Media Fishtank
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Conference presented at Media Ecology Association Convention- June 19- 2009 Copyright Jerónimo Rivera
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Media Fishtank
- 1. CITIZENS OF THE MEDIA FISH TANK Jerónimo Rivera-Betancur Director of the Ibero-American Audiovisual Narratives Network (Red INAV) Editor of the journal Palabra Clave Chair of the Area of Audiovisual Communication, Universidad de La Sabana (Bogotá- Colombia).
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- 14. We’re watching you Jerónimo León Rivera-Betancur CITIZENS OF THE MEDIA FISH TANK The dystopia of Orwell in 1984, is expressed today as entertainment, as a discourse, as a panoptic model inspired in Bentham, with a political character and as a social system, in a surveillance net that incorporates all types of information: images, sounds, data, fingerprints, email, movements, telephone numbers, patterns of Behavior. Jacob Bañuelos
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Editor's Notes
- By: Jerónimo León Rivera Betancur- Director of the Ibero-American Audiovisual Narratives Network, Editor of the journal Palabra Clave and Chair of the Area of Audiovisual Communication, Faculty of Communication, Universidad de La Sabana.
- THE PRICE OF FAME: On April 16, 2007, a young man named Cho Seng Hui, heavily armed, broke the stillness of morning lectures at Virginia Tech by killing 33 people and injuring another 29. Up to this point it may seem to be one more of the massacres that, regretfully, have been taking place in education institutions of the US and other countries in the last few years. There is, however, an element that sets this event apart from all the others: during the two hours that took place between the first and the second shooting, the killer sent a parcel to NBC News with pictures and a video in which he expressed his hatred and resentment to society.
- This story, like many others, is already forgotten in the oblivion of past news although it earned itself a place in the gallery of human atrocities. Nonetheless, it enables us to reflect upon the impact of media and the urge of citizens to appear in them regardless of how, even post-mortem. It is also important to reflect upon the decision and the editorial and informative position portrayed by those same media, who published the images of a deranged man who buys his guns in a nearby store and goes to his university to kill whoever crosses his path, without any given motive. Therefore, I would like to focus today on this new citizen, always craving media attention, no matter what it takes to get it. Putting aside the debate as to whether the images should have been published or not, lets study the actions of its main character to assume that it is someone who wants to be the new media hero, who recognizes the morbid taste and the likelihood of gaining access to the media through it, and, moreover, someone who enjoys the pain of others, by picturing himself delivering his posthumous message on the cover of a magazine and on the computer screens of thousands of people worldwide.
- More than fifteen years ago, Oliver Stone – filming a Quentin Tarantino screenplay – showed us in Natural Born Killers (1994), two serial-killers who rejoiced on killing everyone in their path for the simple pleasure of seeing them fall dead. The psychopathic couple encounters journalist Wayne Gale, who lifts them to media heaven through his breaking news, producing a public opinion phenomenon similar to that of rock stars. This is highlighted in the last sequence, when the killers decide to get rid of Gale arguing that they do not need him anymore, because “the camera is our witness”.
- This prophetical view of the power of the intromission by the media is quite contemporary, as we perceive the increasing power, overwhelming and omnipresent, of every sort of technological communications gadget with a broad capability to spread contents the world over in a quick and usually unstoppable way. From this vantage point this topic has many angles and I do not pretend to address all of them in this presentation. Firstly, we have the sensationalistic contents broadcast by small and large-scale media and which, thanks to the internet, can be downloaded by million users in the world. Many internet-surfers search morbidly for these images, to store them in their computers and send them to their friends, with the idea of gorging, or sometimes shock themselves, with real-life horrors. Following the disenchantment from horror films, which do not scare nor shock anymore, nothing hits us harder than real life and its excesses. All sorts of contents flood the web, and it is almost certain that we have all received email chains or forwarded messages with grotesque and demeaning images that exploit human suffering in front of the eyes of the world spectators. The hanging of Saddam Hussein displayed with an eye for detail, the throat-slicing of a journalist by the Taliban (including the victim’s screams) and the video of Cho Seng Hui carrying his words before the Virginia massacre, are among the most seen downloaded from YouTube.
- This phenomenon has always taken place, in one way or another. Proof of this is the so-called genre of “snuff” films, which has been clandestinely produced over the years in cellars and basements and through which many death “artists” abuse, torture and kill people to sell their tainted merchandise to the sickened minds of the world. The only difference now is the availability , one click away, and the lack of control and legislation in most countries of the world for internet-published content; this renders an open access without the social sanction expected on both, producers and consumers of these images.
- But, if we can see, wee can be see it too, this images were found in Facebook, It’s not private images yet. Knowing the intromission power of the media, a new generation of media consumers has emerged, whose higher goal is to appear on television (some of whom enter media studies at university with solely this goal in mind). The place achieved in the last decade by the reality shows in television and digital media has sold the idea to the viewers that we are all potentially famous, expecting only to be discovered.
- The new role models for many viewers are the contestants of these reality shows, some of which have, so to speak, achieved a new job as professional reality-contestants, having appeared in five or more of these shows. There is only one requirement demanded of them to take on this new profile: a high dose of exhibitionism with a controversial personality. According to Eloy Martos in his text The Capitalism of Fiction : “Many of these TV new media heroes experience the same fate of Dorothy’s companions in The Wizard of Oz: they lack the brains, the will or the courage to do anything else”. Some have gone to the extreme of the contestants of the “Big Brother Forever” Reality in Germany, who will live together, fall in love, procreate and die in an artificial town of 4000 square meters.
