Chris Robe
I am a professor of Film and Media Studies. My primary research concerns the use of media by various activist groups in their quest for a more equitable world. In the twenty-first century, media does not simply offer a representational platform for disenfranchised voices, but more importantly serves as a material practice to engage in collective struggles for equity, justice, and more sustainable systems. I have written about U.S. radical film culture in the 1930s in my book Left of Hollywood: Cinema, Modernism, and the Emergence of U.S. Radical Film Culture (2010) and have published numerous articles on media activism within various journals like Cinema Journal, Jump Cut, Framework, Culture, Theory and Critique, and Journal of Film and Video. My recent books are Breaking the Spell: A History of Anarchist Filmmakers, Videotape Guerrillas, and Digital Ninjas (2017) and Abolishing Surveillance: Digital Media Activism and State Repression (2023). Stephen Charbonneau and I co-edited, InsUrgent Media from the Front: A Media Activism Reader (2020) I am currently engaged in research on conservative media activism as well as ethnographic studies of public art in Northern Ireland with John F. Lennon. I am also working on a long-term project on Raymond Williams that explores the historical contexts that produced some of his most vibrant concepts analyzing media and how they might be revised and re-deployed to assist in understanding a contemporary media activism terrain.
Phone: 561-297-1306
Phone: 561-297-1306
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Papers by Chris Robe
The mini-essays that comprise this dossier can be read in any order—although readers with little to no knowledge regarding digital media activism should read the first two sections to familiarize themselves with core terms utilized throughout the mini-essays. Similarly, if one wants to understand some of the central causes behind the eruption of digital media activism of the past twenty years, see Part I: Small Media and the Global Eruption of New Digital Movements. It is also worth noting that Part I provides one of the few sections analyzing non-Western media activism in depth; it focuses on the Egyptian Revolution of 2011 and the Mosireen Collective’s importance in assisting that revolution and offering sophisticated reportage of it over global media.
The remainder of the mini-essays should be read in any order that grips the reader’s interest. Below I briefly summarize each mini-essay and identify some of the core groups investigated within them.
movement-based media coverage: (1) it established a secure website that shielded
its users’ identities when navigating it or producing content, (2) its platform united
sympathetic reporting on local and global struggles that fueled an imaginary of
worldwide struggle, and (3) it established behind-the-scenes momentum in engaging
new participants in independent media that continues to this day.
of color are integrating digital technology and media making practices into their organizing against policing, gentrifi cation, and state disinvestment of services. The
article identifi es such community media as a nodal point of resistance where local communities organize against global neoliberal forces negatively affecting them by
creating alternative modes of representation that counter dominant narratives about them and incorporating media-making practices into their collective organizing for self-determination.
video during street protests in Western industrialized countries, which can help historically frame more recent uses of video activism by groups like WeCopWatch and Black Lives Matter: (1) how video and digital media-making has become a central activist tactic especially in exposing state violence through alternative frameworks and distribution networks, providing evidence in court to clear protesters of inflated charges of criminal conduct, and offering material support for those charged; and (2) how the state has increasingly criminalized dissent
by extending the definition of “domestic terrorism” to include many forms of civil disobedience and direct action protest, which has legitimated the police in attacking and arresting media-makers attending such protests. I place particular emphasis upon the 2003 FTAA (Free Trade of the Americas) protests in Miami and the 2008 RNC (Republican National Convention) protests in St. Paul since they represent turning points with regard to Western state repression against protesters and independent media as well as indicate some of the innovative strategies video activists have utilized to counter such repression.
engaged documentaries. In particular, it explores how the media practices of the Media
Mobilizing Project (MMP) allow us to refocus our analysis to take account of the utilization
of media by social movements in ways that stress the collective and empowering role it can
have for fostering class-based identities. As such, we aim to highlight the materiality of
ideology and the possibility of collective class-based political projects that employ various
film and media practices. MMP’s video work indicates opportunities for employing video to
establish broader working-class subjectivities. We hold that utilizing screen theory
accordingly helps to augment our understanding of activist documentary forms. Moreover,
linking activist documentary forms with the media practices of contemporary social
movements allows us to gain a newfound appreciation for the emancipatory role of media
as such.
position. On one level, they explored the political potential certain commercial
cinematic conventions held. At the same time, they reinforced traditional
gender hierarchies that consumer culture was challenging by consistently celebrating
male-centered genres like the biopic over female-centered ones like the costume
drama.
