Graffiti as a Media Text :
A Visual Analysis Study of Banksy’s Donkey Documents and Textual Review of
Reported Local Reactions
Course: Master’s Thesis in Media and Communication Studies
Thesis Submission
Program: Master of Arts: Media and Communication Studies - Culture, Collaborative Media and Creative Industries
Malmö University
Supervisor: Temi Odumosu
Student: Sarah Maher sarahkmahermalade@gmail.com Date: August 15th, 2019
Abstract 4
List of Figures and Tables 5
1.Introduction 6
1.1. Layout 8
2. Concepts in Context 9
2.1 Palestine as a Media Site 9
2.1.1. Ownership of Space 10
2.1.2. Construction of identity 11
2.2 Graffiti as Media Text 11
2.2.1 Ownership of space 12
2.2.2. Construction of identity 13
3. Previous Research 14
3.1 Graffiti as a Medium of Communication 14
3.2 Graffiti within a Palestinian Context 17
4. Theoretical Framework 18
4.1 Ownership of Space 18
4.2 Construction of Identity 20
5. Methodology 22
5.1 Methodology 22
5.2 Chosen Research Design 24
5.3 Limitations 26
6. Ethical Considerations 27
7. Analysis and Findings 28
7.1 Formal Analysis 28
7.2 Context 29
7.3 Representation 31
7.3 Reception of the Locals 33
7.4 Discussion 35
8. Conclusion 38
Abstract
The increasingly intertwined relationship between media, culture and society has resulted in an abundance of research which focuses on the analysis of media texts produced by the media industry. Less studied is the role of subversive media texts which fall outside the scope of commodified media, such as graffiti, which often serves as an unfiltered medium for communication in areas of conflict where access to a fair and balanced media can be restricted. Although a certain amount of research exists about this area (and will be discussed throughout this thesis), the existing scholarship tends to mostly centre around there being one dominant interpretation of graffiti’s perceived intention, one meaning which the artist intended to communicate.
However, the imagery within graffiti is often symbolic and its meanings implicit, with visual representations often being interpreted differently from person to person. This thesis aims to examine “the broader social and cultural significance” of graffiti as a media text, and focuses specifically on a visual analysis of representative imagery within Banksy’s 2007 Palestinian piece Donkey Documents (Hodkinson, 2011). In order to understand how it incited multiple interpretations and discourse across media, there will also be a textual review of seventeen newspaper articles printed in global newspapers in December 2007 which featured the search terms “Banksy” and “donkey”. The thesis is based on a framework which borrows from theorists such as Karl Marx, Antonio Gramsci, Stuart Hall and Roland Barthes in order to unpack interlinked concepts helpful for answering the research questions.
The resulting study placedDonkey Documents within the social, political and cultural context of Palestine in 2007, and found that the depicted images proved controversial to local residents who were reportedly angered by the piece, believing it to portray them as donkeys. The study provided key insights into potential reasons for this interpretation and why it may have proven a contentious subject for the locals. Above all, this thesis finds that graffiti offers a unique perspective on society, provides a counter narrative for dominant ideological viewpoints and serves as a vital medium for communication in areas of conflict, while also identifying the need for further research as to its ability to spark multiple interpretations for discourse in international media.
List of Figures and Tables
Figure 1 : Donkey Documents (Julienslive.com, 2015) Figure 2: Rage, Flower Thrower (Bublogs.ac.uk, 2014) Figure 3. Girl Frisking Soldier (MCArtwork, 2019)
1.Introduction
In December 2007 the British graffiti artist Banksy made global news headlines. A number of his pieces had appeared suddenly in the West Bank in the Palestinian territories, an area known for its ongoing and decades old conflict with neighbouring Israel. Among the pieces was a mural sprayed on the gable end of a building, on the road between Bethlehem’s Church of the Nativity and Checkpoint 300, the Israeli controlled border crossing into Jerusalem, Israel. The piece seemed to depict a soldier checking a donkey’s identification papers.
(Figure 1. Donkey Documents. Reprinted from Julienslive.com, 2015. Retrieved August 10th 2019 from https://www.julienslive.com/view-auctions/catalog/id/160/lot/68099/BANKSY-
Donkey-Documents. )
While Banksy’s intended purpose was reportedly to draw attention to the situation in Palestine and encourage tourism back to the area, its interpretation by some local residents led to great anger and, a couple of weeks after its creation, newspapers reported that the residents had painted over the offending piece (Aspden, 2007). The piece would later be restored by the residents before being physically cut away from the wall only to reappear on the international art market some time later with an estimated value of $700,000 (Wyatt, 2015). This thesis provides a detailed visual analysis of the piece, later dubbed Donkey
Documents, and incorporates a textual review of international news reports from December 2007. The overall aim of the study is to attempt to understand “the broader social and cultural significance” of graffiti as a media text, and discover some potential factors that led to local residents taking offense to the piece (Hodkinson, 2011, 61). The main research questions which this analysis seeks to answer are;
● How does Banksy use representative imagery to communicate meaning in his 2007 text Donkey Documents?
● How are multiple interpretations of Donkey Documents constructed within the cultural context of Palestine in 2007?
Such a study of graffiti’s role as ‘media text’ in contemporary society has perhaps been overlooked recently in favour of various other mass media texts which may be viewed as being capable of transmitting messages more efficiently and to wider audiences. However, graffiti can be a vitally important unfiltered medium for communication in conflict zones, areas where distinct cultures are present and “arranged in a hierarchy of domination and subordination”, and where access to balanced media is potentially restricted (Rolston, 1987, p.7).
1.1. Layout
This thesis is spread out across eight different sections, with this section’s purpose being to introduce the topic of the thesis and the research questions. Section 2. aims to provide an overview of the context needed throughout the duration, and introduces two themes to this paper; ownership of space and construction of identity. Both these themes will be consistently threaded throughout the thesis. Section 2. also provides the necessary background context for two key concepts; Palestine as media site and graffiti as a media text, while linking both concepts to the overall themes.
