Paparazzo
the events they are fi lming. Th anks to networked
media, states Th ompson, ‘the capacity to outma-
noeuvre one’s opponents is always present’.
Th e social, cultural and political implications
of two-way surveillance are far-reaching, provid-
ing a rich field for communications research.
A phenomenon increased and diversifi ed as a
result of easy-access and available technology is
‘playing to the camera’, where the camera, what-
ever its form, is a performer in and sometimes
the instigator of the event itself; the promise of
media notoriety often being the motive force,
this in turn prompting ‘copycat’ behaviour. Th e
new visibility in Thompson’s view is both an
opportunity and a danger enabling users to bring
down walls of censorship but also to invade
privacy.
Paparazzo Aggressive, prying and often unscru-
pulous freelance photographer who specializes
in taking pictures of celebrities; pursuing them
wherever they go, armed with thick skin and
zoom lenses. Th e word is an Italian – Calabrian- surname. It was suggested by writer Ennio
Flaiano as a name for a character in Federico
Fellini’s fi lm La Dolce Vita (Th e Sweet Life), made
in 1960. Paparazzi were accused of hounding
Diana, Princess of Wales, to her death in 1997
and the press at that time made a number of
resolutions to curb the use of ‘intrusive’ pictures.
Paradigm (paradigmic) Commonly used in the
social sciences, the term refers to a framework of
explanation within which theories from various
schools of thought in a discipline are located
and from which research operates. In linguistics,
paradigm describes the set of relationships that
a linguistic unit, such as a letter or a word, has
with other units in a specifi c context. Th e word is
applicable in all sign systems, verbal, numerical,
musical, etc. Th e alphabet is a paradigm, or set of
signs, from which a choice is made to formulate
the message. A syntagm is a combination of the
chosen signs, a chain that amounts to meaning.
In language we can describe the vocabulary we
use as paradigmic, and the sentence that vocabu-
lary is formed into, syntagmic.
All messages, therefore, involve selection from
a paradigm and combination into a syntagm. All
the units in a paradigm must share characteris-
tics that determine the membership of that para-
digm, thus letters in the alphabetic paradigm,
numbers in the numerical paradigm, notes in the
musical paradigm.
Each unit within the paradigm must be
clearly diff erentiable from other units; it must
be characterized by distinctive features. Just as
the paradigm is governed by shared character-
instruments of socialization, ensuring confor-
mity and order, particularly as they may often be
taken for granted. It is arguable that within the
wider society much modern communications
technology, especially computer technology,
facilitates the operation of the panopticon gaze,
for example speed cameras and CCTV cameras.
Surveillance is also a recurrent theme running
through the mass media: the tabloid press
surveys the activities of celebrities; on real-
ity tv shows like Big Brother, surveillance is
presented as a form of entertainment whilst
other programmes, for example Crimewatch,
focus on enrolling the public’s help in detecting
criminals. Such coverage can be seen to contrib-
ute to a general sense, among the public, of being
watched, scrutinized; a situation accepted more
and more as the norm.
While the panopticon gaze is about the visual
relationships between authority and people, the
one subjecting the other to surveillance, what
has come to be referred to as the new visibility
is much more of a two-way process. Th is balanc-
ing (to a degree) of surveillance has been made
possible by the availability to the public of digital
technologies making reception and transmission
of information and images instant and global (see
facebook; mobilization; online campaign-
ing; twitter). In an article entitled ‘Th e new
visibility’ in the periodical Th eory, Culture and
Society (Vol. 22, 2005), John B. Th ompson writes
of ‘a new world of mediated visibility’ in which
‘spatial distance is irrelevant, communication
instantaneous’. He examines the way in which
modern-day politicians can manage their public
performance to maximum public effect, yet
that management – stage-management – now
meets with a public visibility brought about by
multimedia technologies allowing swift, instant
and global transmission of texts and images,
generated not so much by top-down authority as
by bottom-up public activity.
The network society has made possible
a public panopticon, an audio and visual appa-
ratus of record that turns the spyglass (or to be
more exact, the mobile phone linked to online
transmission) on statesmen, politicians and the
old guardians of the traditional panopticon, the
police and surveillance services.
Multimedia equipment now allows us to
actually witness, in real time, events as they
are happening – hijacked planes hurtling into
the skyscrapers of New York or London police
beating G20 protestors: they are on camera,
on record, no longer the business of the mass
media alone, but of individuals participating in