The Media as spectacle: September 11 as soap opera

Abstract

The concept of “spectacle” is most often associated with the writings of Guy Debord, but has also been developed and extended by later theorists, most particularly Jonathon Crary. We make use of their ideas on the “spectacle” which is the mass media to address two important sets of questions: how and why does the media find itself in a position to carry out the “immobilising” function ascribed to it by both Debord and Crary; and what are the techniques and mechanisms that facilitate this operation? We then exemplify the process of the media as spectacle with regard to coverage of recent political events such as the September 11 attacks and the so‐called “war on terror” and its relation to what we call the hysterical order of the soap opera. The whole of life of those societies in which modern conditions of production prevail presents itself as an immense accumulation of spectacle. All that once was directly lived has become mere representation. (Debord )

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