Hyperreality in the Media Matrix - Essay Example

Hyperreality in the Media Matrix Contemporary society has mislaid its confidence in the metanarratives of the past. As a result Jean Lyotard perceives that the modern collective is organised around ‘language games’ that are used primarily to validate people’s behaviour. In these games one make an attempt at persuasion of others to recognise his or her point of view as authentic. Each avowal takes on the appearance of the movement of a knight or pawn within a complicated game of chess. Lyotard comprehend these games as having developed from the narrative itself such the passing along of folk tales and legends and then toward the scientific language that developed in the past few centuries. This scientific language became a game because it was dependent upon evidence used to challenge arguments. As the social order penetrated into the post-modern era, however, faith went missing somewhere in the denotative language games, to be replaced by language games that utilised more technical jargon. Truth itself is no longer the overriding component; it has been replaced by a competition to discover if the game is actually useful within the human arena. The result has been that knowledge has been co-opted by the capitalism ideology to become little more than just another commodity to be bought, sold or bartered. Lyotard associates the increase in the significance of knowledge to the permeation of computers throughout all levels of society (1984). While Lyotard welcomes this democratisation of knowledge as a movement toward opening up choice and freedom, Jean Baudrillard has written extensively on the darker side of the postmodern society. Baudrillard judges society as having progressed to a new epoch, relating this evolution to language and knowledge. For Baudrillard, however, the consequences of this revolution is the creation of an inescapable trap. Baudrillard considers society to be a construct that isn’t any longer based upon the production of material goods, but upon selling of signs and images that are detached from the reality of the products they are meant to represent. Baudrillard views postmodern world as a market of the senses made up a litany and never-ending exchange of reproductions he has called “simulacra”. These simulacrums are metaphors for ideals and objects rather the objects or ideas themselves. Baudrillard has even dared to suggest that the world’s political leaders are themselves mere simulacra, lacking any authentic power and ability to effect real lasting change for the oppressed. The reason Baudrillard gives for the impotence and powerlessness of leaders in the contemporary world is located I the existence of nuclear weapons (Harvey 1990). Since the entire world could quite literally being destroyed just by pressing a few buttons, war has become an exercise in futility. Shoulder either side in a nuclear conflict make the decision to actually undertake the unthinkable, it would take mere minutes for a retaliatory response. The simulacrum at work under the shadow of such a horrific threat is in the selling the representation of a nuclear war? Such is Baudrillard’s contention that reality has co-opted by a hyperreality is that he has even written that in traditional terms the first Gulf War did not take place. Although he doesn’t deny that military engagement took place, he does argue that these confrontations were in reality a media construction of the idea of a war. The Gulf War was simply not a war in the conformist idea that history books and movies have created in the public psyche. War in the traditional sense has involved at least two military powers engaged on the battlefield face to face in a death match over territory, economics or ideology. In the Gulf Wars, however, pilots who are responsible for mass death never even come within miles of seeing their victims; those unfortunate people are merely inhuman computer images generated within the cockpit of the plane. Baudrillard differs substantially in seeing society as devolving into a series of symbols that increasing devoid of tangible connections to reality. Where Lyotard views modern society as a diverse playpen where the borders are crumbling under the weight of progress, Baudrillard sees an empty vacuum of meaningless exercises in futility. Baudrillard also rejects the metanarratives of the past, especially Marxian ones, yet for different purposes than Lyotard. While Lyotard is sure that people have misplaced their faith in such metanarratives Baudrillard indicts the followers of Marx for reinforcing the bourgeoisie ideology that views work as the ultimate “fulfillment of human essence” (Harvey 1990). The influence of Karl Marx on critical thought cannot be underestimated and if Baudrillard denies the possibility of fulfillment through work, two of the most influential philosophers of the 20th century made a career out of criticising the effects of the pursuit of leisure on society. The criticism of Theodor Adorno and Max Horkheimer relocates the Marxist critique of capitalism to the rest of society, but specifically the culture and entertainment industry. Their theoretical construct puts issues for the challenge that cultural industries exist to reinforce the prevailing capitalist superstructure. The members of the Frankfurt School posit the notion that the modern world is one where humans are increasingly finding not just their work, but even their leisure time spent away from work controlled by alienating forces. Adorno and Horkheimer set out to show that liberation was possible (Witkin 2002) . Unfortunately, there seems to be growing pessimism that