we started to cross the hyperreal divide between “actual politics” and entertainment spectacle at least since the election of Reagan
I was listening to WTYP Penn Station epsidoe, and they had a throw-away line about the NYTimes being established in reaction to the NYTribune corresponding with Marx. Media's been an entertainment spectacle pretty much since day one, as news you can't do anything about isn't engaging unless it is entertaining.
The real divide between news and politics stems from the chronic efforts by business, church, and state agents to break up and dissolve activist organizations. That's not something new. It goes straight back to Protestantism and the invention of the printing press. But the divide isn't in any way permanent, either. People are constantly attempting to organize and are routinely employing journalism as a tool to incite activism and galvanize support.
The modern manifestation of media, fact-checking, propagandizing, and censorship is ultimately a game of wack-a-mole as various fledgling movements attempt to emerge in the face of the establishment while the establishment hammers them back down into irrelevance.
yes, great points and observation. We could take the concept of spectacle all the way back to the origins of religion, tbh. From David Hawkes' book: "To take an image for true reality is the most heinous of all sins" in Islam, Christianity and Judaism (i.e., idolatry). I didn't mean to be ahistorical in my earlier comment, but rather chose a time during the television era because it was closer to the dawn of reality TV
I was listening to WTYP Penn Station epsidoe, and they had a throw-away line about the NYTimes being established in reaction to the NYTribune corresponding with Marx. Media's been an entertainment spectacle pretty much since day one, as news you can't do anything about isn't engaging unless it is entertaining.
The real divide between news and politics stems from the chronic efforts by business, church, and state agents to break up and dissolve activist organizations. That's not something new. It goes straight back to Protestantism and the invention of the printing press. But the divide isn't in any way permanent, either. People are constantly attempting to organize and are routinely employing journalism as a tool to incite activism and galvanize support.
The modern manifestation of media, fact-checking, propagandizing, and censorship is ultimately a game of wack-a-mole as various fledgling movements attempt to emerge in the face of the establishment while the establishment hammers them back down into irrelevance.
yes, great points and observation. We could take the concept of spectacle all the way back to the origins of religion, tbh. From David Hawkes' book: "To take an image for true reality is the most heinous of all sins" in Islam, Christianity and Judaism (i.e., idolatry). I didn't mean to be ahistorical in my earlier comment, but rather chose a time during the television era because it was closer to the dawn of reality TV