What is a Media Event?

A media event is an event that impacts every person globally on an immense scale. Hepp and Couldry call these media events the “high holidays of mass communication” [1]. These types of events are large scale and prompt a large emotional response from every person on the globe. Couldry and Hepp categorize these types of events as controlling media communication across different channels, as historically important events and huge audiences that view these events together, like a festival [1]. What is important about these media events is that they have the ability to bring together people of all different backgrounds in a way that touches everyone’s emotions. For a media event to become what it is the most important factor is that it reaches more than just a segment of people. It is important that the event that occurred is able to transcend gender, race and nation and have a profound impact on all people. These events have the ability to bring together cultures that previously had no commonalities except the ability to feel emotion. Stewart Hoover believes media events to be a product of our newly found globalized society. Today, the internet and television have put us in the position of all news all the time and whereas as an event a few hundred years ago might have been contained regionally, today the whole world can see it in the blink of an eye [2]. Together these theories can be combined to show that a media event is possible because the event is so powerful that it hits close to home for everyone on the globe and the internet and global lines of communication make this emotional experience possible.

My most notable media event would have to be that of the attacks on September 11^th, 2001. This event captured our nation’s undivided attention for months after it occurred; not since Pearl Harbor had the USA been attacked and every news outlet be it internet, print or television played the clips of the twin towers falling for months on end. If this event had happened even just ten years before the coverage would have been different, but because of the internet nations all over the globe were witness to horrific attacks on the World Trade Centers. This event had all the makings of media event in that it every nation on the globe neared witness to it and showed an outpouring of emotion. News outlets showed nations all over the world mourning the loss of innocent lives in this brazen attack. The brazenness of such an attack evoked such a powerful emotional response from all nations, one that I had never witnessed before. What is so important about these media event and what I believe makes it the quintessential media event is the impact on global policy this event had. After September 11^th not only the United States but most nations severely changed their diplomatic positions. Every nation at this time took up a defensive position and prepared for an assault on their landmarks. This event was so powerful that it would change the political landscape for the next, at least ten years.

[1] Couldry, Nick/Hepp, Andreas: Introduction (in: Couldry, Nick (ed.): Media Events in a Global Age), pp. 3-20.

[2] Hoover, Stewart M.: Conclusion (in: Couldry, Nick (ed.): Media Events in a Global Age), pp. 283-299