The rise of mass media is giving more people their chance at ’15 minutes of fame’. Through internet, television and blogging applications, people’s lives are placed in the public eye. The article describes it as, ‘It spreads the word faster and wider than an atomic bomb going off; provides a powerful and anonymous forum for every opinionated nobody in the world to vent his spleen; and it's made the media industry desperately competitive to the point of tying itself in knots.’
They used the cases of Sarah-Marie from Big Brother season 1- who’s fame rose from a reality television stint where she became infamous for her ‘bum dance’- she quoted, saying “ [she] started to feel like a performing seal”. In another case, the story of Stuart Diver, who was the sole survivor of the Thredbo landslide, was unwittingly placed in the media limelight for viewers demand to sympathise with him.
The central issue is the power internet and technology is giving and taking from everyday people. The issue was defined when in 1968 Andy Warhol proclaimed, “In the future, everyone will be world-famous for 15 minutes”, whether they intend to or not. This raises questions regarding the consumer demand for constantly new and more novel things- are our attention spans that short?-And how far will the mass media go to adhere to public demand? What does it now mean to be ‘famous’ in the eyes of mass media? And how can we control unwanted attention?
I personally find that mass media is allowing everyday people to feel as though they are being heard and they are defining themselves amongst the billions of other people. The line is blurred, however, between people who place themselves in the public eye, and others who hold no control over being placed in the public eye- does mass media have its limits?
Image source: www.qbd.com.au
News source: The Sunday Age, July 4 2010, John Elder, Your Time Starts Now
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