Calls from Beyond the Walls
Prison cellphone recordings during the pandemic in Lebanon
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 11268145 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Chafic Tony Najem (0000-0002-6498-1050, Stockholm University, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2023 |
| Volume | 45 |
| Issue | 3 |
| Pages | 668-681 |
| Publication date | 2023-04-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Media Culture & Society (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0163-4437 • E-ISSN: 1460-3675 |
| Publisher | SAGE Publications (PUBLISHER • US) |
| DOI | 10.1177/01634437221146889 |
| PMID | 38603374 |
| OpenAlex | W4316037066 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 3 |
| References cited | 20 |
Forcibly confined in a precarious and overcrowded space amidst the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic, prisoners in Lebanon resorted to their smuggled cellphones. They produced and circulated images, videos, and sound bites documenting the dire experiences of living under a failing infrastructure. This article addresses this phenomenon by examining a corpus of ‘prison cellphone recordings’ mediated on social media platforms and Lebanese local news. I adopt the media as practice theory to claim that such fragmentary amateur cellphone media messages are the product of strategic and hybrid prison media practices. In addition, I employ the conceptual notions of hybrid media activism and media witnessing to investigate the political and testimonial function of prisoners’ illicit engagement with digital technologies. I propose a typology of the mediated prison cellphone recordings and argue that these representations serve to mobilize support and relay visual evidence of prisoners lived experiences during the pandemic. Finally, I attempt with this article to instigate an approach to the examination of media from the prison; an approach that prioritizes illicit media practices behind bars and their ‘traces’ in the media
Advertising · Amateur · Business · Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19 · Criminology · Digital media · Hotline · Internet privacy · Media studies · Pandemic · Political science · Politics · Prison · Social media · Sociology · Testimonial · Typology · Criminal Justice and Corrections Analysis · Engineering · Internet Traffic Analysis and Secure E-voting · Law · Policing Practices and Perceptions
Media Witnessing
Title unavailable
The Prison Media Complex
In search of the ‘we’ of social media activism
Digital witnessing in conflict zones
Media Practices and Protest Politics
The ambivalent consequences of visibility
Show me the prison! The development of prison tourism in the UK
Citizen camera-witnessing
Doing time, the smart way? Temporalities of the smart prison
Mediatization or mediation? Alternative understandings of the emergent space of digital storytelling
Media Practices, Mediation Processes, and Mediatization in the Study of Social Movements
On and off the air
Prison media work
A Latin American perspective on communication/cultural mediation
| Unique citing works | 3 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 1 |
| Citation span | 2023 - 2026 (4) |
| Citation velocity | current |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 3 |