Media event
A media event, also known as a pseudo-event,[1] is an event, activity, or experience conducted for the purpose of media publicity. It may also be any event that is covered in the mass media or was hosted largely with the media in mind.[2]
In media studies, "media event" is an established theoretical term first developed by Elihu Katz and Daniel Dayan in the 1992 book Media Events: The Live Broadcasting of History.[3] Media events in this sense are ceremonial events with narrative progression that are live broadcast and gather a large segment of the population, such as royal weddings or funerals.[4] The defining characteristics of a media event are that it is immediate (i.e., it is broadcast live), organized by a non-media entity, containing ceremonial and dramatic value, preplanning, and focusing on a personality, whether that be a single person or a group.[5] The 2009 book Media Events in a Global Age updates the concept.[6] The theory of media events has also been applied to social media, for instance in an analysis of tweets about the Swedish elections[7] or an analysis of the Bernie Sanders mittens meme during the inauguration of Joe Biden.[8]
Media events may center on a news announcement, an anniversary, a news conference, or planned events like speeches or demonstrations. Instead of paying for advertising time, a media or pseudo-event seeks to use public relations to gain media and public attention. The theorist Marshal McLuhan has stated that the pseudo-event has been viewed as an event that is separate from reality and is to simply satisfy our need for constant excitement and interest in pop culture. These events are, “planned, planted, or incited (Merrin, 2002)” solely to be reproduced later again and again.[9]
The term "pseudo-event" was coined by the theorist and historian Daniel J. Boorstin in his 1961 book The Image: A Guide to Pseudo-events in America: “The celebration is held, photographs are taken, the occasion is widely reported.”[10] The term is closely related to idea of hyperreality and thus postmodernism, although Boorstin's coinage predates the two ideas and related work of postmodern thinkers such as Jean Baudrillard. A media event being a kind of planned event, it may be called inauthentic in contrast to a spontaneous one.
In distinguishing between a pseudo-event and a spontaneous one, Boorstin states characteristics of a pseudo-event in his book titled "Hidden History." He says that a pseudo-event is: dramatic, repeatable, costly, intellectually planned, and social. It causes other pseudo-events, and one must know about it to be considered "informed".[11]
Historic examples[edit]
Media events became prominent when the media did. The driving of the Golden Spike in Promontory Summit, Utah, in 1869 has been described as one of the first media events in the United States. Edward Bernays and his Torches of Freedom campaign in 1929 is an example of an early media event that successfully influenced public opinion. Similarly, Nikita Khrushchev visit to the United States in 1959 was highly influential, and has been cited as the first example of media events being utilized in politics.[13]
Media events became practical in the middle 19th century as the Morse telegraph and the expansion of daily newspapers introduced same-day news cycles. The emergence of the internet led to many media stories being published live from the media event, real-time Twitter coverage, and immediate analysis of televised media events. When musical artist Prince pretended to take questions during his Super Bowl press conference but instead broke immediately into song, his performance itself became a meta media-event-within-a-media-event.[14]
From a postmodern perspective, Jean Baudrillard argued in his essay The Gulf War Did Not Take Place that the Gulf War, the first war broadcast on television, was not a real war, but a media event planned by the US army and media outlets like CNN.[15]