Night Crawlers - Media Sensationalism

My advertising career has been marked by clients spending big money in mass media toward getting favorable publicity from the media and more often than not I have witnessed that such obligations are intricate which are frequently compromised debating media’s journalism ethics. The concept of media commercialization is not unambiguous. Journalistic content has often been market-adjusted that is often trivialized, tabloidized and sensationalized. Journalists have started becoming celebrities through image creations and media companies are driven more by commercial interests than journalistic ideals. Increasing competition toward gaining eyeballs has diverted the editorial focus on the audience rather than the news.

The movie ‘Night Crawlers’ portrays such a commercialization of American media. Director Dan Gilroy paints a gory, bloody and a very graphic image of media sensationalism, giving a very real picture of media practices which often the general public is oblivious of. Unemployed and desperate Jake Gyllenhal teams up with the blood-sport veteran, TV channel director Rene Russo to not just cover the crime in the city but also generate situations that can create the sensational crime news. In the breakneck, ceaseless search for footage, they both flourish along with the TV Channel as police siren equals a possible windfall and victims are converted into big bucks.

Once again I hint at the reality of fiction, as on one hand the extreme portrayal of such sensationalism maybe viewed as possible only in fiction and yet there is evidence that wars have been waged over such yellow journalism. The changing media landscape of digitized dialogue versus the old-fashioned mass media monologue has often been celebrated and yet the power of mass media continues to hold us ransom to such gory sport of blood. In my opinion, fictional tales such as ‘Night Crawlers’ warns us to be vary of our patterns of media consumption and perhaps hints us to alter our habits of media use, pointing more toward pull rather than the push structures.

Aesthetics of Poverty

I was depressed and visibly shaken while reading Katherine Boo's latest book "Behind the beautiful forevers" in which she is harshly depicting the slums of Mumbai city which is based on the lives of real people - a fictional tale based on her ethnographic research for over three yrs of these shanties. I have lived in Mumbai and have observed the conditions of these slum dwellers and have always felt helpless to see the contrast of the lifestyles of the city's extreme rich and the extreme poor. What left me wondering however is the reason for being so depressed and shaken; "Was it the reality of the fiction or the fictional portrayal of reality!!"

Davidov (2013) in his article regarding "Ethnographic Fictions" suggests that, "whether one looks at the discourses of development in fiction, or discourses of and around development as fiction, one must consider what these fictions reveal or conceal on a meta-narrative level, even as they may become fluid and transformed through circulation".

Representations in media have profound effects on the lives of the people portrayed, some of these media productions are designed with an objective in mind, such as humanitarian aid, attention to development and social change and at other times subconsciously they simply reinforce or create stereotypes. 

To quaver my psyche into understanding why i think Katherine Boo's depiction is dry and harsh,  I revisit my own media analysis of another similar transition between fiction and reality of the movie 'City of God' (2002) depicting a Brazilian favela based on a book by Paulo Lins (1997) and a true-life story of a little boy named Alexandre Rodrigues. 

My intention in the analysis of 'City of God' was to plough-up a fertile ground that may help to construct an alternative view and perception of issues such as poverty and human rights, which are often wedged in western hegemony and politics of power. I had made an attempt to address the intersection between, fiction, development and post-colonial studies under the title ‘Aesthetics of Poverty’ a term widely attached to the Cinema Novo genre of film-making, which originated in Latin America toward social equality with a participatory ideology. 

 

‘Cidade de Deus’ directed by Fernando Meirelles is a not rhetoric of oppression to create pity and attract humanitarian aid. It is an attempt to publicize a jarring counter image of what the world knows about Rio and what more Rio has to offer than sun, sand and beaches. There are many documentaries
and cinema novo films made to this purpose, however the reach of popular cinema and the creative genius of the director and his team toward creating ‘Cidade de Deus’ which has won many accolades internationally has certainly helped to achieve a great level of publicity toward bringing Rio’s underbelly to the worlds notice.