- Rafael López, a contestant in the Spanish Big Brother version, once said that all the participants in the show are “the new TV clowns” and it is true that the role undertaken by these new celebrities is, to be honest, far from pleasant. The space in which they take center stage is disguised as reality, as mentioned in the title name. However, it is a half-hour summary of many recorded hours, imposing on every contestant a characteristic role, for we all know each of them has one, and thanks to the editing process, it becomes reinforced, making each of them a “real-life fictional character”. These professional contestants expose themselves to public opinion in the media fish tank shaping their “being” into a “resemblance” that allows them to “appear” more often on the small screen, in a struggle to remain relevant in a hostile world. However, as admitted by a TVE (Spanish Television) representative quoted by the Spanish newspaper El Mundo: “TV eats its own children; it cannot hire all those who appear on these shows, hence becoming a factory of broken dolls”. The secret of survival in television seems to be extravagance. “We have gone from TV-reality to TV-rarity”, journalist Juan Ramón Lucas states. Today’s television demands new appealing contents and producers must face the constant threat of the remote control, which has become the contemporary viewer’s weapon of choice. The remote control entitles the viewer to engage in zapping, which is nothing else than running away from channel boredom. On this topic, Fellini said “television has made a new generation of arrogant, aloof viewers arise, endowed with neurotic impatience”. The American screenwriter Damon Wayans, regrets the increase of this kind of shows, stating that “people do not watch them to see others win, but to see them lose, cry and grow desperate until they lose their minds. They watch them for the wrong reasons, rather than admiring the talents of others…”
- Some questions: Is Reality guy a new profession? Are they the new clowns of tv? Is Reality TV or Rarity TV?
- However, it cannot be denied that these shows have enabled some true talents access to a large public in a more direct way. There are very relevant cases, such as Paul Potts or Susan Boyle, who have become massive musical phenomena thanks to their appearance at a local talent show later published on YouTube. Precisely it has been Youtube which has given many amateur musicians the chance to show their talent to the world, which has led some of them to sign contracts and publish their music thanks to this window of opportunity.
- In the 1980’s, videotapes brought a major revolution to the audiovisual industry: allowing the viewer the possibility to see and to see himself on the screen. According to Joan Ferres, it enabled “to reach where television does not: the realities closer to the user”. After this great novelty to see ourselves on screen, Internet offers us the option to enable others to see us and the current motto seems to be that anybody can be in the media for any reason, whether relevant or not, as long as it appeals to a great number of viewers. The YouTube phenomenon has made its slogan “broadcast yourself” an actual trend, and it has given the viewers the chance to publish their own videos and reach an indeterminate number of people, with similarly unpredictable results. Some of these anonymous citizens have achieved fame after uploading their videos (or having appeared on a video uploaded by others), obtaining or losing their job and money while marketing their materials, which include parodies, drunken feats, or obnoxious falls.
- Among the twenty videos more often watched in YouTube (as of the 19th of May) we have: 1- Evolution of dance: Dancing show. 119’913.596 views. 3- Charlie bit my finger again: A baby bites his brother’s finger. 97’179.301 views. 8- Hahaha: A baby laughing his head off. 83’344,107 views. 16- Potter puppet pals in the mysterious tricking noise: A puppet show. 61,851,389 views 18- Guitar: A guy plays his guitar. 59’329,643 views. On a deeper inspection, there are some videos with a great number of views showing simple actions such as dubbing, simple falls, impersonations, showing an elbow, a drunken scene at a party or someone crying because they are teased about Britney Spears.
- Internet is a gigantic media fish tank in which we can see something or see ourselves, in an era in which the walls are virtually transparent. Many of these ‘fish’ decided to show their videos for the same reason that some of us have blogs: to exist in the world. However, many others appear without their consent on embarrassing situations, thus breaching their privacy. The use of the video camera included on cell phones, for instance, may turn your local joyful dancer at the disco into a world-wide celebrity of ridicule, who may break all internet viewing records. This possibility to take things out of context is one of the traits of video as a gadget and because of it there have been many interesting cases revolving around this topic. According to Jacob Bañuelos, “The dystopia of Orwell in 1984, is expressed today as entertainment, as a discourse, as a panoptic model inspired in Bentham, with a political character and as a social system, in a surveillance net that incorporates all types of information: images, sounds, data, fingerprints, email, movements, telephone numbers, patterns of behavior”.
- This issue continues to grow and nowadays already has famous bloggers (journalists and amateurs) who have managed to reach more public through their sites than many mass media; there are internet celebrities, whose images have traversed the world and they have become famous for such trivial performances as a fall; in the same way, many people have lost their privacy or their jobs on a careless moment, when a resentful former lover or a boss finds out private information about them which is publicly available through Facebook. This world that keeps unfolding in front of our eyes and from which we still do not know a limit, not even in the industrialized countries, deserves a deep anthropological study beyond internet access speeds, and impact and penetration figures, and addresses the issue of “the public aspect of the private”. Going along with Alejandro Piscitelli, the promises of the networks are unlimited, and that’s good. The demystification must start, however, by accepting the huge distance between what networks could – and should – do, and what they actually are. Along the same lines, we must be prepared to take advantage of the great opportunities of creativity and positioning of independent and alternative media, as well as demand legislation from our countries to counterbalance the negative effects caused by this openness of contents and spaces.