Screen Shots

"Screen Shots teaches as it describes, instructs as it unsettles what we know about the expanse and limits of digital photography in the civilian landscapes of perpetual war, of photographic encounters with Israel state violence in the occupied Palestinian territories over the last two decades. Avoiding a predictable rehearsal of digital photography as a versatile and effective weapon of war, Screen Shots strikes precisely and pointedly elsewhere: at the political nerve of visualized failures, at the unnerving state of faulty images and unsteady cameras not properly loaded, apertures not set for the scale of violence confronted, witnessing that misses its mark.



Screen Shots makes evident what aperture settings can't tell: how the images captured at once buttress and undermine claims of brutalizing settlers, humanitarian NGOs, and Palestinian activists—depending on what sits resolutely askew or adjacent to the photographer's lens. In this war of images, none of those tasked with recording can wholly control how violence will be applauded or vilified, how perpetrators will be cast, and how those images and their self-proclaimed heroes will be politically framed. In the end, Rebecca L. Stein's lucid account both acknowledges and defies the grotesque features of this infamously ugly military occupation."—Ann Stoler, The New School for Social Research, author of Duress: Imperial Durabilities in Our Times

"In Palestine perhaps more than anywhere else, political struggle has hinged in recent years on video technology's promise of a perfect witnessing: the fantasy that oppression can be recorded with such absolute transparency that it will compel viewers to act. Writing with great clarity and unflinching rigor, Rebecca L. Stein focuses on the inevitable failures of this dream and the emergence of the visual as yet another painfully contested battlefield. Screen Shots is an elegant, sobering work, and should be required reading for anyone interested in cutting through the colonialist myths that obscure the brutal realities of the occupation—and that still set the terms of its media representation."—Ben Ehrenreich, author of The Way to the Spring: Life and Death in Palestine

"Since its invention, photography has changed the way people see, and represent, themselves and others. Digital photography in the early 21st century has had an even more profound impact not only on how a conflict, like the one in Palestine, is seen and presented, but also on the political discourse and its visual articulation by the participants themselves. Rebecca L. Stein's Screen Shots is the first book to examine how digital photography impacted everyday practice under military occupation. It constitutes a very important addition to the fields of Palestine, postcolonial, and visual studies. The book functions both as a chronicle of photographed social life, as well as the political function of the photography. It is a must-read for anyone interested in Palestine."—Issam Nassar, Illinois State University, author of Photographing Jerusalem

"Videos of human rights violations are a new form of testimony that require deep attentiveness to the multiple ways that politics are inscribed in images. In Screen Shots, Rebecca L. Stein's literary sensitivity to technology, media, and law inhabits the multi-dimensional space opened up by these images."—Eyal Weizman, Goldsmiths, University of London, author of Forensic Architecture

"Stein argues that the expected promise of photographic and film images failed to fullydeliver convincing evidence to a global public in spite of the growth of technology and its sophistication in the contemporary social media age. This book is approachable and interesting, replete with case studies and stories from the past two decades. Recommended."—P. Rowe, CHOICE

"In Screen Shots, Stein cogently depicts the realities of 'the Israeli and Palestinian colonial present in the digital age', expressing an interest in what such a study could offer as a methodological and incisive gateway toward 'other political futures'... [T]he book gives critical foresight into the shifting media ecologies of the occupation and describes in attentive detail the Israeli military, Israeli NGOs, and the Israeli public's investment in digital medias, documentary forms, and depictions and denials of state violence against Palestinian bodies, lands, and infrastructures."—Sherena Razek, Journal of Palestine Studies

"Screen Shots has no doubt earned its place in the scholarly cannon on digital media, photography and camera dreams in Israel and Palestine and beyond. The strength of the book is located in its use of the analytic of failure: what can repeatedly dashed hopes of cameras teach us about the colonial present in Israel and Palestine? One can only hope, as Stein gestures toward in her coda, that camera failures will begin undoing the power of the Israeli settler-colonial regime."—Liat Berdugo, Israel Studies Review

"Screen Shots enters a literature that at its core examines new media and photographic or journalistic realism in Palestine and Israel. As evidenced by the book's dense footnotes, Stein's range is (as usual) remarkable: she is equally well-versed in theories of photography and technological change as in the study and history of Palestine and Israel. Here she provides an excellent framework for examining a range of questions, from the current technologies of military surveillance to digital witnessing to the fantasies associated with digital media. We are fortunate to have this seminal work as a guide as we try to make other political futures become visible."—Alejandro I. Paz, International Journal of Middle East Studies