Almost the entire cast of 200 actors for the film were recruited and trained for acting from the favelas of Brazil, moreover the film has been shot in a nearby favela (less dangerous compared to Cidade de Deus) and in the original Portuguese language by a Brazilian director. Hence, the film has consciously maintained the authenticity of characteristic mannerisms, lingo, psyche and milieu. It can be compared to what Spivak (1988) cited in McEwan (2009 p.73) calls the ‘native informant’. The film hence narrates knowledge situated within the favela, as McEwan (2009, p.35) explains, “what counts as knowledge determines, who creates it, where it is generated and how and for whom it is disseminated”.

The narrative is neutral and candid, however the director does take liberties toward creating larger than life image of a psychopath such as Li’l Ze to alienate a monster and hence create the classic good vs evil story line. Consequently, the binaries of white and black, rich and poor, male and female, the educated and uneducated are also clearly apparent in the narrative. The scenes contrasting the urban slum with the affluent urban city are very few, such as the office, the super market where Rocket works. However, they accurately represent the juxtapositions of enormous GNP’s alongside of extreme poverty in Brazil. These scenes clearly portray race inequalities with majority white population in the urban city versus the majority pretos (blacks) in the urban slum. Moreover, women are mostly shown in the background and have no major role-play except for the purpose of sex in the favela, whereas the urban city office shows many white women at work. Conversely, if you follow
the storyline, most of the men feel doomed to live the favela life, unless women salvage them, to live better lives outside of crime. This is an alternative way of unpacking the plurality of feminist roles challenging western assumptions (McEwan, 2009, p.57-59).

Nonetheless, these representations of cultural pigeonholes are deliberate intentions of the director toward his overall objective of depicting bare, raw and earnest reality. Since, a majority of the actors starring in this movie were residents of favelas, the production team attempted to relocate them to safer areas, giving them opportunities of work and provide them with education and improved living conditions.

However, a research after 10 years of the film’s success suggests that out of approximate 200 actors, most of them insisted on living in the same neighborhood along with their family and friends, some have continued with their acting careers and many continue with their original lifestyle. Nevertheless, this genre of movie making, which is not only an artistic expression and a communication medium but also extends itself in to becoming a developmental project through local participation leads us to an interesting dialectic regarding the blurring boundaries between facts and fiction.

References:

Davidov, V., (2013) 'Pedagogical’ and Ethnographic Fictions and Meta-narratives of
Development: 1 World Manga, Journal of Development Studies, Vol.49, No.3, 398-411.

McEwan, C., (2009) Postcolonialism and Development. London and New York:
Routledge.

Information Couture

Tailored and customized clothing designed to fit your body contours is often referred to as "haute couture".  Eli Pariser  opens our eyes to what he calls the 'filter bubble' wherein the modern day digital algorithms seems to be snipping, cutting, contouring and filtering out information for each one of us like haute couture. He gives examples of Google's search engine which decides what information caters to your interests and other social media channels such as YouTube and Facebook customizes the feed as per the digital understanding of your personality, likes and interests. Such tailoring sounds fine as long as you agree to remain in the customized bubble created especially for you but that defeats the definition of the Internet which promised to connect us to the world wide web.

However, one can argue that the world wide web information is enormous and hence it is inevitable and perhaps even intelligent to create a digital bubble which caters to our personality and interests. What one needs to then question is the integrity and authority of such tailoring which seems to assume the power of couturing for us as per their assumptions of our vital statistics. Furthermore these vital stats have a potential to change and does this couture culture allow such a change? Inventor of the world wide web Tim Berners-Lee himself is concerned of this couture culture and compares it to the Eagles number 'Hotel California', where you can check-out anytime you like but you can never leave.

James Smythe in his short story, “Trapped in a vortex of their own trivia” creates a hypothetical situation in which a user fails to realize that a war has broken out, because his internet feed simply supplies him with endless reviews of war films. Is it possible for us to break free of such a matrix, how can we be more vigilant of what information about us is becoming public or that we are going to be judged by. Are the current privacy settings and choices on the social media and search engines enough to prevent such a scenario? Can we become smart enough to construct a desired data-mining avatar that fits our needs? There are proxy servers such as "hide my ass" and secured 'https' and cached browsing patterns which hides your digital footprint as illustrated by Colin Jacobs however it is not established how much is still visible to powerful data-miners such as Google. Julian Assange's statement that, "the Internet is the greatest spying machine the world has ever seen" sounds appropriate to describe such an "Information Couture".