Section 3. contains the literature review which was conducted in order to build on previous research and identify gaps in knowledge. The work of scholars such as Bill Rolston (1987), Laura McAtackney (2011), Hung Li & Prasad (2018), Anindya Raychaudhuri (2010), Craig Larkin (2015) and Adrienne de Ruiter (2015) was key for understanding the background of graffiti, its use as an essential medium for communication, its complex relationship to conflict zones and how new media has provided a platform for its messages. McAtackney (2011) and Rolston (1987) discuss these matters with a focus on how the graffiti in Northern Ireland during The Troubles was used both to “visually communicate opinion” and challenge dominant narrative. Larkin (2015) meanwhile studies the wall erected by the Israelis to separate Israel from Palestine and how graffiti is used to reclaim the space through discursive narrative. Hung Li & Prasad (2018) also analyse graffiti in Palestine, drawing comparisons between its use and the use of social media. This is an area of interest for de Ruiter (2015) also, who outlines why social media platforms have not negated the power of graffiti for spreading messages. Graffiti is, she argues, not weakened by the proliferation of such technology, but bolstered (de Ruiter, 2015). Indeed, Aninda Raychaudari (2010) discusses the transience of graffiti, and it is easy for us to appreciate how the spreading of graffiti via the internet can help increase and extend transmission of its intended meanings.
Section 4. will look at how certain theories can aid our understanding of graffiti as a media text, and will do so from the angles of the two themes introduced earlier. This theoretical framework will also include references to the work of Stuart Hall (2001) and Roland Barthes (1968), whose respective Work on Representations and From Work to Text heavily influenced this thesis and its analyses. This is discussed further in Section 5., Methodology, where the chosen methods are discussed and argued for. As has already been mentioned, the analysis consisted of a detailed visual analysis of Donkey Documents which was conducted using Hilary Collins’ (2010) method, as well as a textual review of seventeen international newspaper articles published in the month of December, 2007, sourced from the Access World News Database.
Although the analysis involved no direct contact with the public, there were a few ethical considerations to consider, which are valid for every researcher. These are outlined in Section 6. Section 7. highlights the findings and results from the study, with the formal, contextual and representational analysis separated into subsections, and the textual review of the newspaper articles providing us with the opinions of the local Palestinians. Section 7 also attempts to tie everything together, before a concise summary of the thesis is offered in Section 8.
2. Concepts in Context
There are two main concepts which require some background context to situate the discussion. These concepts are;
● Palestine as a media site ● Graffiti as a media text
Throughout the initial research period of this thesis and, later, when conducting the study and analysing the findings, two distinct themes repeatedly presented themselves within both concepts. The relevance of both themes to each of the aforementioned concepts is crucial to understanding “the broader social and cultural significance” of graffiti as a medium for communication in areas of conflict where society is “arranged in a hierarchy of domination and subordination” (Hodkinson, 2011, p.61 ; Rolston, 1987, p.7). To attempt to succinctly define these themes as terms used throughout this thesis would be difficult. Rather, this thesis recognises both themes as multi-faceted, producing an endless amount of conceptual understandings depending on which particular context they are used in. These themes are;
● Ownership of space ● Construction of identity
This section provides necessary contextual background for the thesis by approaching both concepts from the angle of each key theme, with the aim of providing a succinct and synthesised conceptual framework on which to build.
2.1 Palestine as a Media Site
The tendency of the media industry to apportion coverage based on the violence and gore within a given news item is captured in the well known phrase ‘if it bleeds it leads’ (Seranyi, 2011). Conflict zones in general do attract vast amounts of media coverage, and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in particular has been mediated on a global level, leading to accusations of the media’s disproportionate “fixation on Israel” (King, 2009). Most of these accusations have come from those within the media industry; Associated Press reporter Matt Friedman called this a “hostile obsession with Jews” while Robert Fowke labeled himself one of millions who pick away at the conflict “like its a giant scab” (Suissa, 2019 ; Fowke, 2010). Mira Sucharov (2014) theorised as to why this might be the case. First and foremost in her opinion is that it could be something to do with the “$3 billion annual US aid granted to Israel” - it is perhaps natural, she says, that the US government and voters concern themselves with the region (Sucahrov, 2014). Perhaps this could also be a reason for other countries’ media taking such an interest. America is a powerful country with some even claiming it operates a global hegemony, so if America is seen to give the conflict a lot of coverage, it is perhaps to be expected that some other countries would follow suit (Monck, 2018). There is also the fact that three major world religions, Judaism, Islam and Christianity, originate from the area, and despite the conflict which exists in other parts of the region, followers of each of these faiths live side by side in a relatively peaceful coexistence within the old city walls of Jerusalem. To properly understand the perceived fascination with the relationship between Israel and Palestine requires some knowledge of the history of this decades old territorial conflict.
2.1.1. Ownership of Space
For over seventy years there has been ongoing war and conflict between the Israeli and Palestinian people. Most timelines will date this back to the Balfour Declaration in 1917 which declared a British support for the Jewish people to establish a national home in Palestine, as well as stating that “nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities” ("Palestinian territories", 2019). To fully comprehend the motivations behind this declaration would require a much more detailed analysis of the history of the region from millenia previous to this that this thesis does not have the scope for. What we can say is that the Jewish people, once concentrated in the ancient land of Israel, have long been subjected to violent and hostile attacks, eventually leading to the diaspora, or mass emigration, of the Jewish people from Israel. General academic consensus is that in 1917, in the midst of World War One, Britain required the support of Zionist Jews in America and Russia who had secured a large section of governmental seats (Tahnan, 2018). Palestine (as the region comprising both modern Israel and Jordan was generally called at the time) may have been offered to the Jewish people as a potential national home partly as a way of maintaining these countries as allies. So too was offered the support of the British, who promised to enable the region to become self sufficient until the state was strong enough to withstand British departure.
Although the intention of the declaration may not have been to “prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities”, the political departure of the British power in 1947 led to the 1948 formation of the state of Israel as a primarily Jewish state and a great influx of the diasporic Jewish community back to what they may have perceived as their homeland by birthright as God’s chosen people - land that was already inhabited ("Palestinian territories", 2019). This colonisation of the land by the Jewish people led to the displacement of hundreds of thousands of Palestinian residents in what became known as the nakba, or catastrophe, the result of both forcible displacement by the Jewish militia and Palestinians fleeing in terror as they received news of attacks (Morris, 1988). The Palestinians that stayed to fight found themselves in a losing battle. As Benny Morris puts it; “the better-organised, economically more robust and ideologically more cohesive and motivated Jewish community weathered the flail of war; Palestinian society fell apart” (Morris, 2004). This lack of cohesive ideology cited by Morris (2004) has continued to be an issue for Palestine. Its two territories, the West Bank and Gaza, are controlled by two separate political structures with differing beliefs and opinions on how to approach Israeli occupancy ; Hamas in Gaza promotes armed resistance and has vowed to never recognise the Israeli state, while Fatah in the West Bank believes in a nonviolent opposition and the potential for Palestinians and Israelis to reach a two state solution (Cook, 2018).
