5 lessons from “new media” during the 1918 waves of Influenza and racial terror.
History may not repeat, but it can rhyme. At Immerse today, we are concerned with emergent tech and media creation in the context of Covid-19 as well as the global uprisings against state-sanctioned racial terror. History might help reveal the connections between technology, art, pandemics and racial injustice. What rhymes do we hear?
1. State and media players name the virus to define the narrative
A hundred years ago, a pandemic misnamed the “Spanish Flu” killed 50–100 million people around the world between 1918–20. The influenza or “grip” was mis-associated with Spain, because it was the first country to actively publicly report on the pandemic, while wartime censorship laws everywhere else stopped the news. State media control in the US, Europe and elsewhere covered up — and contributed to — the global health catastrophe, as it was deemed unpatriotic and dangerous to report on the flu during World War I.
Read more: https://immerse.news/collective-amnesia-792933233419