 

 

“Eat”ly A wonderful country of rich history, warm people and scrumptious food.

Once upon a time two little twin boys, Romulus and Remus were abandoned by their parents along the river Tiber – it was a female wolf who nursed and raised the children and then an entire empire that spread around the Mediterranean across three continents was named after one of these twins. Welcome to the city of Rome’ance, named after Romulus who killed Remus to become the king. A city to eat, pray and love. A lifetime is perhaps not enough to comprehend a place with such rich history and culture.

The city of Rome is a live excavation site, a casual walk through any of the strade and piazza will lead you to discover marvellous art, magnificent sculptures, glorious architecture and infinite ancient stories. It is a place with a living history; some monuments such as the Pantheon and the Colosseum can transport you back in time to nearly 2000 years, into the traditions and the lifestyle of the Roman emperors, their games of treachery and their sport of atrocities.

An artist would take special pleasure at the sight of some of the most illustrious pieces of Renaissance and Baroque styles from the famous Raphael, Michelangelo and Bernini; masterpieces such as the Sistine chapel, Saint Peter’s square, the David in Florence and the many obelisks. The city of Venice is an architectural wonder, often referred to as the floating city whereas Bologna is a city thoughtfully designed with the longest (45 kms) porticos in the world.

The country offers a variety of astonishing tales from the past and just as many culinary varieties to masticate and deliberate upon. Just like the Roman emperors the Italians are fanatic about both gastronomy and astronomy. The Romans travelled far and wide to explore the culinary diversity and bring home the variety of foods, herbs and spices. The origin of pasta has been attributed to the Venetian merchant Marco Polo who got the idea from his travels to China. The Italians have since invented approximately 250 varieties of pasta. A series of ten different cookery books “Apicius” have been written and illustrated to satisfy the appetites of a Roman monarch. The modern day Italians are no different, each region in Italy has a speciality food matching corresponding wines that should not be missed, “Risotto with Bardolino” in Milan, “Pizza with Tuscan Chianti” in Naples, “Tortellini with Sauvignon Blanc” in Bologna and “Cassata with Grappa” in Sicily.

The friendly Italians will love to tell you many interesting stories about their country and their food. It is not unusual that you started to ask an Italian on the street for some directions and landed up having dinner with her family the same evening. Food etiquette is however very essential to all Italians, so please do not make the mistake of ordering a latte post breakfast or asking for ketchup with your pizza, they will not only refuse to serve it to you but you may get a long sermon with fierce hand gestures about how to drink your coffee and eat your pizza, even if you don’t understand Italian. Jamie Oliver once did a cooking show in Italy and was obliged with cooking tips by every Italian on the street.

It might be helpful to get some insider reviews on the country with movies and books such as, Angels and Demons by Dan Brown, The Broker by John Grisham, To Rome with love by Woody Allen and Eat Pray Love by Elizabeth Gilbert. You might be surprised to find out that facts are stranger than fiction.

Wealth Redefined

Dubai is the closest holiday destination from India. Yet I happened to holiday to Dubai for the first time all the way from Sweden only this Christmas.

I did not think the place could astonish me in anyway as I have heard and read a million stories about Dubai. Besides, I have lived in Singapore with which it is often compared.

Nevertheless, being there physically just took the air out of my lungs. This oasis that was barren until the discovery of oil in 1971 had a foreigner population spur of over 300% thereafter. The abundant oil find in Abu Dhabi in spite of Dubai’s love hate relationship with its neighbour led to the formation of the seven UAE states. This makes the region obscenely wealthy. Dubai especially with its glamour image and free trade policies has turned into a financial refuge for the rich and the glitterati.

