Ithaca College

Patricia Zimmermann, Professor of Screen Studies and Co-director of the Finger Lakes Environmental Film Festival, and Dale Hudson, Associate Professor, New York University Abu Dhabi, have published their essay “Media in the COVID-19 Pandemic: Big and High, Small and Low” in Jump Cut: A Review of Contemporary Media (60) in the April 2021 issue of the journal.

This essay examines media during the COVID-19 pandemic—big and high, small and low—to understand the ways in which different dimensions of the pandemic can be communicated to others.

The article proposes a tentative model of “big and high” compared to “small and low,” not in terms of culture or quality, but instead in terms of altitude, distance, perspective and relevance.

Big and high concerns the broadcasts of media giants along with the spectacle of images from aerial drones, whereas small and low concerns narrowcast stories on community websites or chat groups, along with videos shot imperfectly on mobile devices at ground level.

These different forms and modes of “small and low” media help us understand how to make connections between the pandemic and daily life. They reject the drone’s distance for the mobile’s proximity.

The article can be read here:

https://www.ejumpcut.org/currentissue/HudsonZimmerman-Pandemic/index.html