the system could ever be overthrown and that liberation may be an impossible dream when even toddlers are being cynically targeted by advertisers. Directing manipulative advertising to such young and impression viewers is clearly unethical and it is made even more so by the fact that these kids at a stage of development vital to forming their identity. Any endeavor to make sense of cultural connotation is going to be affected to great degree by what they view as normalised and naturalised on television. Theoretical speculation has determined social groupings are robustly shaped by media portrayals as the accepted norm. Marketing often depicts images that are not genuinely obtainable while at the same time placing significance on distinctions deed less than desirable. One corollary of this is the placement upon viewers to conform to these unrealistic norms. According to the culture industry concept, however, the changes that are shaped by the media are not specific, but are instead a commonality of principles. Television is a readily accessible means of proliferating information. The assortment of programmes and the sheer overwhelming quantity of information that is available should theoretically secure diversity of output. The reality, of course, is that the bulk of television channels share a bland, homogenised sameness populated by shows that are critically aimed to appeal to passive audience that doesn’t want to be intellectually engaged. Those characteristics of the culture of modern society are nightly reified through achingly familiar elucidations of contemporary issues and concerns. Adorno considers fashionable art forms as being a thing that is forced on the masses; a tool used by the power structure for the purposes of manipulation that serves to “cheats its consumers of what it perpetually promises...Cinema in particular permits no room for reflection on the part of the audience, imposing itself irresistibly as reality. It might have destroyed the aura, but only at the cost of liquidating truth“ (Lapsley and Westlake 1988). Walter Benjamin hail cinema the destruction of that aura of authenticity and in the process took it from the sphere of the elite and handed it over to the working class to use to give them a voice. “Contemporary industrial workers and city dwellers, whose perception of the world was so fragmented and accelerated by their conditions of life, could find in film the formal resolution and organisation of their experience. Film was the medium such transformed modes of perception required to act as a guide in the modern world“ (Lapsley & Westlake 1988). Walter Benjamin and Siegfrizd Kracauer both typify film as a distraction, but each arrives at a different definition for distraction, though they also share a few similarities. Their essays “The Mass Ornament, Hotel Lobby, Cult of Distraction” and “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction” primarily are concerned with elucidating their views. In Walter Benjamin’s The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction, Benjamin considers that the multiple meanings of distraction and how they relate to confusion and manipulation of the masses. Benjamin’s thought is that distraction is directly related to the effects of capitalism on the growing leisure class. Film especially is a medium that succeeded in distracting enormous populations at the same time, while the theater also serves as a warehouse for coping with the overwhelming and overburdening stimuli faced by the industrial civilisation. Cinema was quickly embraced by the world and its distracting component was manipulated by masterful editing that allows for a steady change of the image that creates what Benjamin terms a shock effect that ideally should be viewed in a heightened state of consciousness. The shock effect employed by film increased in popularity as its ability to be controlled and manipulated grew. The mind is only capable of grasping and holding onto a single image for so long; masterful editing can be used to propagandise for subliminal effect like no other medium in history to that the point of its invention. Benjamin asserts that art demands absorption from the viewer, but too often the viewer is too easily distracted to fully engage intellectually with the content and the mechanics of film. When one is distracted, it is much easer to fall into the trap of relying upon habits; for instance, Dadaists successfully engaged in distraction by creating works of art with the implicit goal of causing social outrage. They intended to contravene conventional aesthetic and cultural values by producing works marked by nonsense and incongruity with the hope of raising the awareness of the utter futility of making sense in the modern world. Kracauer and Benjamin both view film as an expansive intensification of sensational leisure. Distraction can be seen as a manifestation of the inherent anarchy of nature, and Walter Benjamin shares some of Kracauer’s perspectives on distraction. Kracauer, however, places more emphasis on the elements of distraction. Kracauer desired for cinema to distract the masses while urging that the distraction not be done with effects that hinder the message of the film, but rather should aspire toward a radically different form of distraction that depicts disintegration rather than the pretense it really is. Distractions from film offered a transitory release from the mind-numbing dehumanisation at the factory where the masses worked. Benjamin consideration that modernity is a multifaceted phenomenon that most often consists of a number of individual components leading to the state becoming