From: Amara Graps (amara@amara.com)
Date: Fri Feb 14 2003 - 01:59:43 MST
Anders Sandberg:
>Does the Clinton protestors fit into the narrative of the TV news?
>They have a narrative of how war protestors work, a kind of ready-made
>story, with a tone, images and message that reporters, producers and
>even protestors tend to conform to. There is also the presidential
>protest narrative, but it is different. These two narratives cannot be
>combined; the result would feel strange to the reporters and
>producers, and the story would not be sent since it seemed to be less
>good than the other stories of the day.
[...]
>We need to get out of these narratives and create our own narratives.
>Even ending up in the "two sides debates a boring issue" narrative would
>be great.
I wonder who would pay for the TV time for good, thorough debates and
(boring even) discussions on important issues.
For a week in middle January, right before I moved from Germany, I
rented a room in a family's home in Heidelberg- the girl was American
my age, her spouse was German, three kids. Like most people, they have
a TV and in the evening when I returned, I sat with them and watched
some of the TV programs with them. I don't have a TV and it was a
luxury for me to have them be able to translate some of the language
phrases and nuances that I didn't get before and to also get a glimpse
of what was occurring on late night German TV.
One of the programs I remember particularly well was a Thursday
evening talk show of an intense discussion with ~6
politicians/political party people and one journalist: Peter Arnett.
They were (of course) discussing the possible war in Iraq, and trying
to understand the Bush administration motivations for such a war. At
one point Arnett said: "You know you would never see such a discussion
as this on American TV."
He's right, you know. So why not? Why is the current narrative of
the U.S. media in Bush's back pocket, if policies are forged that
affects everyone's (U.S. citizen's and others) lives? Who is paying
for that narrative?
>The same is true for other issues. Transhumanism can currently be
>shown in the "excentric people and inventions" narrative, the "wonders
>of science" narrative and the frankenscience narrative". The first one
>trivializes us and our ideas - look how cute they are, believing in
>crazy stuff like cloning and nanotech! The second deals with a gadget
>or idea, reporting about its discovery, nifty features and glorious
>future (for fairness a naysayer is always included). The third shows
>how we are making a faustian pact with technology that will cost us
>(and everybody else) our souls.
The last narrative is what the media seems to pick up (and someone
pays for) most easily. How to make the narratives be appealing? Space
exploration was brought into the limelight again recently, but it took
a tragedy to occur for the media to think it was a sellable story.
Amara
-- Amara Graps, PhD Istituto di Fisica delle Spazio Interplanetario (IFSI) Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche (CNR), Roma, ITALIA Amara.Graps@ifsi.rm.cnr.it
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