It was apparently Daniel Dayan and Elihu Katz who coined the phrase "media events" in their 1992 book Media Events: The Live Broadcasting of History. [1] From this title it might be assumed that any historical event presented live would be considered a "media event." But History and the representation of it can become a pretty muddy concept especially when the mass media is accused of making up or editing the public's view.
There seem to be many variations and no general rule as to what constitutes a media event. A representation of it, again by Dayan and Katz:
during the liminal moments [of media events], totality and simultaneity are unbound, organizers and broadcasters resonate together; competing channels merge into one; viewers present themselves at the same time and in every place. All eyes are fixed on the ceremonial centre, through which each nuclear cell is connected to all the rest. Social integration of the highest order is thus achieved via mass communication. [1] (Dayan and Katz 1992: 15)
This seems a pretty complicated way to say it's a social occurrence of many, focused on a centering theme, covered by several forms of mass media. Key concepts seem to be a shared experience, of national or international importance and mass media coverage. Even the experts concede that it's a very difficult concept to contain:
The very diversity of levels, locations, and contexts here illustrates the
challenges of developing a general theory of media events. [2]
When I think of a media event, I think of a news event that changed my life. What immediately comes to mind is the bombing of the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001. I will never forget watching live TV as the Twin Towers crumbled, one after the other. Then watching this over and over again as the rest of the world tuned in. There was news video from every angle, cell phone and personal video coverage, horrifying stills, interviews from the survivors, and recordings from the ones who weren't so lucky. Though I was alone watching this, I felt the shared horror of the nation. Coverage continued throughout the day and I could not stop watching. I felt sympathy for the victims, pride for the volunteers and anger that something like this could be possible. I'll never forget it.
Perhaps everyone has their own idea of what a media event is. It may be a different theory depending on who you ask. For some people, Snooki getting arrested might be a media event, it satisfies the basic parameters. For others, more important and meaningful events are the more relevant. Most of the examples listed in both readings seemed to cover the darker side; funerals, assassinations, natural disasters, celebrity malfunctions, chaos. Does this preference indicate another key concept for defining media event? Is there a reason more coverage seems to be on human suffering rather than human celebration?
[1] Dayan, Daniel and Katz, Elihu. Media Events: The Live Broadcasting of History. Cambridge Massachusetts, London England: Harvard University Press, 1992.
Print.
[2] Hoover, Stewart M. “Conclusion: The media events debate: moving to the next stage”. Couldry, Nick (ed.): Media Events in a Global Age. p289. (2009) Print.
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This post triggered my interest when you said, "mass media is accused of making up or editing the public's view." What examples are you thinking of here? I can definitely see how events like Neda's murder could be manipulated by other sources, saying it was a conspiracy theory of sorts. Even on YouTube, there were numerous videos saying that Neda was an actress,faking her own death, accusing the media of editing the story to skew the public's view. Although it is definitely possible, it was unlikely in the case of Neda. It just shows how the media can so easily be accused for making up false stories.
ReplyDelete@ Michelle: Reading your comment makes me think about Chomsky's documentary on "Manufactured consent" and how the genocide in East Timor was covered. History has so many examples of the "mass media editing the public's view"- like how the photographs and news from the second world war were censored to paint a picture of the American troops being successful. When the public became complacent about the war- then some of the previously censored pictures of wounded soldiers were shown to edit the public's view of the war.(source:'The censored war' by George Roeder, Jr. ONLINE LINK: http://yalepress.yale.edu/book.asp?isbn=9780300062915 )
ReplyDeleteAs to why events of pain/tragedy dominate the news: Tragedy is something all humanity can relate to. It also inspires deep emotion and makes other people want to help. But again, triumph and resilience are also aspects of life all humanity celebrates.I absolutely agree with you Cindy. It would be nice to have more coverage on heart-warming stories like the recent rescue of the Chilean miners.
This post was in my opinion particularly interesting. I agree with what you said about the mass media being accused of skewing the public's view. It is very true, the media is always blamed for how the public perceives events taking place. I also found your conclusion paragraph very interesting. Why is there more coverage on human suffering and less on human celebration? The media does indeed cover celebratory events, but we definitely see more of the bad things.
ReplyDeleteHi Michelle, I posted this after your response, I don't see it here so maybe it didn't make it. It follows what Biribwa said.
ReplyDeleteOriginal post:
Hi Michelle. Did you watch the Noam Chomsky video Manufacturing Consent? Admittedly, it was a lot to get through. The pervasive idea was, mass media is bad, it manufactures news. Mr Chomsky believes that the news we were allowed to see in the past, was what big business and mass communication (major news networks) basically wanted us to see. Ok, so I knew Vietnam was probably one of the examples. People have been saying for years that was an unnecessary war and we only "saw" part of it. What I'd never heard of was a place called East Timor, which is north of Australia. Before (I think) the 1950's, this was one of the last surviving ancient societies on the planet. People were happy without technology or tv or the trappings of "modern" society. Then Indonesia invaded it, civil war broke out and THE UNITED STATES PROVIDED ARMS TO INDONESIA. Supposedly (according to Chomsky and others), the US covered up the whole thing. It was basically mass genocide and I had never heard of it. Even now, there doesn't seem to be a whole lot of uncontested information out there about it. This was just one of his examples (there were many) of how mass media, basically major news networks at that point in time, were filtering the news to benefit political powers that be and to "protect" us from anything too harsh or disturbing. I'm not sure I believe the whole thing, but the East Timor example was very disturbing.