Thursday, January 13, 2011

Global Media Event of the 21st Century

A media event seems like such a simple concept to understand at first glance. In their introduction to the essay "Media Events in a Global Age", Andreas Hepp and Nick Couldry take an in-depth look at the definition of a media event as proposed by Daniel Dayan and Elihu Katz in their book "Media Events: The Live Broadcasting of History", where they defined media events in three different levels: the syntactic level, semantic level and the pragmatic level . In regards to those levels, Dayan and Katz define media events as, respectively, "interruptions of routine", "historic occasions with ceremonial reverence" and events that"enthrall very large audiences who view them in a festive style" (Hepp & Couldry, pg. 2). In layman's terms, a media event is an historic occasion that is widely observed and out of the ordinary.

Though it is hard to pinpoint just one event as being THE media event of the 21st century, arguably one of the most significant media events was the United States invasion of Iraq beginning on March 20th, 2003. Although the invasion was comprised of troops from several different countries, it further established the American presence in the Middle East, and could be seen as the fore-bearer for numerous other media events in the 21st century, including but not limited to the influx of radical Muslim based terrorist attacks around the world, the rise of Iran as a dominating and unchecked force in the region, and (though it is only one of a great many more factors) the rise of America's debt.



1. Dayan, Daniel, and Elihu Katz. Media Events: the Live Broadcasting of History. Cambridge, MA: Harvard UP, 1992. Print.

2. Couldry, Nick, and Andreas Hepp. Introduction: Media Events in a Global Age. New York, NY: Routledge, 2009. Print.
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1 comment:

  1. Steven HornikJanuary 14, 2011 at 6:23 PM

    I appreciate the significance of the start of the war in Iraq as one of the most important media events of the 21st century so far. I remember watching the bombings of Baghdad during the “shock and awe” campaign. I was wondering if this event was significant because of the wave of historical events that followed, or rather because it was one of the first times reporters were on the ground following such dramatic war footage and providing live footage. Additionally, if this was so significant because of the events it caused and defined, would the war in Afghanistan be more significant because it gave rise to this, and following the same patter, would September 11th, be the media event of greatest significance (in the 21st century) because it ultimately led the invasion of Afghanistan?

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