The ideologies and practices evident in modern television are succinctly foreshadowed in the 1976 Hollywood classic, Network. This prophetic Oscar-winning film satirically dramatised a series of predictions, most of which were fulfilled in modern television. The film shows that ratings have become more important to soulless conglomerates than reporting the truth. It foreshadows mutual reality television as well as entertainment through suffering and humiliation. However, the movie incorrectly infers that television content with a right wing agenda cannot successfully achieve high ratings, something which seems quaint in the era of Murdoch's aggressively successful, right-wing "FoxNews". Furthermore, Network fails to foresee the advent of Cable TV and the Internet as highly influential tools for media distribution.
[...] It is clear that Network accurately predicts the extensive use of shock-value television and exploitation as an invaluable fuel for television entertainment in the current world. Lumet and Chayefsky use Network to clearly predict the dictatorship that television has established over its audience's beliefs and its consequent effect on popular culture. Lumet constructs Howard Beale to model the public's reaction to a stereotypical media icon. In the film, Diana Christensen, VP of Programming, establishes that American people want somebody to articulate their rage for them.'[7] and Howard's ability to capture this rage seems to place him in a position of considerable power and influence. [...]
[...] The outrageous and shocking television scenes in Network construct a fairly accurate projection of the ideologies behind current television shows. The unrelentingly harsh nature of reality television is clearly reflected in Network by Diana Christensen's actions regarding the terrorist group, the Ecumenical Liberation Army. Lumet uses the negotiations between Diana Christensen and the Ecumenical Liberation Army, allowing her to broadcast their terrorist footage in a virtual reality show, foreshadows the entertainment a modern audience derives from the traumas of reality television. [...]
[...] Social networking tools such as Myspace, ‘MySpace.com received 74% of U.S Social Networking visits for April 2008'[19], allow anyone to indiscriminately proffer their own views and the above statistic definitely suggests that these views are being noticed. Primarily, Network failed to predict the phenomena of cable TV which is prevalent as there are 64.8 million homes with a basic cable subscription in America alone[20]. Thus it is clear that Lumet was unable to foresee the introduction of these new mediums and consequently their effect on current media. ‘Network predicts the ideologies and practices of modern television' is true to a large extent. [...]
[...] It is certain that Lumet's Network succeeds as it is ‘unrelenting in its attack on tv culture'[22] and frighteningly accurate in its predictions, consequently it is a fully realized critique of the ideologies and practices that are evident in current media culture. Bibliography Salter The media we deserve: underachievement in the fourth estate, Melbourne University Press, Carlton, Victoria Cunningham Contemporary Australian Television, UNSW Press, Sydney Biressi Reality TV: realism and revelation, Wallflower, London Network, DVD, MGM Home Entertainment, c2004 Kiesewetter Media Has Big Influence On Kids, The Cincinnati Enquirer www.parentingbookmark.com/pages/ArticleMedia01.htm, viewed 24 June 2008 Mahar How the Mainstream Media Hype Health Care, Health Beat http://www.alternet.org/mediaculture/88343/, viewed 29 May 2008 Ackerman The Most Biased Name in News, FAIR http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=1067, viewed 29 May 2008 Fallows Age of Murdoch', The Atlantic Online, September 2003 Wilson Top Five U.S. [...]
[...] Murdoch's media empire, News Corporation, includes ownership over Fox News, Fox Sports, thirty-five local US TV stations, New York Post, The Times, The Sun and the conservative The Weekly Standard and this extent of media control has provoked many to him as a power-mad, rapacious right-wing vulgarian'[13] with his ‘one-of-a kind media network that spans the world'[14]. Murdoch's success is reflected by the fact that in 2002 the ‘total revenues of News Corp were about $17 billion'. Hence, in comparison it is clear that, Lumet uses Jensen as a model of the modern day media tycoon which again demonstrates the accuracy of his predictions. [...]
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