The promotional video for the Naomi Klein’s book The Shock Doctrine provides an example for both effective uses of visual media and ineffective uses of visual media. The video and, from what I can tell, the book discuss the government’s use of Milton Friedman’s theory of economic shock treatment or what she calls the “shock doctrine.” The theory is that the government use moments of crisis to push through policies that were unpopular to the public prior to the crisis. The government will be able to pass these policies because people will view leaders as working towards the “common good” and may view the policies as restoring the country to the pre-crisis state.

The visuals that Klein and the video’s director Alfonso Cuarớn create are mostly effective; however, there are a few visuals that give a mixed message and others that rely on faulty assumptions.

There are two sets of effective visuals from the video that also give a mixed message to the audience. The first is the series of images that portray the CIA’s methods of torture. The images, which include sleep deprivation and water torture, are shown quickly and they also include the sounds of a quickly beating heart and heavy breathing. The second visual is the series of images of war and invasions. These images include text over them that give statistics or other information. There is also the inclusion of the quickly, beating heart and heavy breathing.

This combination of visual, audio, and in the last image’s case, text gives the audience a mixed message. The point of the video is to argue that using shock to implement policy is wrong, however, Klein is doing the same thing by providing a minor shock to her audience and then telling them to that her theory is correct. By using the same method she condemns, Klein is risking turning away her audience (because they may see this as a media ploy and will disregard the message) and deconstructing her authority.

 The second effective visual is a series of images from that are shown at the beginning of the video. The audience is shown a video from the 1940s of doctors providing psychiatric shock treatment to mentally ill patients. This is followed by the series of images described prior to this about the CIA’s methods of torture. After showing these images, the audience is shown a series of images from wars, invasions, terrorist attacks, etc.

The first set of images implies a physical shock to individuals. The second series of images implies a mental shock to a group of individuals. Klein assumes that the audience will believe that physical shock of torture will create the same effects as a mental shock of a crisis. I think this a faulty premise that she makes in her argument. Clearly, there is a difference between physical shock and mental shock. The effects of one will not create the same effects for the other. Instead of bringing in the images of electric shock treatment and torture, Klein should focus on the shock from crises. This would make her argument stronger and would not require her audience to rely on this assumption.

The choices in visual media made by the director and by the author can be seen as both effective and ineffective. The images of torture and war combined with the fast-paced turn over of images and the audio create a compelling video that does what it sets out to do – promote a book and get the audience interested. However, these choices in media also rely on faulty assumptions and use a method that the book argues against. This may end up turning away more of the audience rather than attracting the audience to the idea. This could be because members of the audience do not agree with the “shock doctrine” or because members of the audience do not agree with the assumptions being made. Either way, Klein and Cuarớn should have better analyzed the audience and should have re-evaluated a proper way of making their argument.