2.1.2. Construction of identity
Ideology is inextricably linked to identity, both on a personal level and on a collective level (Leader & Maynard, 2015). Identifying shared or common interests in others can lead to the shaping of one’s own sense of self, or sense making system, serving as a common ground and reference point for building meaningful relationships. With the existence of two different ideological structures among the Palestinian Arabs, Hamas and Fatah, the concept of reaching a collective national identity seems almost impossible. The Jewish community on the other hand shares a rich collective identity, perhaps due in part to their fundamental religious belief that that the Jewish people are God’s chosen ones (Van Niekerk, 2018). Experiencing a traumatic event can also lead to connections with a collective identity. Hirschberger (2018) writes; “the collective memory of traumatic events is a dynamic social psychological process that is primarily dedicated to the construction of meaning...It is a process of identity construction”. The Jewish community descending on Palestine in 1948 had a shared traumatic past, both in recent history as survivors of the Holocaust which had only ended three years previously, and also through their lengthy history of displacement and persecution dating back thousands of years. This feeling of collective solidarity formed as a result of trauma is different to what Rousbeh Legatis (2019) terms a "conflict identity”, which is “characterized by ideological struggle, the internalization of destructive means of dealing with ongoing conflicts, and a fervent search for identity”. Although it can be argued that the Palestinians share a collective trauma of displacement and conflict, they may have divided allegiances between the secular faction, Fatah, and the more religiously motivated Hamas.
With Palestine becoming a media site for international audiences who debate over the perceived bias of the reporting, the attitudes of the Palestinian people are similarly critical of
their domestic media. In 2006, the year before Banksy created Donkey Documents, the non profit organisation Internews conducted a phone survey of roughly 1,200 Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza to understand the attitude of the Palestinians towards the media. 38% of respondents felt that politics was the most important subject for them in the media. However, of those interviewed, 51% stated that the media does not cover local and social issues well, with the majority attributing “this negative perception to the lack of experience of journalists and to political affiliation and bias”. (Internews, 2006).
2.2 Graffiti as Media Text
Differentiated from the traditional definition of the word ‘text’ which refers specifically to the written word, the term ‘media text’ often refers to both verbal and non-verbal elements and can be a complex concept to define (Graddol & Boyd-Barrett, 1994). Some understand the term ‘media text’ as encompassing the products of the media industry, for example newspaper articles or television programmes. In this sense, a media text can be considered as a physical unit of content to which an economic value is attached, purposely commodified and created with a commercial goal in mind (Long, 2012). As has already been discussed, the very definition of graffiti assumed by this thesis is that it is unsanctioned and not created for economic gain, which would imply a departure from such an understanding. However, graffiti is often adopted and distributed through various forms of media, with this reproduction essentially creating a separate media product.
Hodkinson (2011, p.1 & p.60) describes media as “essentially… the means by which content is communicated” and a text as being any “unit of content which carries... ‘messages’”, a definition which accepts a wide spectrum of potential media texts, as “to some extent, any object can.. be interpreted as ‘saying something’” (Gillespie & Toynbee, 2006, p.4). The difference between ‘any object’ and a media text, though, lies in the production of meaning and its potential for eliciting certain understandings in the minds of its audience. Rather than applying the term ‘text’ to something physical, the semiotician Roland Barthes (1966) reserved the term for the process of meaning making which occurs when one begins to decipher any given unit of content (Wodak & Busch, 2004). John Fiske (1987), writing specifically about television programmes as units of content, states “programmes are produced...by the industry: texts are the product of their readers. So a programme becomes a text at the moment of reading, that is, when its interaction with one of its many audiences activates some of the meanings/pleasures that it is capable of provoking” (Wodak & Busch, 2004). If we then consider media as “the means by which content is communicated” and a text as being the meaning which is created as that content is processed and understood, we can move towards a more dynamic understanding of the term ‘media text’ and its compatibility with graffiti (Hodkinson, 2011 p. 1 ; Wodak & Busch, 2004).
2.2.1 Ownership of space
Although communications in the form of wall daubings and murals can be traced right back to neolithic cave paintings, contemporary graffiti formed part of the hip-hop culture that began to emerge in 1960’s New York where artists would ‘tag’ subway trains as an expression of their identity and general discontentment with society (Novak, n.d. ; Anapur, 2016). Its diffusion on a worldwide scale was facilitated in part through cultural media, with
films such as Beat Street (1984) and Style Wars (1983) broadcast globally in the 1980s, and gained a certain notoriety in 1982 after the publication of what became known as the ‘broken window theory’ conceived by the criminologists James Q. Wilson and George Kelling (Novak, n.d. ; Phillips, 2014). The criminologists theorised that the less tended to a public area is, the more likely it is to attract criminal behaviour (Phillips, 2014). In this theory, graffiti in a public space not being removed was likened to broken windows not being repaired (Banksy, 2005; Phillips, 2014). This theory led to a major police crackdown on graffiti, and as such it became an illicit and risky activity carrying with it the risk of criminal prosecution. These criminal connotations meant that graffiti evolved over time into a symbol of defiance against authority or, as we will see in a later section, a counter hegemony to dominant discourses. Marshall McLuhan’s proclamation that “the medium is the message” can be considered quite relevant here, for in this case the medium alone - without any deeper analysis of the meanings within - is already communicating to us a certain type of rebellion by appropriating public space (Hodkinson, 2011).
To clarify, it is a conscious decision to use the term ‘graffiti’ throughout this thesis to refer to Banksy’s Donkey Documents, rather than the seemingly interchangeable terms ‘street art’, ‘public art’ or ‘urban art’. Tom Riggle suggests that the term ‘street art’ be applied to art where “its material use of the street is internal to its meaning” (Riggle, 2010, p.246). Certainly, this means that this piece may qualify for the term ‘street art’, given the importance of its location on a public space in Palestine when reading this text. However, Banksy himself has on multiple occasions referred to the work he produces as ‘graffiti’ as opposed to ‘street art’ or ‘urban art’, and this thesis also veers away from using such terminology (Banksy, 2005 ; Raychaudhuri, 2010). After all, the concept of street graffiti in its original sense implies the presence of maker bodies that are absent, who usually reveal themselves under the cover of night time to avoid detection. This graffiti therefore becomes an extension of its absent creator, a device through which public space is disrupted in absentia, the association with clandestine activity also feeding into the criminal connotations. Recently, however, graffiti has evolved from a renegade medium of public expression to a commodified artform, adopted by the mainstream and re-labeled as ‘art’. The monetary value of graffiti as art has escalated alongside the notoriety of its makers, and these works now often feature in galleries and exhibitions. The fact that graffiti is now often allowably present in galleries and commissioned exhibitions somehow contradicts the traditional understanding of graffiti taking place under the cover of darkness, the identity of its maker hidden and unrevealed by anything other than the addition of a tag. The terms ‘street art’ and ‘urban art’ therefore seem to imply a gentrification of sorts, the addition of the word ‘art’ bestowing an acceptability upon what is, at its basest, still considered a criminal activity. This somehow lessens the impact of the message contained within such a text, for it can be the very implications of the act of graffiti writing which makes its message so effective. As Gillian Rose states (2001, p. 17) “all visual representations are made in one way or another, and the circumstances of their production may contribute toward the effect they have”. Therefore the term ‘graffiti’ used throughout this thesis will refer specifically and only to unsanctioned and uncommissioned graffiti as it is found in public places.