What the place lacks in sophistication it makes up with its spill of obscene wealth. They have created artificial beaches that are calm and serene. They have reclaimed land constructions to make gigantic villas, which maybe better called palaces. They have built artificial ski resorts and ice skating rinks so that they do not have to travel a million miles to get a taste of a different weather. They have built 828-meter tall towers to feel at the top of the world. They have created a new standard of luxury by making seven star hotels.

The city is on an economic downturn presently and all I saw was giant malls filled with shoppers carrying fancy shopping bags and a New Year firework display that could have fed an entire country for that day. The Sheikhs certainly have their priorities laid out clearly; they punish the criminals severely to make their land safe for none other than the larger and perhaps richer community of the tax invaders. They take hospitality seriously and do not mind going that extra mile to attract the rich and famous. They have managed to work out a win win situation for indulgences in entertainment, experience and the exotic. All in turn to their own benefit.

The Drama of Life

How often in life have you had that feeling of Déjà vu ? This is spooky, and I have once and again in my life felt that I am experiencing things that I already knew were about to happen and they occur in the exact same fashion as they did once earlier.

So, I ask myself if I am hallucinating or am I in a matrix. The nodes and the patterns appear to be the same. The setting and the plot are all familiar. The only difference is how “The me actor” manages to handle the situation differently and improvise.

Then I stumble upon a rather interesting subject – and I wonder if it explains some of these feelings…

Here is a Wiki explanation of a Social network:

A social network is a social structure made up of individuals (or organizations) called "nodes", which are tied (connected) by one or more specific types of interdependency, such as friendship, kinship, common interest, financial exchange, dislike, sexual relationships, or relationships of beliefs, knowledge or prestige.

Social network analysis views social relationships in terms of network theory consisting of nodes and ties (also called edges, links, or connections). Nodes are the individual actors within the networks, and ties are the relationships between the actors. The resulting graph-based structures are often very complex. There can be many kinds of ties between the nodes. Research in a number of academic fields has shown that social networks operate on many levels, from families up to the level of nations, and play a critical role in determining the way problems are solved, organizations are run, and the degree to which individuals succeed in achieving their goals.

In its simplest form, a social network is a map of specified ties, such as friendship, between the nodes being studied. The nodes to which an individual is thus connected are the social contacts of that individual. The network can also be used to measure social capital – the value that an individual gets from the social network. These concepts are often displayed in a social network diagram, where nodes are the points and ties are the lines.

Worlds most difficult driving test!!

I may have driven for over 20 yrs. I consider myself to be a safe driver and have never hurt anything or anybody until now. However the stringent laws for acquiring a driving license in this country is wee bit frustrating.

There are a gamut of books you need to read up for your theory test and just reading them casually is not enough as the questions are designed to flabbergast you anyway. The answers are not stereotypical and may wary from situation to situation. Which essentially means they trick you once and again. The gala “gödkant” (pass) is achieved only if you scored over 80 % and what’s more is that after all this hard work you need to pass the dreadful practical test within a span of 2 months or else you go through the entire exercise all over again.

When I say “the dreadful practical test”, I am not being the least dramatic. This is a test dreaded by even the most experienced drivers. Even after spending an average 20-30,000 SEK on training you may be refused the license for not having looked in the rearview mirror before turning on the indicator to show your intentions of changing the lane or for briefly driving in the left lane, which is considered an absolute taboo if you are giving your driving test.

And one wonders what do they achieve with such stringent laws, so here is what it is. Sweden claims to be targeting a zero fatality rate in the next few years. The number of persons killed in road accidents has dropped to 221 this year, which is about 50% less than 2007. The alcohol tolerance is so low that you would rather hire a cab then be brutally fined or jailed for being caught for drunken driving, which is the greatest cause for fatalities on road. This is something that even USA has been humbled for not being able to handle. In fact in USA the casualties have been on an up rise to a whooping 41471. If you look at the statistics of all of Europe, you may not see anything unusual. However, if one looks at the Nordic countries the statistics are unusually low, with the tiny little Iceland leading the way at 15 fatalities.

As I continue being frustrated and being ripped of financially by the traffic authorities here the only consoling factor is that it is all for a good cause. Amen.