“People don’t want to get involved. They’d rather watch on TV,” said Troy Simmons, 47, who joined demonstrators as he left work. [1]
“The whole world is watching! The whole world is watching! The whole world is watching!”
The crowd resounds, chanting condemnation in unison to an army of police abusing Occupy Wall Street protesters.They are, of course, referring to a contingent of protesters and media armed with still and video cameras, who appear to outnumber those protesters without.
Let’s consider this chant, and what’s being said. (more…)
This reminds me of a line I read in a Baudrillard essay from his ‘Utopie’ years, (60s-70s). Thinking back on Nantes 1968 he commented ‘The students fell in love with their own aural image on the radio.’ (I think the line can be found in his essay Play and the Police)
And this line, “The pedogagic illusion, this through that forgets that – the political act deliberately targeting the media and expecting power from it – the media itself is deliberately targeting the political act to depoliticize it.” (p82 Requiem for the Media).
I wonder what Vrillio would say on the ‘real-time’ of the live streams and the videos?