Networks, Society, and Polis: Epistemological Approaches on Mediatization

Between the power of enunciators and the power of discourses... 227 D. Persistence and reconfiguration of modern images in the case of CFK’s zócalos We will try to demonstrate what we have just pointed out with the analysis of the example we are considering. We will begin by answering to the CFK post, which unfolded the action of the mass media and, ultimately, made the example so interest- ing to us. Regardless of the polarization that frames the exchang- es between Kirchnerists and anti-Kirchnerists, to which we will return, what was the focus of the resumption and discussion of her posting by the four television programs? The falsity of the articulation between text and image. The four programs turned to their archives and determined that the discourses posted by CFK were based on images taken from their television broad- cast, which is predominantly iconic-indicial (CARLÓN, 2004; 2006), but that the specific articulation between text and image never happened. Now, what is the statute of the images that generated so much controversy? They were taken by Santos Vargas from effective audiovisual transmissions, and, when processed, their specificity becomes digital 11 , but also iconic-indexical (in their current statute of weak indexicality, as we pointed out above). What we discuss is that, at no time during these transmissions, from which those images were taken and processed, appeared this videography that also relocated them in the context of an- other event on Saturday, July 22 – the conflict in the province of Santa Cruz. But its statute is not in dispute. Why so much offense and interest in denying, only be- cause the articulation has never occurred? It is the main motive, but not the only one: iconic-indexical images are highly plau- sible; through the iconic dimension, they identify who appears represented and feels challenged, and, through the persistence of the indexical dimension, they activate the presupposition that what is seen, happened, much more than others. This indexi- cality does not have the same power in a shared image on the networks as in transmission, that is why we mean that, in con- temporaneity, there is still weak indexicality since the spectator 11 According to Perucca, Santos Vargas makes his memes with Windows 95.