Reality and the media
If it's on TV it has to be real, right? Wrong! The media presents us with an edited version of reality. The images we are shown are only a piece of the truth. A representation of what happened within the camera's frame at that exact moment when it was pointed towards something.
Sports is a good example of selective representation. In recent years, we've seen more cameras than spectators on some football matches. After the game we're given slow-motion reruns of situations to show how the referee made a bad decision, or how the goalkeeper should have saved that last shot. TV networks spend a lot of time with highlights and post-game analysis, supposedly objective. But this is rarely the case, at least not with the team I follow. For some reason (and I'm not being objective here, as I'm a fan), TV2, the channel with rights to the Norwegian Tippeliga, has a tendency to show how the opposition almost scored in this and that situation, or how the referee failed to give the opposing team a free kick or a penalty.
In doing this, TV creates an image that the opposition should have won the game, while as often as not the "objective" truth is that both teams had their chances. But TV wants to show one side of the story, and refrains from showing those situations.
This happening in sports might not be the end of the world. But imagine the same techniques in news coverage... You can't fit everything into a 30 second spot, so editors have to choose. And the choices are not always unbiased. War imagery is a good example. When TV showed us the Iraqis tearing down the statue of Saddam, were there other civilian Iraqis outside of the picture demonstrating against the statue being torn down? We don't know, because few of us were there...
Sports is a good example of selective representation. In recent years, we've seen more cameras than spectators on some football matches. After the game we're given slow-motion reruns of situations to show how the referee made a bad decision, or how the goalkeeper should have saved that last shot. TV networks spend a lot of time with highlights and post-game analysis, supposedly objective. But this is rarely the case, at least not with the team I follow. For some reason (and I'm not being objective here, as I'm a fan), TV2, the channel with rights to the Norwegian Tippeliga, has a tendency to show how the opposition almost scored in this and that situation, or how the referee failed to give the opposing team a free kick or a penalty.
In doing this, TV creates an image that the opposition should have won the game, while as often as not the "objective" truth is that both teams had their chances. But TV wants to show one side of the story, and refrains from showing those situations.
This happening in sports might not be the end of the world. But imagine the same techniques in news coverage... You can't fit everything into a 30 second spot, so editors have to choose. And the choices are not always unbiased. War imagery is a good example. When TV showed us the Iraqis tearing down the statue of Saddam, were there other civilian Iraqis outside of the picture demonstrating against the statue being torn down? We don't know, because few of us were there...
posted by Unknown | 2:44 pm
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