It might be easier to do something about North Korea’s nuclear truculence if we could make head or tail of the cryptic videos it has been posting on the web. The latest shows a dreaming man, some Korean script and a video of rockets flying through space while fires burn in skyscrapers and a pianist plays “We Are the World” at dirge tempo. Is this a harmless fantasy? A thrown-down gauntlet? Should the west respond with a statement? Should it post a video of its own? It is hard to know. Our traditional media are being “replaced” by the internet. But the “information” coming out of the information economy is often hard to decipher, and composed for purposes that are hard to discern.
如果我们能弄清楚朝鲜在网上发布的那些令人费解的视频有何含义，也许我们在应对朝鲜的核挑衅行为时能更自如一些。朝鲜最近发布的一段视频中出现了如下内容：一名正在做梦的男子、一些朝鲜文字、起火的摩天大楼，以及正飞越太空的火箭。视频的背景音乐是以钢琴弹奏的“We Are the World”，节奏处理得很哀婉。这是一种无害的意淫，还是一种正式的挑战？对这一视频西方是否应该发表声明以回应？西方是不是也应该发布一份自己的视频？这些问题很难回答。传统媒体正在被互联网所“取代”。然而，信息经济释放的“信息”往往难以解读，炮制这些“信息”的目的也难以辨明。
The film academic Stephen Apkon argues in The Age of the Image , published this week, that it is possible to speak of a new kind of literacy, one built on figuring out such non-verbal messages. At its humblest level, his book is about the “language” of film, but Mr Apkon has a larger philosophical point, too. Our culture is growing more global. While it still relies on words, they are increasingly wrapped up with images, and it is the images people remember. Elizabeth Daley, dean of the University of Southern California’s School of Cinematic Arts, believes writing today is like Latin on the eve of the Renaissance – the language of a scholarly establishment. YouTube clips and other visuals are the equivalent of vernacular Italian. They are the street language, and the medium for much new and creative thinking.
电影研究学者斯蒂芬•阿普康(Stephen Apkon)在本周出版的《影像时代》(The Age of the Image)一书中称，现在可以探讨一种建立在解读此类非语言信息基础上的新型“读写能力”。阿普康这本书往低了说是关于电影“语言”的，但该书还蕴含着更深的哲学思想。如今，我们的文化日趋全球化。尽管文化依然依赖文字，但文字已越来越多地被包含在影像中，最终留在人们记忆中的也是影像。南加州大学(University of Southern California)电影艺术学院(School of Cinematic Arts)院长伊丽莎白•戴利(Elizabeth Daley)认为，写作在今天的地位与文艺复兴(the Renaissance)前夕的拉丁语类似，是一种学术界使用的语言。YouTube网站上的视频以及其他影像材料则相当于当时的意大利语。它们都是人们日常使用的语言，也是许多创新思维的媒介。