2.2.2. Construction of identity
Part of the initial purpose of graffiti in its early years in New York was to act as a border for gang controlled territory (Hedegaard, 2014). Gang members would ‘tag’ certain areas which not only identified a specific area as being controlled by that gang, but also identified the artist with that particular gang. Later, graffiti writers became concerned with wishing to be recognised for their work, while also aware that what they were doing was illegal. They gave themselves nicknames which they would produce in a style that was illegible to all but the initiated (Hedegaard, 2014).
One artist widely known as maintaining his anonymity is Banksy. As a graffiti artist he has built an international reputation in the media for making political images in public space, yet besides his name and artistic actions, not much more is known about him as an individual. Ever since his rise to prominence in the late 1990s shrouded in secrecy, the media industry has attempted time and again to unmask the artist by publishing varying theories as to his identity (Trayner, 2017 ; BBC.co.uk, 2019 ; Sommerlad, 2018). However, there has never been any confirmation as to the artist’s identity either from Banksy or his spokespeople. Banksy has built his identity as though it is a brand.
There are some general pieces of information which have become common knowledge, or if not ‘knowledge’ then at least widely accepted. The first is that Banksy is from Bristol, evidenced by the fact that a lot of the artist’s earlier pieces originated in Bristol, as well as that his former acquaintances have confirmed this (Ellsworth-Jones, 2012). The second, and perhaps most easily accepted, is that Banksy is a man. There has been some evidence to point towards this, including the fact that Banksy featured in Exit Through the Gift Shop, a documentary about the commercialisation of graffiti, as a shadowy male with a deep and mechanically altered voice (Exit Through the Gift Shop, 2010). To add credit to this assertion, Banksy includes a number of photographs of an unknown man creating his art in his book Wall and Piece, and also posts short videos on his Instagram feed of stunts that he pulls, which also feature a man in varying levels of disguise (Banksy, 2005 ; Banksy, 2019). He also refers to himself as a “young male” in the same book (Banksy, 2005 p.41). For the sake of clarity throughout this paper, I will therefore assume the position that Banksy is a man.
3. Previous Research
3.1 Graffiti as a Medium of Communication
The first step in identifying topic parameters was to discover what research already exists about the use of public graffiti as a medium for communication within areas of conflict. Laura McAtackney (2011) discusses this concept with particular reference to the wall murals painted in Northern Ireland during the time of The Troubles between the 1970s and 1990s, and recognises the role of graffiti to “visually communicate opinion on contemporary society” as well as challenge hegemonic social and political discourse (p. 87). McAtackney (2011) drills down into the ‘physical context’ of such expression, exploring conceptual
understanding of walls, both as canvases for political and social discourse and as demarcations of public space. Her research not only examines how graffiti is used as a medium for communication, but also invites the reader to consider the wider implications that walls have on our society and in areas of conflict where their erection may be motivated by the desire to control or segregate the population. McAtackney then ties this back to the Palestinian separation barrier, referring to the act of its construction as ‘spatio-cide’ (McAtackney, 2011). In the context of this thesis, the wall can then be considered as the physical representation of hegemony or power exerted by the dominant force, with graffiti being the physical representation of counter-hegemony, or defiance.
Another researcher who studied graffiti in Northern Ireland is the ex- Professor of Social Sciences at Ulster University, Bill Rolston, who has become somewhat of a subject matter expert on mass media and wall murals and how both relate to popular culture ("Professor Bill Rolston - Emeritus Professor of Sociology - Ulster University", 2019). His 1987 study of the graffiti in Northern Ireland highlights how during The Troubles the graffiti often took the form of culturally symbolic representations textualised on the ‘peace lines’ - the wall that separated the Nationalist and Unionist areas of Belfast. It was through these representations that the artists behind these murals communicated the idea of national pride, a symbolic call to arms to fight for the country. Doing so could often be a means for the artist to identify themselves with a political or religious affiliation, for instance through the rendering of a tricolour flag for the Republic of Ireland.
Rolston’s 2014 article on the wall murals of Palestine uses visual analysis specifically to highlight the differences in ideological content between the murals found in Gaza under Hamas rule in 2013 and those found there a decade earlier (Rolston, 2014). He draws acute similarities between the role of the media and the role of these murals, not only in their ability to “propagate moral messages” but also in their ability to act as a mirror on society, concluding ;
“Ultimately, they mainly reflect the community back to itself. If the present is guns, war and death, muralists can do relatively little to paint a different picture. At the same time, if change is on the agenda, they can play a progressive role; they can encourage the community to take risks for conflict transformation” (Rolston, 2014).
Hung Li & Prasad (2018) also discuss graffiti in Palestine, although this time in the context of the Palestinian Intifada of the late 1980s - early 1990s, when it was used as a substitution for more traditional forms of media which were under strict regulation by the occupying Israeli government, often spreading news of acts of resistance and boycotts which otherwise would have been difficult to share with the masses without risk of detection (Li & Prasad, 2018). Rolston (2014) also acknowledges this role of graffiti as mass communicator in the Intifada, although uses this to provide context for the ‘ironic’ fact that under Hamas rule, the graffiti in Gaza is in effect censored, with graffiti considered as showing support for the ideology of Fatah risks being removed or painted over.
