Communication Theory Media, Technology and Society

• The characterization of Knowles as ‘ordinary’ already reaffirms a basic
  binary upon which the symbolic inequality of broadcast operates,
  between high and low visibility.


• It is a real-life example supposedly because it did not occur via ‘the
  image’, but in fact Knowles’ attention was achieved entirely by trading
  in images, and the system of images, for which he became an agent.


• Knowles’ ‘fame’ is entirely parasitic on the Hollywood personality
  system, which is the basis of his site being ‘interesting’. It is not because
  Knowles is hairy, twenty-something or parodying another dominant
  genre – news.


• In turn, Gauntlett publishes Knowles’ URL, which may receive more
  visits as a result of people reading Gauntlett’s mass-produced book.

Moreover, a website’s popularity will vary over time depending on

its synchronicity with events managed by the mass media, and made

visible by mass media, for which it can only ever be a mirror, or an anti-

site (a site which reaffirms the power of a broadcast text in its efforts to

parody or criticize it).

Table 4.1 classifies forms of broadcast by their synchronicity and visi-

bility. A broadcast event may be asynchronous but have high visibility,

such as magazines and billboards. They tend to have a regular but not

very immediate visibility. The impact of the content of such forms tends

to build up over time. A broadcast event might also be synchronous but

have irregular visibility, such as a media stunt. Such stunts, sometimes

attempted by social movements, tend to be highly irregular, but, just for

that reason, acquire high visibility and a synchronous audience when

they do appear. Some broadcast ‘mega-events’ exhibit a dramatic concen-

tration of both visibility and synchronicity (see Garofalo, 1991; Real, 1984).

No event collapses more of the positive features described above than do

the Olympic Games – the most ‘widely shared regular event in human

history’ (Real, 1984: 222).

Whilst there are these variations in kinds of broadcast media, the way

broadcast differs from interactive media is far more significant in under-

standing contemporary media. By such a contrast, a host of qualities of

broadcast media come into view which were previously difficult to see.

The Interrelation between Broadcast and Network Communication 105

Table 4.1 The broadcast event

Regular-visibility broadcast Irregular-visibility broadcast

Synchronous audience Public speech Media stunt

Television Newsflash

Radio Baudrillard’s ‘obscene’

Daily newspaper (see p. 107)

Asynchronous audience Magazine Datacasting

Novel Computer virus

Billboards

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