and the News

Learning Objectives: - to consolidate understanding of hyperreality - to be able to explain Baudrillard s theories on the news - to be able to explain the criticisms of his theories

Revising Hyperreality
Simulacrum (plural: -crums, -cra), from the Latin simulacrum which means "likenesss, similarity", is first recorded in the English language in the late 16th century, used to describe a representation of another thing, such as a statue or a painting, especially of a god; by the late 19th century, it had gathered a secondary association of inferiority: an image without the substance or qualities of the original A simulation is an imitation of some real thing, state of affairs, or process. The act of simulating something generally entails representing certain key characteristics or behaviours of a selected physical or abstract system.

What are the 4 stages towards simulacra?

FIRST stage, the sign represents a basic reality SECOND stage for the sign: it misrepresents or distorts the reality behind it, THIRD stage for the sign, disguises the fact that there is no corresponding reality underneath. FOURTH stage for the sign: it bears no relation to any reality at all.

Baudrillard thinks
One of Baudrillard s ideas is that we are immersed beyond our control in a world of simulation Makes his position different to the active audiences theories, which take more of an optimistic argument of media consumption. This theory of IMMERSION implies that we do not choose to consume media, but are submerged within it and are influenced by it without our consent.

How does this apply to the news?

Where do you learn about the news?

Newspapers that you buy? that your parents buy? that you see around ? Television/Radio who chooses to have these on? Are you consciously watching bulletins or are they interrupting you viewing/listening? What about 24/7 news channels? Internet do you seek out the news? Or do you find out via other means? E.g. homepages yahoo, BBC; social networking sites

Are we immersed in the news?

Baudrillard s most controversial claims

Title of 1991/2 collection of essays (published as a volume in 2005) The Gulf War Did Not Happen What do you think Baudrillard might mean by this?

The Gulf War a non-event

Saddam Hussein was not fighting the Allied Forces, but using the lives of his soldiers as a form of sacrifice to preserve his power. The Allied Forces fighting the Iraqi military forces were merely dropping 10,000 tonnes of bombs daily, as if proving to themselves that there was an enemy to fight. So, too, were the Western media complicit, presenting the war in real time, by recycling images of war to propagate the notion that the two enemies, the US (and allies) were actually fighting the Iraqi Army, but, such was not the case: Saddam Hussein did not use his military capacity (the Iraqi Air Force), his politico-military power was not weakened (he suppressed the Kurdish insurgency against Iraq at war's end), so, concluding that politically little had changed in Iraq: the enemy went undefeated, the victors were not victorious, therefore, there was no war: the Gulf War did not occur.

Baudrillard s argument is basically that

The Gulf War and later 9/11 can only be understood as media events He sees the events of 9/11 in terms of image this is what we recall when it is mentioned: the endless television repeats of the live pictures. He sees the US/British war on terror as a symbolic war primarily.

What do we remember about 9/11?

Ask at least 5 people of varying ages what they remember of 9/11. Record these findings

9/11

Merrin sums up Baudrillard s argument on 9/11 as follows:

Baudrillard describes the 9/11 attacks as the absolute event . Instantly passing into and imploding with its electronic transmission, this was a global media event, accelerating us into a state of hyperreality and of feedback, inference and uncertainty. Despite the audience s extension into the heart of the event the real-time montage of close-ups, long shots, multiple angles and ground images,

Merrin sums up Baudrillard s argument on 9/11 as follows:

edited and replayed and mixed with commentary, speculation, political reaction, and the apprehension and adrenalin of the live moment no event was happening for them. Their electronic experience simultaneously actualised and hyperrealised the real, and the deactualised and deterred it, in its semiotic transformation and presentation as a televisual spectacle for domestic consumption in the comfort and security of the sign.

Baudrillard, in his own words:

At the same time as they have radicalised the world situation, the events in New York can be said to have radicalised the relation of the image to reality. Among the other weapons of the system which they turned round against it, the terrorists exploited the real time of images, their instantaneous worldwide transmission, just as they exploited stock market speculation, electronic information and air

traffic. The image consumes the event, in the sense that it absorbs it and offers it for consumption. Admittedly, it gives it unprecedented impact, but impact as image event. The collapse of the World Trade Centre towers is unimaginable, but that is not enough to make it a real event. An excess of violence is not enough to open on to reality. For reality is a principle, and it is this principle that is lost. From The Spirit of 9/11: and Requiem for the Twin Towers 2002

In summary:
The events of 9/11 are as much televisual as real . We cannot distinguish the representation of the events on television from the actual events, so the events are HYPERREAL, neither real, nor just media , but both in combination, impossible to separate. If we accept this, it does not mean that we no longer believe in reality, but that the idea of pure reality , untainted by media representation, is no longer any use. The attack on New York cannot be seen to exist as pure event, before or away from the televised images we are so used to.

What are the criticisms of Baudrillard s views on 9/11 and the Gulf War?
What do you think? Research

William Merrin: :Baudrillard and the Media 2005

The media do not reflect and represent the reality of the public but instead produce it , employing this simulation to justify their own continuing existence. How it this the case? Consider: interactive television news audience encouraged to blog, email, telephone and vote in response to news items; citizen journalism (e.g. 7/7)

Merrin cont.
Thus news feedback functions to confirm itself, and to convince us, that someone is watching, that the news is important, and that the public are politically interested and mobilised. Desperately needing this confirmation, news programmes tailor questions, debates and features to provoke it.