Anindya Raychaudhuri (2010) theorises that, compared to advertising, graffiti is a crime due to the fact that it undermines corporations who must purchase public space in which they can place what they like, essentially privatising public space. Graffiti does not ask for this permission, nor does it pay to use the space. This is just one facet of the illegality of graffiti, and while it makes a certain sense, to take it as the only reason is too simplistic. For a start, corporations may pay to advertise in a public space, but they must still uphold advertising standards of whichever country they appear in, and are likely bound to a certain set of rules which dictates what they can and cannot say and display. Graffiti transcends such boundaries, adhering to no one’s rule book but its maker’s. This surely adds a certain power to graffiti as a medium, allowing an unfiltered expression of meaning. Moreover, Ping Hung Li and Prasad (2018) suggest that the depictions found within graffiti usually communicate an opinion more succinctly and emphatically than “even the most sympathetic journalist’s report”, therefore constructing a reality which may differ from that as constructed by the media (498). Adrienne de Ruiter (2015) also highlights the differences of constructed reality between the two, and she quotes the artist El Teneen as saying he creates graffiti to make people think ‘about what is happening in the media. [...] they create an image of reality. Graffiti can discern this image, can mess with it’ (de Ruiter, 2015). We therefore can understand graffiti’s role in a conflict zone as being as a replacement for traditional media and its reflections of society, but also as a challenger of such constructions of reality.
However, as important as it is that we acknowledge the use of graffiti in conflict zones to act as a vital means of communication in times when no other means existed (or they were heavily controlled), it is possible that this emphasis can lead to us overlooking its role in today’s landscape, where technological advances - such as the increasing availability of internet access - allow for messages to be carried effectively and efficiently via online networks. In most parts of the world, unsanctioned graffiti is an illegal act, often lending greater credence to any subversive messages contained within. The presence of this illegal medium in a public space is often noticed as one goes about their daily business, and can offer a stark contrast to other forms of media we encounter on a daily basis, billboard advertisements, radio broadcasts. It is both a reclaiming of public space and an act of conscious disturbance, the act of which is just as important to the process of meaning making as any content within (Banksy, 2005). It is this line that Adrienne de Ruiter (2015) follows in her journal article on the interrelations between social media and graffiti in the context of the Egyptian revolution, in which she outlines the ongoing relevance of graffiti as a medium for communication. Social media, she argues, has not made graffiti any less powerful as a communicator, but rather serves as a platform for the messages carried within (de Ruiter, 2015). As Raychaudhuri (2010) highlights, graffiti is transient, not just in its physicality, but also in the minds of its audience, people who may view the graffiti briefly, sometimes only affording it a cursory glance if any. This graffiti may be gone the next time the viewer passes by, perhaps removed by the local municipality or painted over by other graffiti artists. The graffiti pieces that are not removed or painted over are instead prone to environmental factors, and often created with cheap materials which can fade over time. By using social media as a platform to spread images of graffiti, the risk of transiency is somewhat negated, as although the physical piece may have been erased its image can still endure. Likewise, the site-specific act of creating graffiti does not only carry meaning for
those who view it at its place of presentation in public space, it can also transmit said meaning to a wider audience through the act of uploading a picture on to an internet site and being disseminated across global spaces. This can encourage discourse and debate, especially when shared on social media.
At the same time, the physical act of creating graffiti can also initiate conversation. De Ruiter (2015) elaborates on this by describing how a graffiti artist in Egypt was stopped and questioned by passers-by multiple times while creating a piece, allowing him the opportunity to explain the political situation and his reasons for painting. However, while art which hangs in galleries is often sought out by the viewer, to be gazed upon and digested over some moments, graffiti can also serve as an “unwelcome intervention”, or even an unnoticed intervention which may in fact not register with somebody who has other things on their mind (Banksy, 2005). This prompts us to question the true efficacy of graffiti as a carrier of meaning. If, as Marshall McLuhan stated, the medium is the message, then how much attention does graffiti require in order to be processed and understood? (McLuhan, 1964) Although, perhaps the importance of graffiti as a medium stems from its ability to reach those members of society who do not necessarily seek out the message carried within, as de Ruiter (2015) argues. Perhaps it is then that graffiti truly serves to change people’s minds about certain subjects.
Specific meanings within graffiti can also be represented through the media industry in the form of newspaper reports and news broadcasts. Graffiti in a conflict zone is, as McAtackney puts it, “media-friendly”, offering an easy access to grass-roots opinions which are then represented within the media industry (2011, 88). It is this concept of representation of meaning within graffiti and how this is mediated through international news outlets which I aim to analyse through visual study of Banksy’s Donkey Documents and analysis of subsequent news reports about such. Raychaudhuri (2010) recognises and argues that graffiti is a “unique textual category” worthy of analysis different to other types of art. Indeed, as stated previously, Banksy himself shuns the use of the word ‘art’ to describe his work, stating that it has many “negative connotations” which can cause people to feel alienated (Raychaudhuri, 2010, p. 51).
3.2 Graffiti within a Palestinian Context
Given that graffiti is a site-specific action, regardless of its mediation, it makes most sense to focus this study in one particular locality. The West Bank in Palestine was chosen, not least because one only has to conduct a simple Google image search to see for oneself the amount of graffiti which the separation barrier is home to. It seems that many feel a compelling need to make some sort of mark upon the wall. This need has served some kind of purpose in drawing tourists to the wall itself, offering a canvas for expression, a reclaiming of public space from the dominant power (Larkin, 2014). Perhaps this is also evidence of the aforementioned broken window theory at play - one act of graffiti can spawn a thousand. Looking back in time, graffiti in Palestine predates the separation wall by some decades, although perhaps not necessarily present in the vibrant and colourful styles we are familiar with today. Before Palestine became such a popular destination for artists, the locals were
using graffiti as a means of communicating messages internally. During the first Intifada between the late eighties and early nineties, graffiti was instrumental in ensuring organisation and rallying of fighters, notifying locals of boycotts and strikes as well as warning of potential threats, and became a replacement for a media that was out of their control (Li & Prasad, 2018 ; Larkin, 2014). Given the fact that the Israeli government had imposed strict measures within the occupied Palestinian territories, communication proved difficult, yet graffiti was able to carry messages through this internal communication system, effective as a form of resistance media (Li & Prasad, 2018).
The advent of new forms of digital technologies and media means that graffiti is no longer the sole means of communication in areas of conflict, neither is it the only means of political expression (Larkin, 2014 ; de Ruiter, 2015). However, it has not necessarily been replaced either. As de Ruiter (2015) highlights, studies on graffiti in Egypt’s Tahrir Square around the time of the 2011 uprising suggest that the primary audience for this art was not global audiences but in fact the local people of Egypt, who in some cases did not know what was happening and needed to be communicated with in an understandable way, or were believing state run propaganda media which were promoting a one-sided argument (Abaza, 2012 ; de Ruiter, 2015).
