This news clip and video of the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society’s Ady Gil being struck by Japanese whalers will be of interest to anyone who has read Kevin Michael DeLuca’s Image Politics: The New Rhetoric of Environmental Activism. In it he reflects on the success of Greenpeace’s anti-whaling image war in the 1970s in which the organization was able to successfully reframe Russian factory ships as agressors against powerless whales. Their guerrilla media played well in the Cold War rhetoric of the time, their images being provocative enough to transcend the dominant discourse of the evening news. DeLuca argues that through such media environmental groups have the ability to raise awareness of issues otherwise ignored by mainstream press. He wrote the book before “viral video” became a mainstream concept.

This clip, which comes from CBS News’ YoutTube channel, was also viewed on the evening news in Italy. I don’t know if it has managed any real TV coverage in the US other than the Web, but the clip is already spreading through the blogosphere.

There are two curious things about this video. First, it is from the perspective of the Japanese whaling ship, so it’s a bit odd that the video is distributed at all–considering the potential liability of the whalers. Either there’s more to the story that the Japanese intend to tell, or there was a covert videographer onboard who uploaded it via satellite. Either scenarios is intriguing.

The other strange twist is something that begs a snarky comment, but I’ll resist. The the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society’s other vessel that rescued the Ady Gil’s crew is called Bob Barker, the namesake, no less, of the famous game show host who paid for the boat. Goes to show that media do have a peculiar way of circulating reality.