For Israelis, a key feature of the political landscape over the past three years has been weekly (and occasionally daily) mass demonstrations – first against the government’s controversial and unpopular proposals for legal reform (which the protestors saw as anti-democratic). Following October 7, 2023, the pro-democracy protests gave way to increasingly large and vocal demonstrations against the intensification of the war in Gaza and in favour of a ceasefire and the release of all the remaining hostages. Crucial to these protests’ visibility and effectiveness are the photos and videos – dramatically positioned from within and also above the crowds - taken by the volunteer “Israel Democracy Photography and Drone Squadron” and distributed across mainstream and social media. To mark the launch of the exhibition 'Red alert on democracy: Photographing protests and civil resistance in Israel before and after October 7' at LSE's Atrium Gallery, in this lecture Professor Frosh will discuss what these images can tell us about how media and protest intersect to produce frameworks not only for political opposition, but also for memory, solidarity, and expressions of despair and hope. Professor Frosh will ask what this might mean not just for contemporary Israel, but more broadly in a world where protests are increasingly designed to be captured by small-scale, mobile visual media.
Find out more about the exhibition: https://www.lse.ac.uk/events/red-alert-on-democracy
Meet our speakers and chair
Paul Frosh is a Professor in the Department of Communication and Journalism at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, where he holds the Karl and Matilda Newhouse Chair in Communications. Focussing primarily on visual culture and media theory, Paul’s publications include The Poetics of Digital Media; The Image Factory: Consumer Culture, Photography and the Visual Content Industry; and Media Witnessing: Testimony in the Age of Mass Communication. He is currently researching and writing about images and truth in a so-called post-truth era.
Shani Orgad is Professor in the Department of Media and Communications at LSE. Her research interests and areas of teaching include gender, inequality, migration, and feminism in culture and media narratives. She is the author of numerous journal articles, blogs, reports, and five books including most recently Confidence Culture (with Rosalind Gill) and Heading Home: Motherhood, Work, and the Failed Promise of Equality.
LSE holds a wide range of events, covering many of the most controversial issues of the day, and speakers at our events may express views that cause offence. The views expressed by speakers at LSE events do not reflect the position or views of The London School of Economics and Political Science.