Wednesday, June 20, 2007

Media and the internet: defiance and fear?

Two ‘media’ events on the web these past two weeks.
Nicolas Sarkozy on youtube and dailymotion
Arrêt sur images not to be broadcast again in France
These two media events have both different coverage from the media (press) and the internet.
What it shows and underlines is the internet as a true epistemic community, a public sphere-to-be. A thing I’m thinking on –thoroughly- for my poor paper on Asian media…
Nicolas Sarkozy’s story on daily motion and youtube can be read as a kind of a mascarade. Just turning our president (well, I cannot say our president, they –the others- chose it/him for me) into a risible puppet maybe. Watched the video, did not find it particularly laughable. Just a small bagatelle. Nothing really serious.
However, the decision from France 5 not to broadcast again Arrêt sur Images is much more damageable for our democracy, jeopardizing, I’d say. Arrêt sur Images would “read” images from television, teach citizens to “read” the image that media conveys us everyday. To struggle against media as our post modern opium of the populace I guess. A very good programme I appreciated to watch, when I had the time to. Last September, while I was interviewed for the MBA admission at ESSEC, one of the member of the jury asked me why I wanted to sit for the ‘Media and Entertainment Chair’ later on, why I wanted to work as a TV producer, or a international sales manager in a TV company. Precisely so that such clever and thought-provocative programs do not disappear from French (public) TV charts…

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