Full steam ahead at idle
Staged events not only guarantee exclusivity, but also boost ratings and circulation—provided they lend themselves to scandal and moral self-affirmation.
Column Staged events not only guarantee exclusivity, but also generate ratings and circulation. Provided they are suitable for scandalization and moral self-assurance.
If there's nothing going on, you have to do something," my mentor at the long-dead "Luzerner Tagblatt", the outstanding journalist Hans Peter Jaeger, used to say when there was once again a yawning lack of events. That was a long time ago, as can be seen from the fact that older colleagues were still communicating with junior reporters on a first-name basis back then, not that we set fire to such teachings. But we have learned our lesson. And so have others in the meantime, such as the operators of "Music Star": You're inventing the second oldest pattern of competition there is. In Jaeger's day, it was called "JeKaMi" and took place on Saturday evenings on a dreary provincial stage. Today, a format like "Music Star" is a ratings hit thanks to media duplication and a perfected form of presentation.
The production develops an admirable momentum of its own. The old rascal H. Elias Fröhlich is exchanged for a conflict of interest from the recording industry, the headlines are guaranteed. Big questions pile up: How violent are Piero's fans? Why did the milk face refuse his new girlfriend a friendship ticket? Does the full-figured girl from the Rhine Valley believe in God and why? The news machine is running at full speed and constantly spitting out new stories. It's inconsequential, it's idle time, but it doesn't harm anyone and it's fun. It's also distracting, and that's what it's supposed to do. And what you invent yourself is guaranteed to be exclusive, as is the denial. Old master Jaeger would never have given such advice; cynicism was not part of his business. Nevertheless, the tip could have come from him. The self-fabrication of events has long been part of everyday media life. You lock a few crazy people in a container and film what goes on between them. You transfer some washed-up celebrity bonsais to the Australian bush, make them wade through shit and kiss cockroaches and declare it a mega-event. In the meantime, a whole camarilla of PR friars has mastered the trick that the chimney-climbing do-gooders from Greenpeace were the first to use industrially.
applied. Symbolic actions frozen into images convey banal content for an audience that finds it difficult to read coherent texts.
Of course, everyone finds such shows horrible; after all, the viewers - not the performers - are grown-up, sensible and politically correct people. However, instead of pressing the miraculous button on the remote control, these enlightened and illusionless contemporaries watch intently until the last minute. After all, they want to be righteously indignant. They draw their certainty of their own superiority from their anger at the tastelessness of others. In this way, even the shabbiest cockroach show still generates moral added value in the end.
On top of this, Günther Jauch's quiz show, for example, is an intellectual nine-question test at elementary school level to the dear old tune "Did you know?". What, the idiot doesn't even know what a howitzer is? And what, please, is the difference between the categorical imperative and the categorical aperitif?
Gawking, I confirm my status as a brainiac, provide my partner and children with the solution and together we amuse ourselves with the poor worm who agonizes for minutes over the right answer. The only thing that disturbs the family peace is the youngest's disarming question: "Daddy, why aren't you going out?"
Karl Lüönd smiles at "Music Star" and its ilk.
If there's nothing going on, you have to do something," my mentor at the long-dead "Luzerner Tagblatt", the outstanding journalist Hans Peter Jaeger, used to say when there was once again a yawning lack of events. That was a long time ago, as can be seen from the fact that older colleagues were still communicating with junior reporters on a first-name basis back then, not that we set fire to such teachings. But we have learned our lesson. And so have others in the meantime, such as the operators of "Music Star": You're inventing the second oldest pattern of competition there is. In Jaeger's day, it was called "JeKaMi" and took place on Saturday evenings on a dreary provincial stage. Today, a format like "Music Star" is a ratings hit thanks to media duplication and a perfected form of presentation.
The production develops an admirable momentum of its own. The old rascal H. Elias Fröhlich is exchanged for a conflict of interest from the recording industry, the headlines are guaranteed. Big questions pile up: How violent are Piero's fans? Why did the milk face refuse his new girlfriend a friendship ticket? Does the full-figured girl from the Rhine Valley believe in God and why? The news machine is running at full speed and constantly spitting out new stories. It's inconsequential, it's idle time, but it doesn't harm anyone and it's fun. It's also distracting, and that's what it's supposed to do. And what you invent yourself is guaranteed to be exclusive, as is the denial. Old master Jaeger would never have given such advice; cynicism was not part of his business. Nevertheless, the tip could have come from him. The self-fabrication of events has long been part of everyday media life. You lock a few crazy people in a container and film what goes on between them. You transfer some washed-up celebrity bonsais to the Australian bush, make them wade through shit and kiss cockroaches and declare it a mega-event. In the meantime, a whole camarilla of PR friars has mastered the trick that the chimney-climbing do-gooders from Greenpeace were the first to use industrially.
applied. Symbolic actions frozen into images convey banal content for an audience that finds it difficult to read coherent texts.
Of course, everyone finds such shows horrible; after all, the viewers - not the performers - are grown-up, sensible and politically correct people. However, instead of pressing the miraculous button on the remote control, these enlightened and illusionless contemporaries watch intently until the last minute. After all, they want to be righteously indignant. They draw their certainty of their own superiority from their anger at the tastelessness of others. In this way, even the shabbiest cockroach show still generates moral added value in the end.
On top of this, Günther Jauch's quiz show, for example, is an intellectual nine-question test at elementary school level to the dear old tune "Did you know?". What, the idiot doesn't even know what a howitzer is? And what, please, is the difference between the categorical imperative and the categorical aperitif?
Gawking, I confirm my status as a brainiac, provide my partner and children with the solution and together we amuse ourselves with the poor worm who agonizes for minutes over the right answer. The only thing that disturbs the family peace is the youngest's disarming question: "Daddy, why aren't you going out?"
Karl Lüönd smiles at "Music Star" and its ilk.
> Karl Lüönd is an author, publicist and head of the Media Institute of the Swiss Press Association.
