Saturday, 8th of March 2008

Have been working on a blog in which people can tune in to.
'Search for the true story of adventurer Steve Fossett'

The search starts with a main story of the disappearance of the adventurer.
By clicking some of the words, the context changes.
The story gets hyped in the direction the audience zooms in.

For example:
'... mysteriously disappeared....' becomes by clicking 'disappeared under mysterious circumstances'.
Each time a word or sentence slightly changes by meaning, one or two facts that support that new meaning are added to the story.

So far I have twenty different story plots that are connected together. (murder, a mystery daughter, staged death, disagreements between Richard Branson and wife Fossett and so on...)
Right now I have two types of designs I'll present on Tuesday.
I am not sure if I should make the transitions from text to text subtle or very clear.
Clear transitions make the stories funny and easy understandable.
Subtle transitions make the stories more deceptive and mysterious.
While I am writing this I remember our talk in the beginning of the project of stepping out of satire.
The subtle transitions would be a better choice.



Sunday, 17th february 2008

“It’s all storytelling, you know. That’s what journalism is about.”
Tom Brokaw

Mainstream news business is suspected to deal with issues at any level of complexity and nuance but usually their larger purpose is to make news dramatic and accessible. The media needs a story line with ideally an identifiable hero and villain. Is it really that bad that the truth is twisted or is there beauty in the stories people want to hear? How can I drift off as far as possible from the fact in my narratives withoutloosing believability.

For this Tuesday I’ve extracted some facts out of the news and build different kinds of narratives around that fact.

Interviews:
Last Wednesday I had an interview with media trainer Ton van Rhoon in Wageningen. We talked about how people can defend their own sakes in an interview but we also talked about
how to design a message for a not clearly defined target audience. Next to this he also offered me some thoughts on how media hype ‘When The Lady Smiles’ could have been made in to an eaven more gullible and juicy story. More on Tuesday…

Media hoax artist Joey Skaggs offered me a link to a text that is related to my essay, and will come back to my questions later. Maybe more on Tuesday.
http://pranks.com/2008/02/15/journalist-bites-reality/#more-2152//∞









Monday, 11th of februari

Host wikipedia://**

Interviews:
Contacted media hoax artist Joey Skaggs. Tomorrow I would like to discuss wich questions I should and want to ask him.
Wednesday afternoon I have an interview with media trainer Ton van Rhoon in Wageningen.
Q’s:
What kind of advice do you give when you are preparing soccer players for the media?
What kind of techniques are there to bend a negative question in to a positive answer?
How can I improve myself as an interviewer?

Essay:
When the lady smiles. On media hypes and hoaxes.
I am analysing the blogs, news paper articles, news bulletins like Eén vandaag, the semi revealing of the hoax at Pauw en Witteman and the rectification in the newspaper by the journalist that helped spreading the hype about Hillary Clinton’s so called campaign song.
I am comparing this through the work of Neil Postman’s ‘We are amusing ourselves to death’, McLuhan’s ‘Media is the message’, Edgar Allan Poe’s ‘Balloon Hoax’ and interviews with media hoax artist Joey Skaggs. On how newspaper is different from news on television. On how television sensationalises news.

Project:
Quote by borderline journalist Tom Kummer:
“When I’m writing there it’s an implosion of reality. I wanted to broaden the media theory. What a star says under the control of pr is an insult for smart people. I wanted to do something else than other people who accepted pr-journalism.”
Kummer’s work was popular because stars exposed their souls in his interviews instead of talking in clichés and general statements.
Concept: Broadcasting diverse shows with a different subtitling or sounds of to what I believe is really said or more believable to have been said in interviews. My comment on the truth while constructing a different one with false reality.

The Kennedy-Nixon presidential debates
These where the first presidential debates on television. Viewers thought Kennedy was stronger in the debate and radio listeners thought Nixon had the best points of view. The reason why the viewers thought Kennedy was stronger was because Nixon just had a knee operation and was resting on one leg at a time. The viewers misunderstood this for insecurity.
Concept: Experimenting with the different kinds of effect visual broadcasting and sound broadcasts have on an (invited) audience.