more powerful. The working class become more dependent on leisure, which makes consumer goods a more vital part of the economy; this mass consumerism, Benjamin fears, potentially leads to fascism. Cinema infiltrate reality and a film mislay its aura the more often is viewed. Kracauer’s views on capitalism are analogous to Benjamin’s in that he senses that beneath the capitalist ideology, film production emulates society while also serving to reproduce its hierarchy of domination. Kracauer judged capitalism to be a stop along the route to eventual disenchantment and this is fundamental to modernity, which is it itself utterly fragmented and devoid of true meaning. It is up to film technique to expose characteristics of modern life that could be best understood frame by frame, and in those images that are just as fragmented as contemporary society. Benjamin and Kracauer both perceive cinema as a distraction from the real world. It is Walter Benjamin who foresaw most clearly the ideological need to feeds the masses a distraction to keep them from seeing through the consciousness of domination. And today that distraction has resulted in that mass of people being not just the spectator of the distraction, but the participant. Those who are not yet participants are interpellated to assume that it is a natural desire to subscribe to the mentality of selling oneself as a commodity. The reality show phenomenon is hardly new; since the movie camera was invented by William Dickson people have been looking to strike it rich quick by becoming an instant celebrity. The primary difference between the dream factory process toward making these stars and the route through reality TV isn’t even the glamour. Most contestants on these shows, while perhaps not the equivalent in looks of most movie stars, nevertheless are typically in better shape and are more attractive than the average viewer. Lacking physical attractiveness, it is a sure bet they will be either charismatic or eccentric in a way that draws in viewers; such as parading around in the nude at all time. Reality shows are the cultural equivalent of a shadow play in which the features are recognisably human, but there is precious little soul. Even the very name reality TV is ironic. Despite the titular claims to the contrary, reality show contestants never actually “survive” or anything and viewers never act as “Big Brother” controlling the fates and guiding the destinies of those who are willing to sacrifice all dignity in exchange for a prize at the end. Reality shows are game shows, pure and simple. The metaphor may be understandable, but in fact even that bears precious little resemblance to reality. Everything is hyperreal in a reality show; they are like watching the Gong Show as scripted by Jean Baudrillard. Make no mistake, reality shows are scripted, as well as edited for effect. In fact, there is incredibly little technical dissimilarity between the production of drama and a sitcom and a reality show; both contains actors of admittedly disparate levels of talent acting out a preconceived “plot” and interacting not with characters so much as stereotypes. This problematic approach involving the scripting and editing manipulates the viewer into believing that what he is watching is unscripted reality and in viewers naturalise this behavior into the actual real life. Soon enough people at work are competing in a new arena that involves acting as disgraceful and petty in their commitment to competitive advantage as the people on their favorite reality show without realising that to do so makes no more difference than acting like their favorite character on a sitcom. It is this competitive aspect of reality shows that is more troublesome from a cultural standpoint. These shows are, in fact, metanarratives in the purest sense; they are more about their own reality than they will ever be about authentic reality. In essence, reality shows present an awkward metanarrative on a hyperreal situation that is struggling to prove itself an authentic presentation of society rather than an re-presentation of society such as a movie or play. As if that weren’t enough, these shows also contain transform the contestants into something that equates with Walter Benjamin’s mechanical reproductions. These contestants eagerly search for opportunities to turn themselves into pure commodity on at least two levels. They are in the game for the money, and they are in the game for the slim chance they can extend their brief slice of fame into a career. The shadow play that reality television compares to can be traced all the way back to the Plato’s cave in his allegory. Millennia passing by has failed to undo the intrinsic inability of people to judge adequately between what is reality and what is mere flickering of images on a cavern wall. In watching reality television show contestants act through their scripted scenarios it becomes clear that most of them have been fooled like the prisoners in the cave into not recognising the difference between authenticity re-presentation of reality, but that may only be expected since many of these contestants have now grown up over the last decade confusing the reality presented in these shows with the reality others live out in re-enactments of the behavior they’ve learned from watching the shows. One can only hope that when the cameras are turned off, the winner is revealed and the contestants leave their fabricated simulacrum of an island or communal home that they understand the reality they are stepping back into is nothing at all like the “reality” they have posed for on television. But just as dwellers inside