The human brain is wired so that watching something horrific unfold in front of your eyes is much more shocking than hearing or reading about it. I was vividly reminded of this when I saw the eyewitness video of George Floyd’s death. This is the same video that quickly spread across the internet and sparked massive protests not just in the US but also in Europe.
I’m old enough to remember the disgust caused by the video of Rodney King being violently beaten by LAPD officers back in 1991. By sheer coincidence an eyewitness from a nearby balcony filmed the incident with a camcorder and sent the footage to a local news station. That video also spread like wildfire around the globe – in a time before the web and social media – and caused a public furor and serious riots in LA.
I don’t know how many global eyewitness videos there have been between 1991 and 2020, but I can remember some of them. What’s clear, however, is that only a few videos have had a similar impact as the two mentioned above.
During these 30 years tech has of course also changed enormously. Today, everybody has a high-resolution video camera in their pockets capable of streaming directly live on a number of different social media platforms. Video footage can no longer be confiscated by grabbing the camera and smashing it – the video has already been uploaded to the cloud. The cameras are so good that anybody can point and shoot and the resulting footage will be clear and zoomable, even to the degree that you can see badge numbers on uniforms.
Another feature of the human brain is that we are much more prone to share video footage on social media when it contains something shocking that causes us to feel anger or even hate. Yes, we have all occasionally shared positive or funny videos too, but anger seems to be rocket-grade kerosene for fueling virality.
The power of eyewitness videos is a double-edged sword. It’s easy to see how it can be misused by someone who wants to stir trouble. It’s also becoming increasingly difficult to distinguish between real and deepfake footage. Videos can also be misinterpreted if taken out of context or if they’ve been deviously edited.
Very often, however, eyewitness videos are doing an extremely important job in shining light on something we fiercely should protest against, such as police brutality and racism. Along with social media, which indeed today seems to be all about videos, they are what can be called the Fifth Estate.
It’s quite possible that this Fifth Estate already wields more power than the Fourth Estate, which of course the mainstream press and news media would never admit.