Baudrillard and the News

8/3/2019 Baudrillard and the News

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and the News

Learning Objectives:

- to consolidate understanding of hyperreality

- to be able to explain Baudrillards theories on

the news

- to be able to explain the criticisms of his

theories


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Revising Hyperreality

Simulacrum (plural: -crums, -cra), from the Latinsimulacrum which means "likenesss, similarity", is firstrecorded in the English language in the late 16th century,used to describe a representation of another thing, such as

a statue or a painting, especially of a god; by the late 19thcentury, it had gathered a secondary association ofinferiority: an image without the substance or qualities ofthe original

A simulation is an imitation of some real thing, state ofaffairs, or process. The act of simulating somethinggenerally entails representing certain key characteristics orbehaviours of a selected physical or abstract system.


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What are the 4 stages

towards simulacra?

FIRST stage, the sign represents a basic reality

SECOND stage for the sign: it misrepresents or

distorts the reality behind it,THIRD stage for the sign, disguises the fact

that there is no corresponding reality

underneath.

FOURTH stage for the sign: it bears no relation

to any reality at all.


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Baudrillard thinks

One of Baudrillards ideas is that we areimmersed beyond our control in a world ofsimulation

Makes his position different to the activeaudiences theories, which take more of anoptimistic argument of media consumption.

This theory ofIMMERSION implies that we do

not choose to consume media, but aresubmerged within it and are influenced by itwithout our consent.


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How does this apply to the

news?


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Where do you learn about

the news?

Newspapers that you buy? that your parentsbuy? that you see around?

Television/Radio who chooses to have theseon? Are you consciously watching bulletins orare they interrupting you viewing/listening?What about 24/7 news channels?

Internet do you seek out the news? Or doyou find out via other means? E.g. homepages yahoo, BBC; social networking sites


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Are we immersed in the

news?


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Baudrillards most

controversial claims

Title of 1991/2 collection of essays (published

as a volume in 2005)

The GulfW

ar Did Not HappenWhat do you think Baudrillard might mean by

this?


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The GulfWar a non-event

Saddam Hussein was not fighting the Allied Forces, but using thelives of his soldiers as a form of sacrifice to preserve his power.

The Allied Forces fighting the Iraqi military forces were merelydropping 10,000 tonnes of bombs daily, as if proving to themselvesthat there was an enemy to fight.

So, too, were theWestern media complicit, presenting the war inreal time, by recycling images of war to propagate the notion thatthe two enemies, the US (and allies) were actually fighting the IraqiArmy, but, such was not the case: Saddam Hussein did not use hismilitary capacity (the Iraqi Air Force), his politico-military powerwas not weakened (he suppressed the Kurdish insurgency against

Iraq at war's end), so, concluding that politically little had changedin Iraq:

the enemy went undefeated, the victors were not victorious,therefore, there was no war: the GulfWar did not occur.


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Baudrillards argument is

basically that

The GulfWar and later 9/11 can only be

understood as media events

He sees the events of 9/11 in terms of image this is what we recall when it is mentioned:

the endless television repeats of the live

pictures.

He sees the US/British war on terror as a

symbolic war primarily.


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What do we remember

about 9/11?

Ask at least 5 people of varying ages what

they remember of 9/11.

Record these findings


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9/11


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Merrin sums up Baudrillards

argument on 9/11 as follows:

Baudrillard describes the 9/11 attacks as theabsolute event. Instantly passing into andimploding with its electronic transmission, this

was a global media event, accelerating us intoa state of hyperreality and of feedback,inference and uncertainty. Despite theaudiences extension into the heart of the

event the real-time montage of close-ups,long shots, multiple angles and groundimages,


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Merrin sums up Baudrillards

argument on 9/11 as follows:

edited and replayed and mixed with commentary,speculation, political reaction, and theapprehension and adrenalin of the live moment

no event was happening for them. Theirelectronic experience simultaneously actualisedand hyperrealised the real, and the deactualisedand deterred it, in its semiotic transformation

and presentation as a televisual spectacle fordomestic consumption in the comfort andsecurity of the sign.


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Baudrillard, in his own

words:

At the same time as they have radicalised theworld situation, the events in New York can besaid to have radicalised the relation of the

image to reality. Among the other weapons ofthe system which they turned round against it,the terrorists exploited the real time ofimages, their instantaneous worldwide

transmission, just as they exploited stockmarket speculation, electronic informationand air


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traffic. The image consumes the event, in thesense that it absorbs it and offers it forconsumption. Admittedly, it gives itunprecedented impact, but impact as imageevent. The collapse of theWorld Trade Centretowers is unimaginable, but that is not enough tomake it a real event. An excess of violence is notenough to open on to reality. For reality is a

principle, and it is this principle that is lost.From The Spirit of 9/11: and Requiem for the Twin

Towers 2002


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In summary:

The events of 9/11 are as much televisual as real.

We cannot distinguish the representation of the eventson television from the actual events, so the events areHYPERREAL, neither real, nor just media, but both in

combination, impossible to separate.If we accept this, it does not mean that we no longerbelieve in reality, but that the idea of pure reality,untainted by media representation, is no longer anyuse.

The attack on New York cannot be seen to exist aspure event, before or away from the televised imageswe are so used to.


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What are the criticisms of

Baudrillards views on 9/11and the GulfWar?

What do you think?

Research


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William Merrin: :Baudrillard

and the Media 2005

The media do not reflect and represent the reality ofthe public but instead produce it , employing thissimulation to justify their own continuing existence.

How it this the case?

Consider: interactive television news audience

encouraged to blog, email, telephone and vote inresponse to news items; citizen journalism (e.g. 7/7)


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Merrin cont.

Thus news feedback functions to confirm

itself, and to convince us, that someone is

watching, that the news is important, and that

the public are politically interested and

mobilised. Desperately needing this

confirmation, news programmes tailor

questions, debates and features to provoke it.

Documents

Baudrillard and the News