Plato’s cave walked hesitantly and perhaps disbelievingly into the bright light of the real world, so too it is possible that those who appear on reality shows are still not quite convinced what is outside the studio door is actual reality. Most people could consider it the ultimate in foolish gullibility to confuse the reality of a game show situation with real life, yet aren’t they actually a perfect metaphor for the media climate that exists today? The mainstream media has rejected their role as the guardians of truth and the police of the government, becoming instead a tool of the prevailing power that plays an enormous part in reproducing the capitalist ideology. When one looks at a press conference by Pres. Bush and watches as his assertions about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq go unchecked and unquestioned, is there really any philosophical difference between accepting the authenticity of that world and the authenticity of the world that exists in the confines of a reality show? Society has transformed into the apart in Big Brother or the island of Survivor and the reality that is accepted is just as scripted, false and open to a multitude of interpretations. The population of the western world has devolved into a passive audience with their button constantly on the remote, ready to flip from one unsatisfying depiction of reality to the next in the fervent hope of coming across one that is exciting and endows their life with meaning and import. The scripted reality that is mostly fake but contains just enough elements of authenticity to seem real has become the perfect metaphor for a society that expresses genuine concern about the potential consequences of media control, while having no access to respond to that fear. Far from empowering the viewer—much less the contestant—what these shows ultimately accomplish is the act of dehumanising society so that lowest common denominator is held up as the greatest possible accomplishment. Citizens of contemporary society may, in fact, be more inclined to question whether the authentic reality isn’t back inside Plato’s cave. Those who have walked into the light, rubbed their eyes and witnessed what is actually taking place can be forgiven if their initial reaction is to run wildly back into the confines of ignorance. The standards of behavior have consistently been lowered as the rewards for public approval has been raised. The matrix is populated not by those who are the most admired, but rather those who are the most recognised. The consequence is that achievement is no longer the standard by which to judge success. The infamous and the famous are no longer even pretended to be differentiated; in fact, infamy is an almost obsolete concept. Celebrities are no longer known for their talents or their abilities, but rather for their ability to successfully market themselves as niche produce. The old time celebrity known for showing up and doing his job is a thing of the past; today’s singers or actor must also hype her own brand of perfume or underwear. So extreme is the mainstream in their willingness to do whatever is required to get famous and remain famous that the greatest casualty has been the avant-garde. The Dadaist look positively quaint alongside the degrading acts on reality shows like Fear Factor or Jackass. And in what may be perhaps the most brutally informative act on the utter surrealism that passes for reality today, the greatest mass-murderer in American history takes time between murders to package a multimedia bundle, walk to the post office and mail it to the offices of NBC. The actions of this disturbed young man served to make him seem more like a reality show contestant pulling off an ill-conceived prank than a homicidal maniac. In many ways, his murderous spree seems by contrast even less horrific than the equally infamous Columbine school shooting several years earlier. Escaping the matrix seems an unlikely occurrence in a society where the perversity of a young man reaches the extent that he can calmly confirm his own importance in the midst of a bloody rampage by demanding that he be treated as the celebrity he is not under conditions that mandate a posthumous acceptance. The world seems too real and yet not real enough, and the conflict that exists ordains that the confusion be realised in the glow of the spotlight. Society has reached the point where the self-actualisation can only take place in the limelight. Only when the masses confirm upon one the recognition of worth does any worthwhile effort finally gain credence within a consciousness that has been manipulated since birth by the media to question all covenants of validity that do not include public valorisation. Reality television is, as stated previously, simply an update and refashioning of game shows. But that is as it should be since all of reality is now a game played with language. Reality means scripted and phony; a battle today has been transformed into high stakes video games where a blip on a radar can actually represent the potential annihilation of thousands with the push of a button. Nothing is real and nothing is what it seems. The confusion of what is authentic and what is simulated may be too far gone to ever be satisfactorily turned back. The matrix is in control. References Harvey, D. 1990. The Condition Of Postmodernity. Oxford:Blackwell Lapsley, R. and Westlake, M. 1988. Film Theory: An Introduction. Manchester, Manchester University Press Lyotard, J.F. 1984. The Postmodern Condition. Minneapolis : University of Minnesota Press Witkin, R. W. 2002. Adorno on Popular Culture. London: Routledge. Read More