Tuesday 18 May 2010

Terrorism and the Media.


It is a truth universally acknowledged that, with respect to Terrorism, the Media’s great crime is to grant the oxygen of publicity to the perpetrator's narrow cabal while denying the victims a voice. 
True, there are some T.V channels which seek to remedy this by asking people how they feel about being blown up while the process is actually occurring, but little of such footage- for obvious reasons- is aired and what little is aired tends to be marred by the lack of objectivity of the victims. 
They tend to say things like “Ow! It hurts! Make it stop!” rather than point out, in a proper manner, the Media’s tendency to deny victims a voice- thus victimizing them yet further.  Indeed, the paradox is, it is not until victims resort to terrorism that their voice is truly heard. More generally, we may say, all violence is the voice of the victim and all victimization arises from being denied precisely such a voice. Thus viewers of the Media’s coverage of this issue- rather than incontinently crying out, “Ow! It hurts! Make it stop!”- must recover their voice as victims by resorting to terrorism.  This can be done without getting out of their armchairs not by the Baudrillardian technique of resistance- viz. channel surfing- which could impact on Nielsen ratings and drive Terrorism off the air- but by farting occasionally. 
Of course, if this is not sufficient to secure Media attention for our plight, then stronger steps will have to be taken. Indeed, it seems, some already have. Thus we see all violence is but the denied voice of the viewer and the fact that even the Media flags in fascination with this voice enables it to arrive at victimhood because its voice, in this matter, is being denied. 

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