Portrayal of real life events in the media imitates B
movie productions. In fact, the American corporate media, to a varying extent, dictates
that news must be a production that entertains with low-level theatrics, thereby
giving a measure of patron satisfaction – like the satisfaction coming from a
consumer purchase.
Providing a model for news programs, entertainment
media portrays a profusion of conflict and drama exhibits: vampires, zombies,
sex, avarice, violence -- and reality television uses most of these phenomena. Real
news, perhaps, is a form of reality television with the political fare
accepting lies, distortion and exaggeration.
Each news network has its own form of drama with
tactics and techniques they utilize for higher ratings.
Vampire-ish, Fox news sucks the blood out of its
audience, giving blame relief for the pain of resentment and anger, creating a
following that won’t die, but will depend on Fox for its life blood. The good
news is that the effects needn’t be permanent.
Fox’s most notable subject category is politics and
ideology.
And it has tools for this endeavor. It can place a screen
pointer showing Fox’s predetermined villain and its captions can spell-out the
derision for its villain’s image and actions. The production can launch a laugh
track or a Beck/Hannity/O’Neill (take your pick) mocking chant when Fox’s
subject of ridicule is shown.
The last production I saw was Vice President Joe
Biden giving a speech. It was like a high school mock drama with pointers and
captions.
If you gather Fox talking heads together like a
collage into their varied news chatter poses, the scene would resemble a vampire
colony rally, dissing, hissing, and deriding their human targets – progressives,
with living shells.
The Fox News crew invites the audience to bare its vamp-fangs
too – pointing scornfully at the enemy, mouthing its own mocking epithets to
the screen, and launching sarcasm. However, Sarah-Palin-style winks are considered
too subtle.
Other news show approaches emphasize sex, greed and
violence. They have surreal simulations in their grab-bag of tricks: stimulate
wonder, emphasize conflict and rancor, feature events emitting horror, portray the
outrageous, but most of all, its spectacle must draw the attention of a seemingly
narcissistic audience that expects action, shallowness and ingratiation. This
audience still has its living shell.
Thanks to the spectacle media news, Newt Gingrich now
represents the political opposition, apparently thought to be a worthy opponent
to the Obama administration and to the Democrats in Congress. Having no credible,
melodrama-esque Republican, Newt became the opposition’s undead (for he was politically dead and the media brought him back
to life, deeming him relevant).
The news media also has Rush Limbaugh – representing
not a zombie, not a vampire, perhaps, more like a jackal, though not the Disney
variety. The problem with Rush, though, is his credibility. After all, he makes
hundreds of millions of dollars taking cheap shots at anything he deems
progressive or liberal. So he coughs up effluents that millions of his watchers
see as relevancy in their lives. His audience also lives, but with no erasure.
John McCain is not quite as malleable as the others.
He might actually say something objective or reasonable, something a thinking
person might say. He simply doesn’t follow scripts.
His former running mate, Sarah Palin, is more
useful. She is more predictably negative toward anything progressive and will
provide conflict and rancor, ingredients needed for any marketable media form.
Michael Steele, RNC Chairman, does provide some
curiosity to Republican leadership but his apology to Rush Limbaugh for a Rush-deemed
offensive remark made Steele look like a “namby-pamby.”
Dick Cheney, having a media omnipresence of late,
suffers from overexposure and under-favor.
And the Democrats are no fun because they want to
bellyache about “negative Republicans,” but still cringe and squirm rather than
fight Republican attacks – lame or not.
So Newt is the current media choice. His
superficiality, forgotten, the media can market his confrontational but
soap-opera ways. For example, his contract with America was more like a conflict
with America. He disparaged Clinton’s morality while discarding a
cancer-stricken wife.
His natural disdainful manner toward his enemies
seems to be the Republican mantra that the media currently wants to succeed the
Bush-Rove model.
So until something better comes along, the media’s
casting, you might even say typecasting, is complete, at least in the political
arena, composed of irresolute Democrats and belligerent Republicans.
Parts for other drama categories is more a matter of
selection, after the news net is cast.
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