Craig Larkin (2014) specifically analyses the graffiti that appear on the wall that separates Israel and the Palestinian Territories. Such pieces, he writes, are usually political in nature, and are used to reclaim the space through text, image and discursive narrative (Larkin, 2014). They are also used as an expression of feeling about events reported in the news. One local was quoted as saying that the wall has taken on the role of the news media, if something happens in the area it is represented through graffiti on the wall. As one Palestinian tour guide stated; “the battle against the occupation has shifted from committees to media sites. The images of the wall often speak louder than politicians’ voices” (Larkin, 2014). Hung Li & Prasad (2018) likens the wall as canvas to social media platforms, which also have the ability to challenge dominant narrative and provide vital inroads for the Palestinian cause. About this, Li & Prasad state the following;
“Stein (2012) reports that the Israeli Foreign Ministry and the Israel Defense Forces are now employing the metaphor of “graffiti” on the Facebook “wall” to classify Palestinian textual and visual activism in the new digital age as something that is illegitimate and representative of disorder…Israeli government agencies are in an especially advantageous position to control the media coverage and, to a lesser degree, the flow of Palestine political claims in social media” (Li & Prasad 2018, 505)
Looking at the scholarship, graffiti in Palestine and areas of conflict such as Northern Ireland, Berlin and Egypt more generally emerges as having very particular functions and roles, which include expressing political opinion, challenging hegemony and dominant ideology, rallying people to boycotts and resistance movements, acting as a replacement for traditional media and acting as an unfiltered means of communication.
4. Theoretical Framework
Already within this thesis there have been certain themes and concepts introduced in our discussion of graffiti’s role as a medium for communication in areas of conflict. This section aims to provide a more grounded basis for approaching these themes in such a context.
4.1 Ownership of Space
Graffiti - as we understand it for this thesis (see Section 2.2) - emerges out of particular social contexts that lend themselves to a Marxist analysis of the ways economic and class structures influence cultural production. Its cultural rebirth as part of the hip-hop culture in New York was situated on underground subway trains, quite literally on the margins of society, and acted as a voice for the disenfranchised and disillusioned throughout the 1960s and 70s (Anapur, 2016). It can be viewed as a reclaiming of public space from those that ‘own’ it, such as the State, or those that rent it, such as advertisers. Marxist theory imagines the term ‘state’ to refer to the state of the dominant class - meaning that state “IS its state” and will always comprise the dominant order, regardless of what political parties come into power or their specific ideology (Althusser et al, 2014 p. 114).
Graffiti’s presence in a public space, uncommodified and without direct economic value, also goes directly against the concept of economic gain for the art galleries and exhibitions. When a graffiti artist makes his or her mark on a public space, they are effectively providing their labour for free, and disallowing their work to be commodified, or capitalised on by those who would profit from it. In this way the graffiti becomes an instrument of anti-capitalism almost instantaneously. The battle for the ownership of space between the graffiti artist and the state then is a constant one. As long as the graffiti artist makes his or her mark in an illegal way, on a property which the state lays claim to, it will always be seen as a markedly anti-establishment act, a flouting of the rules which govern society and a rejection of the capitalist economic system which the state benefits from through taxes and duties.
Also important for our understanding of graffiti’s role as media text is the ownership of space within the public sphere. Jürgen Habermas (1989) discusses this public sphere as a conceptual community structure where citizens can speak freely on matters of general interest and is at once real and imagined - real in that it is made up of opinion and sentiment which can be both spoken and written, and imagined in the sense that it is in itself not a physical object. It is a social realm for consensus to be reached and collaborative decisions be made by individuals. In order for the public sphere to provide a ground for the formation of public opinion, these individual views, often spoken in private, must be disseminated and received by others who have similar beliefs (Habermas, 1974). Control within the public sphere of society is not gained through acts of violence and oppression, as territorial conflicts such as that between Israel and Palestine often bear witness to. It is instead gained through what Gramsci termed cultural hegemony, the reaching of an agreed consensus of morals and ethics that have been introduced to society at large through public facing social structures equipped to spread ideals en masse, such as education, religion and media (Hodkinson, 2011). Louis Althusser (2014) labeled these structures ideological state
apparatuses, instruments that may be used by the state to promote the principles and moral viewpoints of those in power. If we consider Althusser’s assessment to be accurate, then the public narrative that exists in the public sphere will likely be the common thread of beliefs that binds the dominant order and allows it to maintain its position. It also becomes the main occupier of the space within the public sphere.
Analysis of media texts can provide examples of how the media, as an ideological state apparatus, disseminates the viewpoints and beliefs of the ruling class. We can consider, for example, the American television showThe Apprentice which featured current United States president Donald Trump between the years of 2004-2015. In this series, Trump sets 16 candidates tasks to test their corporate business sense and abilities, whittling them down as the series unfolds in order to crown a winner, who receives the prize of a “dream job” working as Trump’s apprentice. Couldry & Littler (2011) put forth that the show not only represents and mediates “work-related norms”, but also naturalises them by presenting them in the format of a ‘reality’ show (p.4). They state that “by presenting the ‘reality’ of work and business in the form of highly structured entertainment, The Apprentice transforms the norms of the neoliberal workplace into taken-for-granted ‘common sense’”(Couldry & Littler, 2011 p.4). By representing the modern American dream as winning the right to work for a billionaire, the concept of capitalism is reinforced, and viewers are encouraged to consider this as not simply a construct of modern society, but the only option for success. Hodkinson highlights how such “false consciousness” blinds workers as to how exploited they are, as well as the fact that their situation is in fact changeable (Hodkinson, 2011 p. 107). When content such as this is distributed through mass media channels, it has the ability to reach large audiences. Large advertising budgets means elements of the content may take up space in magazines, on billboards, during commercial breaks or may be discussed on television or radio talk shows. It also takes up space within the public sphere, as it is discussed in social circles, between friends or in the family home.
When Marx wrote his famous Communist Manifesto in the 19th century, his prediction was that the proletariat, or working class, would eventually rebel against and overthrow this dominant power (Fuchs, 2014). Gramsci viewed this as a gradual and ongoing process where hegemony is not fixed and static but rather allowed to continue through organised consent (Carroll & Ratner, 1994). While this consent exists, there is little that can be done to overthrow the dominant ideology. However, Gramsci also developed the concept of counter hegemonies, structures in society which oppose the dominant discourse with the intention to bring about social change (Lears, 1985). Gramsci believed that the activists at the helm of these counter hegemonies are vocal about their disagreement with the parties in power, and that they relate to subaltern groups by being able to mediate “between the abstract and concrete in a manner foreign to traditional scholastic, ecclesiastic, and political elites” (Carroll & Ratner, 1994, p. 12). Carroll & Ratner (1994) argue that the activists who promote counter hegemony are able to communicate ideas to the layperson in a more effective way than the ‘elites’ of society. Graffiti is art for everybody, and as a movement it originated from the margins of society, acting as a voice for the disenfranchised. This is key to its ability to function as an intervention to dominant narratives.
