Thursday, April 19, 2007

the "Virginia Tech shooting"

Lots of people have said lots of things about the "Virginia Tech shooting." Even calling it that says something pertinent about why lots of people have said lots of things about it. It's turned into a media event - or maybe is practically from the start a media event. But it's not the media's fault.

Adam Felber put it better than I could.

What above all I have to say about it is that I'm terribly terribly glad we don't watch TV news.

3 comments:

Bob Kirkman said...

It is also telling that the deaths of more than 200 Iraqi civilians yesterday in a series of bombings is not a media event; it's just background noise. The ongoing death and mayhem in Darfur is not even that.

Doc Nagel said...

Let me clarify that by "media event" I mean a creature of media, that is, an event decontextualized and liquidated of meaning by media. Nothing meaningful seems able to withstand it. So Darfur mayhem being "noise," from the standpoint of the media system, allows it to stand as meaningful, just, unfortunately, not something many people know about.

That's some catch, that catch 22.

Bob Kirkman said...

I see. You meant The Virginia Tech Shooting (TM) that serves as an occasion for ostentatious displays of public grief and pantomime solidarity that are in the end unconnected to any actual people or their actual, horrible deaths. They are more connected to jerking people around by the best and the worst of their emotions in order to boost ratings. Yeah, that seems about right.