Penny Lane- Baudrillard Late

Baudrillard’s text makes many observations about modern media. He asserts: “the media are part of the event, they are part of the terror.” This remark ties into his fascination with the blurred distinction between fiction and reality. The media offers images through a filtered lens, so no one can ever be entirely sure whether the ideas they are reproducing actually depict life and nature in an unbiased light. Furthermore, the industry of news has become sensationalized. Even programming of this sort is now subject to producing content primarily on the basis of entertainment value. Local news has suffered as a consequence, but what remains are tales of rape, murder, tragic accidents, and crime. This narrative is only expanded on a national scale, but the subject matter remains consistently morbid. News, like any other show, needs to garner ratings. This competition often breeds perpetuation of salacious and shallow stories that do little to improve social consciousness of the American public about significant global issues. Our media system is a fear factory. They sell panic on a massive scale, and we willingly consume the product. During 9-11 everyone in America saw the images of the twin towers collapse on repeat. But the footage could never capture the reality of the event. Afterward, the saturation of coverage on the attack and terrorism kept us glued to the screens in fear of repeat. This method was used strategically for several reasons: 1) to keep us focused on the attacker 2) to keep us preoccupied with the thought of an impending threat 3) gain support for an offensive reaction 4) keep an active audience. In Benjamin’s writings, he claims that while the viewer may feel a connection to the actor on screen, the real connection exists between the audience and the camera. This is relevant to news media because we see the images they choose for us, nothing more nothing less. The angles and perspectives of a captured event only address a fraction of the full occurrence. The question I am left with is who. Who controls our knowledge?