In his book Wall and Piece, Banksy writes about his desire to reclaim public space in a very literal sense, about painting over the advertising billboards which confront the public on an everyday basis without asking for permission (Banksy, 2005). However, Banksy’s infamy means that his stunts have also become a reclaiming of the public sphere, designed to get people talking and challenge the dominant narrative. His Palestinian works, and especially Donkey Documents, can therefore be seen as a reclaiming of both public space and the public sphere.
4.2 Construction of Identity
Recent studies on identity have focused on three main types of identity; self identity, relational identity and collective identity (Scwhartz, 2011). As we have seen in Section 2., collective identity is often related to shared beliefs and ideologies among a certain group of people, and can promote a feeling of security and togetherness. The process of how ideology and constructions of identity permeate society has been the focus of much debate within the field of media and communications, with general consensus accepting that media has the potential to shape public discourse and communications. Within areas of conflict there is a possibility that the media can be harnessed by political parties to shape and manipulate national identity in an effort to influence and control the public. This can pose quite a threat to democratic freedom of press within a conflict zone. On the one hand, political entities wish to control the media narrative yet are aware that they run the risk of being misrepresented, and on the other hand the media actors wish to control the narrative yet need access to reliable and up to date information on political developments (Müller, 2017). This can lead to a mutual dependency with the media essentially constructing a reality for the public based on its mediation of political ideology (Esser, 2014 ; Legatis, 2019).
Also in Section 2 . we looked at the man behind Banksy, and how the anonymity of his self-identity has been closely guarded through the construction of an alter-identity. Throughout the duration of a decades-spanning career in the public eye he has managed to limit the amount of publicly available knowledge about who he is mainly to guesswork and rumour, without ever being definitively de-masked. He has also managed to create a type of Banksy brand, his name at once being synonymous with a certain type of art, recognisable and identifiably his. His actions usually carry some type of political message, and have helped align the artist with certain beliefs and viewpoints, such as his anti-capitalist stance. The third form of identity, relational identity, refers to how one constructs his or her own identity based on their relationships with other people, and may be useful in understanding the potential causes for offense which Donkey Documents transmits (Schwartz, 2011). Gillian Rose (2001) highlights John Berger’s famous phrase ‘ways of seeing’ as referring to how “we never look just at one thing”, and we are in fact identifying relations between ourselves and that at which we look” (Berger, 1972 p.9). The locational context of Donkey Documents, close in proximity to Checkpoint 300 between Israel and Palestine, suggests that the depicted soldier is either Israeli or is meant to represent Israel itself. Using Ferdinand de Saussure’s approach to comprehending texts, the image of the soldier is therefore a signifier of the signified concept of Israel (Hodkinson, 2011). Stuart Hall (1993)
developed this idea and put forth that media texts carry encoded messages which must be decoded correctly in order to understand their true meaning (Hodkinson, 2011). This process of reaching an understanding of a particular text can become more difficult when there are no words to anchor us to a concept (Hodkinson, 2011 p.93). However, whether Banksy ever intended to cause offense is almost beside the point. As Gillian Rose (2001) states, the study of visual matters has somewhat veered away from auteur theory, the belief that a text’s author’s intended meaning should be considered as most relevant for visual analysis. Nowadays there is more of a trend towards understanding how audiences construct meaning, and how an image is made and is seen in relation to other images (Rose, 2001). In the midst of a conflict which means that Israel is often mentioned in relation to Palestine within the media, it isn’t hard to understand why the locals may have formed the opinion that the other character within the donkey and soldier pair is meant to represent the Palestinians. This does not mean that this is the only interpretation, or indeed the right one. In the presence of a text, multiple meanings or interpretations can exist from person to person. According to Havemann, Sless (1986) puts forward a communication model for a greater understanding of how media texts transmit meaning (Havemann, 1999). Instead of taking the text as one singular object we must consider it instead as two texts - the text produced by the author and the text produced by the reader, through a series of intrinsic meaning making processes (Haveman 1999). Taking the case of Donkey Documents, there exists a dichotomous text which branches off into two - the text as produced by Banksy, and the text as produced by the viewer. In his book on approaches to textual analysis, McKee states that people living in differing “sense-making systems” will see or interpret the world differently (McKee, 2003). This is closely aligned with Barthes’ aforementioned theory of the relationship between media texts, their meaning and their interpretation (see Section 2.). His theory of connotations also makes sense here. When one takes another of Banksy’s Palestinian works Rage, Flower Thrower as an example, we see the image of a man throwing a bunch of flowers. The flowers are a sign - made up of both the ‘signifier’ (the visual rendering of flowers) but also the ‘signified’ (the concept of flowers as we create it in our minds). This may not be all we imagine when we view these flowers. The creation of this concept within our minds also instills in us a certain feeling, based on our previous associations with the concept of flowers. Someone’s subjective associations with the concept of ‘flowers’ may be positive or negative. Potentially they may associate flowers with love, or romance, as they are given between lovers. They may equally associate flowers with sickness or death, having brought flowers to a sick relative in hospital or left on a grave. It is these pre existing connotations which may affect how we interpret what is signified. If this is the case, then this implies that any one text can spawn a multitude of potential additional texts as created by those who read it, as their sense making systems may differ drastically.
5. Methodology
The methodology behind this thesis followed a “continuously unfolding process” from inception to conclusion, as many different strategies were considered, deployed and then disregarded (Layder, 2013). Much preparatory work was completed, without any intention that ‘preparatory work’ was all it should be. However, these steps - the fruits of which were,
for the most part, discarded in favour of the final design - helped to build a diverse understanding of the overall theme and refine the research questions of the study. Those questions are;
● How does Banksy use representative imagery to communicate meaning in his 2007 text Donkey Documents?
● How are multiple interpretations of Donkey Documents constructed within the cultural context of Palestine in 2007?
5.1 Methodology
In order to answer the research questions both a visual analysis and textual analysis were carried out. The purpose behind the visual data collection is perhaps obvious - graffiti uses visual representations to illicit meaning within its viewers, as discussed in Section 4 . The inclusion of the review of international news articles was a later addition to the thesis, as it became evident throughout the study that to understand the “broader social and cultural significance” of Donkey Documents would require some further knowledge on how the piece was received by the locals (Hodkinson 2011). While choosing a method of interviewing the public about their reaction to the piece would have perhaps yielded an interesting set of results, it seemed a little presumptuous to imagine that the Palestinians could remember and articulate their exact reactions of twelve years ago, and so the research aim and questions would have had to be readjusted and the thesis would have become something else. The initial stages of research however had found several references to the reported opinions of the Palestinians to this piece, and so this thread was followed to see what insights could be gathered from a focused review of all articles which fit the search criteria as described below.
