In this age of
media immediacy, events from around the world cascade over our TV screens and
computer monitors with crystal clarity and with negligible delay.
Televised sporting events in particular are productions of amazing complexity,
involving dozens of camera operators, sound engineers, and computer
programmers, whose efforts are perfectly synchronized in real time.
Everything from virtual first down lines drawn on football fields to digital
simulations of tennis ball trajectories are generated instantaneously.
Most recently, I’ve noticed the presence of “green-screen” technology to
display ads behind home plate during baseball games, which are only visible to
television audiences. Those who have been born after the start of the
third millennium will take all of these enhancements for granted as they grow
older, not only because of their ubiquity, but also because of their calculated
appeal to the eye and the mind.
Clearly, there is a
huge amount of money being invested in media these days, and behind it all is
corporate advertising, that force which attempts to lure our attention away
from all other aspects of our real lives. Riding on the coattails of
these immersive media techniques are the campaigns for political office, which
employ the same methods to sell ideology as are used to promote corn flakes and
carbonated beverages. This is disturbing because advertisers have used
subliminal messaging, without a hint of irony, to manipulate consumers’
opinions and behaviors for many decades now. Given the tools at the
disposal of media producers currently, these tendencies could easily seep into
political advertising, and ultimately, elections may hinge on the savvy use of
technological media, rather than on the convictions and intellectual substance
of any candidate seeking election.
The economics of
media production, even today, are blurring the line between journalism and
government. Evidence of this could be seen in the mainstream coverage of
the Republican National Convention in August; the events of which were
portrayed as having exclusive entitlement to our attention -- or so I’ve been
told. I don’t have first-hand information about the coverage of the
convention, because between August 31st and September 2nd, I and
about 1200 people were detained in a concentration-camp style facility on one
of the Hudson River piers, charged with minor violations but denied the basic
amenities of fresh food, water, and air. I was videotaping at the time of
my arrest, as a producer of a documentary about the demonstrations in the city
during the convention. Many independent journalists and media
representatives were captured as well, and in most cases their equipment and
documentary evidence were confiscated by police.
I do not mention
this to evoke a sympathetic reaction, because I consider our arrests and
detainments to be of some historical significance. As a journalist, this
was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to observe an abuse of power firsthand,
and as an icebreaker at cocktail parties, the story can’t be beat.
However, it seems to me that the prisoners in the cages of Pier 57 should have
been given the same media coverage as the conventioneers on the floor of Madison
Square Garden. I believe that political prisoners are just as interesting
as political petitioners, and that the same technological devices could have
been used during our own convention of repression, including computer-generated
overlays that tick off the seconds of confinement and chart the course of
shackled violators through the labyrinthine tombs of central booking. In
the gallery, pundits could debate the relative merits of each arrest and
attempt to gauge the mood of the detainees on the grime-ridden floor of that
former bus depot.
My suggestion is
facetious of course, but the question I’m asking is: where are the cameras when
we need them the most? Unfortunately, many are still in police
custody. The local mainstream media appears to be everywhere at once, but
it’s actually only where the holders of NYPD press credentials are allowed to
go. This amounts to government control of the press, and it must be
stopped before we let the subliminal overpower the sublime.
