Women in the American Military

Tinker v. Des Moines Independent Community School District was a watershed moment involving the First Amendment free speech rights of students in American public schools. In Tinker, the Supreme Court affirmed that absent a reasonable forecast of material and substantial disruption, educators could not discipline students who wore black arm bands to school protesting American military action in Viet Nam. Not surprisingly, litigation continues on the boundaries of student speech, coupled with the extent to which educators can limit expression on the internet, especially social media. As the Justices finally entered the fray over cyber speech, this three-part article begins by reviewing Tinker and other Supreme Court precedent on student expressive activity plus illustrative lower court cases before examining Levy v. Mahanoy Area School District. In Levy, the Court will consider whether educators could discipline a cheerleader, a student engaged in an extracurricular activity, who violated team rules by posting inappropriate off-campus messages on Snapchat. The article then offers policy suggestions for lawyers and educators when working with speech codes applicable to student use of the internet and social media by pupils involved in extracurricular activities.

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Twelve Insights into the Afghanistan War through the Photographs from the Basetrack Project: Rita Leistner’s iProbes and Marshall McLuhan’s Theory of Media

Arts ◽

10.3390/arts10020027 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 10 (2) ◽

pp. 27

Author(s):

Kalina Kukielko-Rogozinska

Keyword(s):

Interpersonal Relations ◽

Armed Conflicts ◽

Marshall Mcluhan ◽

American Military ◽

War Photography ◽

Military Equipment ◽

Photographic Analysis ◽

Contemporary Media ◽

Modern Warfare ◽

Modern War

This article presents the iProbe concept developed by the Canadian photographer Rita Leistner. This analytical tool is one of the ways to present the image of modern warfare that emerges from messages in social media and photographs taken using smartphones. Utilized to understand the approach are photographs Leistner took at the American military base in Musa Qala (Helmand province, Afghanistan) during the implementation of the “Basetrack” media project in 2011. The theoretical basis for this study is Marshall McLuhan’s media theory, which was used by the photographer to interpret her works from Afghanistan. Leistner is the first to apply the various concepts shaped by McLuhan in the second half of 20th century, such as “probe”, “extension of man”, and the “figure/ground” dichotomy, to analyze war photography. Her blog and book entitled Looking for Marshall McLuhan in Afghanistan shows the potential of using McLuhan’s concepts to interpret the image of modern warfare presented in the contemporary media. The application of McLuhan’s theory to this type of photographic analysis provides the opportunity to focus on the technological dimension of modern war and to look at warfare from a technical perspective such as what devices and communication solutions are used to solve armed conflicts as efficiently and bloodlessly as possible. Therefore, this article briefly presents twelve iProbes that Leistner created based on her experiences from working in Afghanistan concerning photography, military equipment, interpersonal relations, and various types of communication.

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