In addition to our assumption of graffiti as a media text, this thesis also requires some consideration of two distinct themes, one of which is construction of identity . It is perhaps most fitting then that this thesis be viewed through an interpretivist/constructivist paradigm. This paradigm, or “lens through which we view the world” is largely the product of an accumulation of beliefs, ideas and assumptions which influence how we as individuals make sense of things (Collins, 2010 p.38 ; Kawulich, 2012). The application of this interpretivist/constructivist paradigm has fed into how the analysis was conducted. Referring back to Roland Barthes’ (1966) description of what constitutes a text, endless possibilities for interpretation exist, which naturally results in the possibility for multiple levels of meaning making and multiple texts. This potential is compounded when considering how “sense-making systems” differ across the world (McKee, 2003). How these sense-making systems come to be can be understood particularly well when considering the two main themes of this paper; ownership of public space and construction of identity. The world around us is interpreted based on our relationship to it, our place within it, and our feelings towards it. In order to reach a fuller understanding of how renegade media texts such as graffiti gains attention in the public space and contributes to constructions of identity, we need to consider not only our own interpretation of the messages transmitted within the text, but also the multiple texts that arise as a result of the text’s dissemination and reception by people across different walks of life.
Although guidance has been offered by certain scholars such as Blaikie (2000) and Collins (2010) as to the suitability of particular research methods to specific paradigms, Schwandt (1998) emphasises that for the constructivist the concern should be to watch and examine using method as dictated by the purpose of enquiry (p.221). There is therefore a relative freedom in choice of method providing that the goal remains sought after, which allows for a more flexible approach to the sampling. As Derek Layder (2013) highlights, the explanation for a research question or questions does not just appear from nowhere. Rather, it “emerges cumulatively” from the research, and therefore the more flexible the sampling process is the more thorough an investigation will likely be (Layder, 2013).
As has already been outlined, this thesis includes both a visual analysis of Donkey Documents and a textual analysis of seventeen newspaper articles published in the month of December 2007. This combination of data was decided upon after a number of different research designs were considered. One method which seemed at first like it might offer a potential groundwork for meeting the research aim was content analysis. A logical argument for quantitative content analysis is that it can be reproduced time and again by different researchers following the same objective set of rules or coding examples in order to find recurring themes or patterns which could suggest meaning within a text. Where no preconceptions exist, definition of such rules or examples is difficult and inductive category development should be carried out to identify categories which can be quantified through completion of a preparatory, qualitative content analysis in order to discover the components of the texts which can then be coded and quantified (Mayring, 2000). Due to the systematic process of content analysis, it is considered by some as a more scientific approach than some other methods of analysis, as it allows the same results to be discovered as oftentimes as the research is conducted, provided there is no deviation from the set rules.
It readily became apparent that this method of content analysis was perhaps not the wisest choice for a thesis which aims to provide an argument for consideration of multiple levels of interpretation of graffiti as a media text. Berelson (1952) labeled it as a technique for objective research and the systematic approach certainly offers a somewhat scientific method for scrutiny of a text. However, as Havemann highlights, perhaps “a reading of a text should be understood as an event, never to be repeated in the same way” (Staiger, 1993 ; Havemann 1999). It also seemed that no matter which way the content analysis is conducted, for the lone researcher at some point there must be a subjective interpretation of the coding categories, either during the process of their creation or within the definition of which instances constitute a certain category. Rather than being bound to the scientific rigour and parameters defined by content analysis, the flexible sampling approach allowed the possibility of exploring other methods to see whether a more appropriate process for answering the research questions could be found.
5.2 Chosen Research Design
The final research design consisted of two types of analysis; the qualitative, visual study of the imagery within Donkey Documents, and a qualitative, inductive analysis of seventeen newspaper articles containing the search terms “Banksy” AND “donkey”, published in
December 2007. Considering the first research question, in order to arrive at an understanding of the representative imagery Banksy uses to trigger meaning, we must first look at the prompts within Donkey Documents which set off the intrinsic meaning making process, followed by a deeper look at the cultural representations embedded within. To do so, this thesis deploys a three stage approach as described by Hilary Collins (2010).
Stage #1. consists of a descriptive, formal analysis of the image. For this I referred to a video from the Khan Academy ("How to do visual (formal) analysis in art history", 2018) to ensure all applicable elements were considered and incorporated. These elements consist of scale, composition, pictorial space, form, line, colour, light, tone, texture and pattern. The emphasis throughout this stage of the analysis is not to apply any level of interpretation beyond the most basic processing of immediate comprehension, and requires articulation of everything which is visible to the naked eye. This first stage could perhaps be considered as a content analysis of sorts, as there is at least some potential for replication of results between researchers due to the lack of interpretation required. Although Banksy does not visibly use all formal elements in his creation of the image of Donkey Documents, each must be considered, as their inclusion or omission will feed into the interpretative stage of the analysis.
Stage #2. required some consideration for the context of the text, where a broader look at the piece, including where it was situated and who created it, offered a frame of reference as to how social and political events at the time may have influenced the text. As Gillian Rose (2001) states, “it is always important to know something about all aspects of the image you want to research; even if the audience is your main analytical focus, it is often useful to know something about the production of the image too” (p. 29). Although Rose also highlights the importance of moving away from auteur theory, situating a chosen image amongst an artist’s other pieces may help us to form a relational construction of the identity of the image, or the meaning within, based on how it compares to or differs from other pieces from the same artist. Similarly, considering the locational and historical context of an image’s production - as we did in Section 2. - can allow us to come to a greater understanding of meaning within. Stage #3. incorporated both previous elements for analysis of potential interpretation of meanings within the piece. For this stage of the analysis it was important to understand the significance of certain images within the piece, as well as how different cultures may potentially read these images. This stage of the analysis is very much a product of our own sense - making system. Roland Barthes (1966) discussed two texts, the readerly text (the meaning of which is unambiguous and does not invite interpretation) and the writerly text (which invites multiple meanings). If we consider Donkey Documentsthrough the first stage of the visual analysis, we understand it to be a readerly text - the formal elements can be easily recognised and require little argumentation. Stage #3 however considers Donkey Documents as a writerly text, open to many interpretations.
In order to answer research question number two, a textual analysis of newspaper articles published in December 2007 was conducted. The resource Access World News : Research Collection offered by NewsBank.inc provided the relevant newspaper articles. As the specific
