Yes. The superbly complex analysis and marketing of
ideas by sound/images/video assumes and examines a unique interaction
with and response by the viewer. We all know that to create an association with
fear/anxiety, among others, is a primordial ingredient in the
recipe for influence and control.
Imagine the lines of argumentation in meetings among various
professionals to determine the desired outcome by a multitude of media
techniques.. Thus altho FOX et al could show various groupings of
most peoples' anxieties, only those who serve the purpose and who have
already excessively identified with the state will be projected to the
screen and rewarded. This will alienate others who refuse to play and
who are viewed as an obstacle in any event, but overall the
battle is eventually won by... As well, perhaps any
attempted use of spectacle to repress, rather than confirm and
alleviate anxiety, only really alters it by forming new expectations for
security by identification with the pretending
protector. Spectacle rarely loses. As for responsibility
among most warrior journalists, we are under few illusions. They see
but they report the insupportable.
Richard. --- Original Message -----
Sent: Saturday, April 12, 2003 9:02
PM
Subject: Re: Framing History
Quite right Sukhbir. The peoples anxieties are
not the kind of TV spectacle that FOX et al wants to or can show, and as you
point out who would want to share such experience with them. This is why
historiography, especially on screen, frames, stages, and selects the
grandiose, the spectacle and why historians, among whom I include journalists,
have a responsibility to see beyond this kind of historiography. In thinking
this I certainly hope that what I am doing is not a case of labouring under an
illusion comparable to that of the US/UK/Aust resolve to 'liberate' Iraq.
Ross
