). However, as the counterpublic remixes in the previous section demonstrate, this is not always the result. Indeed, as Hariman and Lucaites point out, the idea that public images are “limited to communicating specific information to a specific audience about a specific event” is one of the main misconceptions of public images’ actual rhetorical function (29). As a way of counteracting this misconception, Hariman and Lucaites propose the idea of “engaged spectatorship,” which they describe as “practice in selecting and reframing images within settings that are both personal and public, shared and subject to debate” (30). In other words, engaged spectatorship encourages viewers to conceive of the public image less as an aesthetic object or individually authored social commentary and more as a node linking together disparate, and even conflictual, public discourses.
Although certainly not as shocking as images of death, Obama Hope functioned isotropically by attuning Obama’s voter base to a consistent message of political and racial progress. Similar to how images of Kurdi perpetuated public perceptions of the Syrian refugee crisis as unsolvable, political images like Obama Hope can also perpetuate unintended narratives about the events, people, and ideas they depict. Fairey’s original poster, for instance, depicted a “deracialized” portrait of Obama, one that could capture his campaign message of equal opportunity for all Americans, regardless of race2. Thus, although Obama Hope’s message helped Obama win the presidency, it also perpetuated a “transparent and replicable” narrative of racial unification that may have worked to elide some of the criticisms that Obama faced from African-American activists and community leaders throughout his presidency, criticisms for not doing enough to address issues of racial inequality specifically.
Writers and activists such as Ta-Nehisi Coates and Kwame Rose, for instance, have cited Barack Obama’s tendency to skirt racial issues and race-specific policies throughout his presidency. Others have claimed that Obama’s election as the first Black president, although an important moment in establishing both real and symbolic racial progress, may have unintentionally prompted revisionist perceptions of race relations in America. Indeed, in their study of Obama’s representation as president in the mainstream media, Srividya Ramasubramanian and Amanda R. Martinez found that audience’s perceptions of race were modified in “subtle ways [to] reinforce racist beliefs that discrimination is no longer a concern” (37). Moreover, as African-American Studies professor William A. Darity recently writes, “For many white Americans [Obama’s] election confirmed their belief that American racism is a thing of the past.” As Darity points out, there is a danger in Obama’s historic achievement being exploited to support racist, revisionist arguments that we live in a “post-racial” society. As civil rights journalist Julia Craven claims, Obama’s election being misread as an end to political, historical, and systemic racism “leaves us with nothing but the grand symbolism of having a Black president, which, while important, doesn’t amend real problems facing Black Americans — like police violence or the racial wealth gap.”
In my next section, I demonstrate how AR can be used to produce counterpublic remixes with potential to intervene in isotropic narratives as well as activate an “engaged spectatorship” of public images. I do so by first reviewing how AR activists have already begun to do such rhetorical work. I then produce counterpublic remixes by drawing on the diverse array of Black counter-rhetorics that began to arise throughout Obama’s presidency and into the Black Lives Matter movement. In doing so, I want to critically consider how new media composing technologies can be utilized to amplify Black writers and activists within the emerging era of mobile computing. Moreover, as a white male scholar in full support of the Black Lives Matter movement, I certainly do not seek to discredit the historical, political, and social significance of Obama’s presidency through the AR remixes generated here. To be clear, the continued rise of white supremacist discourses over the last four years has been primarily fueled by the resurgent right-wing nationalism and the blatant racism of the Trump presidency. However, as our current president continues to espouse racist discourses and policies, it is vital that we continue to trace and amplify Black counterpublic rhetorics within and beyond our current moment. Finally, I am sensitive to appropriating such discourses, but I believe this rhetorical exercise is productive in demonstrating how counterpublic rhetorics that have been spread over time and space in varying densities can become more visible through AR. In order to help elucidate how I created the counterpublic remix, I then rhetorically analyze my own AR overlays with the hope of making this critical making practice more transparent.
2. For further discussion on the deracializing undertones of the Obama Hope poster, see Fisher III et. al “Reflections on the Hope Poster Case,” p. 249.↩