The mini-essays that comprise this dossier can be read in any order—although readers with little to no knowledge regarding digital media activism should read the first two sections to familiarize themselves with core terms utilized throughout the mini-essays. Similarly, if one wants to understand some of the central causes behind the eruption of digital media activism of the past twenty years, see Part I: Small Media and the Global Eruption of New Digital Movements. It is also worth noting that Part I provides one of the few sections analyzing non-Western media activism in depth; it focuses on the Egyptian Revolution of 2011 and the Mosireen Collective’s importance in assisting that revolution and offering sophisticated reportage of it over global media.
The remainder of the mini-essays should be read in any order that grips the reader’s interest. Below I briefly summarize each mini-essay and identify some of the core groups investigated within them.
movement-based media coverage: (1) it established a secure website that shielded
its users’ identities when navigating it or producing content, (2) its platform united
sympathetic reporting on local and global struggles that fueled an imaginary of
worldwide struggle, and (3) it established behind-the-scenes momentum in engaging
new participants in independent media that continues to this day.
of color are integrating digital technology and media making practices into their organizing against policing, gentrifi cation, and state disinvestment of services. The
article identifi es such community media as a nodal point of resistance where local communities organize against global neoliberal forces negatively affecting them by
creating alternative modes of representation that counter dominant narratives about them and incorporating media-making practices into their collective organizing for self-determination.
video during street protests in Western industrialized countries, which can help historically frame more recent uses of video activism by groups like WeCopWatch and Black Lives Matter: (1) how video and digital media-making has become a central activist tactic especially in exposing state violence through alternative frameworks and distribution networks, providing evidence in court to clear protesters of inflated charges of criminal conduct, and offering material support for those charged; and (2) how the state has increasingly criminalized dissent
by extending the definition of “domestic terrorism” to include many forms of civil disobedience and direct action protest, which has legitimated the police in attacking and arresting media-makers attending such protests. I place particular emphasis upon the 2003 FTAA (Free Trade of the Americas) protests in Miami and the 2008 RNC (Republican National Convention) protests in St. Paul since they represent turning points with regard to Western state repression against protesters and independent media as well as indicate some of the innovative strategies video activists have utilized to counter such repression.
engaged documentaries. In particular, it explores how the media practices of the Media
Mobilizing Project (MMP) allow us to refocus our analysis to take account of the utilization
of media by social movements in ways that stress the collective and empowering role it can
have for fostering class-based identities. As such, we aim to highlight the materiality of
ideology and the possibility of collective class-based political projects that employ various
film and media practices. MMP’s video work indicates opportunities for employing video to
establish broader working-class subjectivities. We hold that utilizing screen theory
accordingly helps to augment our understanding of activist documentary forms. Moreover,
linking activist documentary forms with the media practices of contemporary social
movements allows us to gain a newfound appreciation for the emancipatory role of media
as such.
position. On one level, they explored the political potential certain commercial
cinematic conventions held. At the same time, they reinforced traditional
gender hierarchies that consumer culture was challenging by consistently celebrating
male-centered genres like the biopic over female-centered ones like the costume
drama.
InsUrgent Media from the Front takes a look at activist media practices in the 21st century and sheds light on what it means to enact change using different media of the past and present. Chris Robé and Stephen Charbonneau's edited collection uses the term "insUrgent media" to highlight the ways grassroots media activists challenged and are challenging hegemonic norms like colonialism, patriarchy, imperialism, classism, and heteronormativity. Additionally, the term is used to convey the sense of urgency that defines media activism. Unlike slower traditional media, activist media has historically sacrificed aesthetics for immediacy. Consequently, this "run and gun" method of capturing content has shaped the way activist media looks throughout history.
With chapters focused on indigenous resistance, community media, and the use of media as activism throughout US history, InsUrgent Media from the Front emphasizes the wide reach media activism has had over time. Visibility is not enough when it comes to media activism, and the contributors provide examples of how to refocus the field not only to be an activist but to study activism as well.