---

In this job interview by John Cleese you see what happens when the interviewer does not obey the typical rules of a job interview. What would you do?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OfTL5p6DRqU*∞*

I've read a book on media training, 'Lies in the media' and 'faults in the media'. Those three combined with the mediahype of Peter R. de Vries this weekend and my mind is completely saturised with conspiracy theories on media.

essay: Truth on internet media.
There are no electronic filters that separate truth from fiction. We can only use our critical thinking weather information is true or false. The internet is free accesable and that gives a lot of freedom but it can also deliver misinformation. I believe that the truth on internet has become less important since it has been so easy to fake it. Perception on truth in media: not the truth but what the world perceives as the truth is what counts.
How can you find hidden information on the internet?
How can you design hidden information on the internet?

project:
In every kind of interview you have to think of the target audience and what you want them to do or think. When you are in a job interview you want the interviewer to think that you are the best man or woman for the job. When you are a manager of a concern that just caused a disaster you want the public to know you take your responsibility, feel symphaty for victims are taking actions to make the situation better. In any case the main goal is to be perceived as positive by the public or interviewer.
I am contacting mediatrainers and job interviewers for an interview. What are the do's and don'ts in different types of interviews and what happens when the interview is not predictable. In some way like the example of John Cleese.

Media training
In an interview you can steer the interview towards your goal by thinking beforehand of the target audience, what do you want the target audience to think or do and in what kind of message are you going to adress the target audience. Mediatrainers say: if you think of your main message and you rephrase that message in a catching metaphor or oneliner you have designed the headline of your article. This is how you can steer the interview. Some people loose their natural grace in interviews because they focus too much on giving a right anwer instead of thinking of what they want to say.





sunday, the 27th of januari

Interest 1: The way people talk after media training in interviews.
The robotic way of hosting a television programme after the presenters hear they have to talk monotonous so the editors can cut in the sound. The gestures and movements of television hosts and politicians. What will happen if we mix them all up together or make political hand gestures in an entertainment show or vice versa. At the media park two weeks ago I saw a movie clip of the debate of the 2002 elections. The show was hosted by Henny Huisman in his soundmixshow.
http://www.nos.nl/archief/2002/nederlandkiest//paginas/nieuws/nieuwsberichten/2804_debat_soundbiteshow.html//***∞*
The problem is that I haven't found much material and information about this topic yet.

Interest 2: Hoaxes in media art.
Joey Skaggs, a media hoax artist, talks on a conference of The Influencers on how a journalist who he was about to reveal the truth to about a hoax failed to meet him in person twice and instead interviewed Skaggs on the phone. Skaggs was irritated and decided to fool her instead of revealing himself as a hoax artist. After the telephone interview, she constructed a report as if she was actually at the event. The result was a fake report of a hoax that was already revealed on a location that didn't exist in an Italian paper.
Skip trough the beginning...
http://theinfluencers.org/en/joeyskaggs/video/5/play//***∞*

The Influencers showcases visionary projects aimed at the exploitation and distorsion of mass communication, global pop culture, technological propaganda and ideological fetishism.
http://theinfluencers.org/en/intro//***∞*

Piece out of the interview with Hans Ulrich Obrist
“I don't pay attention to target audiences and therefore I often
hear that I am a ratings killer, somebody who fundamentally doesn't care
whether one person is watching or an entire soccer stadium.”
This quote reminded me of Viktor and Rolf’s claim that they don’t think of a target audience first but believe in an unique product that attracts its own specific audience. I wonder if that is true and if that is true and how that can be true for media. Professor Cindy Lont who has been teaching and researching the area of women in media says that media are businesses and they sell the audience. They sell a target audience to the advertisement agencies.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Gsqgs8Z7kQ//***∞*
in this clip it is especially funny to watch how several people all manage to name male movie directors and can hardly come up with any female names.



tuesday, the 15th of januari

"Our newspapers are fake, but they don't lie!" This quote is taken from Vincenzo Sparanga. He is an Italian news paper forger who makes fake headlines of events that never happen. He says as well that the dream of all forgers has always been to reveal true reality. But what is true reality?
http://www.frigomag.it///***∞*

I once saw a documentary on the Discovery Channel about how the people of Russia could dither the actual news in the newspaper the Pravda. (‘Thruth’) The people knew how to read between the lines, how to factor in doubt and cynicism so they could find out what was really happening in the world.

"...Like cable television with its endless splintering of sameness into a reputed ‘variety’, the multiple ‘perspectives’ of gunmen will supplant all other standpoints....."
Simulations (1983), Jean Baudrillard
http://www.legitgov.org/mike_essay_the_new_real4_031103.html////***∞*
concept of the charm of the real
http://www.stanford.edu/dept/HPS/Baudrillard/Baudrillard_Simulacra.html////***∞*

The difference between the real and the fake, illusion and reality is something I'd like to explore more this semester for our own broadcasts. Movie directors that come to mind who have worked with the topic of the charm of the real are Sturges, Hitchcock and Jean Renoir. Sturgess for example who made the fakeness of Hollywood colide in his movies by filming random stage builders in his scenes, Hitchcock did cameo's in his movies and the way or the reason why Jean Renoir let unpredictable elements into his scenes.