"The detached observer is as much entangled as the active participant."
[Theodor Adorno]
"...[W]hat we are dealing with here are in the very widest sense communities of interpretation, many of them at odds with one another..."
[Edward W. Said]
The television camera has transformed our involvement with justice, as we sit in judgment while images on the screen draw us into action. The television image captivates the viewer commanding in-depth participation in every aspect of experience. The political context of the drama enfolds, and the viewer is given the task of untangling the powerful and complex web of race, gender and politics. The scenario of the Hill-Thomas hearings played itself out in the fast-paced medium of television, underlying the Thomas confirmation proceedings. The conflict between Hill and Thomas had all the features of a dream sequence: events out of order, improbable characters, intrigue and resolution brought to the public live through the mediator of television as a popular culture phenomenon.
The country was given a sense of television's power to create intense involvement in a complex process, as it presented itself as a powerful medium for molding public opinion and reviewing the unresolved issues of racial and gender justice. The separation between public and private hearings were supported by commentary, recaps, updates and summarized reports accompanied by selected footage. Were the Hill-Thomas hearings a television courtroom drama, an attempt to obscure reality, a Hollywood sitcom, a war of the genders, with a charge of sexual harassment?
Today's realism-based courtroom television programs bridge the line between fact and fiction, and are typical of the participational kind of television experience that has altered the public's relation to laws and the courts. In courtroom television proceedings, the viewer becomes a participant in the process as cases are pleaded and verdicts rendered. Courtroom television attempts to create a forum for chaos, a conceptual interface between the order of law and chaos of the world. With the drama's inherent images, television courtroom drama portrays the spirit of the law with all its ideological dressing.
McLuhan contends that the effect of television, as the most "spectacular electric extension of our central nervous system," has affected our personal, social and political lives. Having affected the totality of our lives, McLuhan describes television as a "complex gestalt of data."1 Given the psychic and social disturbance created by the television image, McLuhan suggests that without laymen's understanding and acceptance, laws which are applied and courts which are presided in cannot continue to exist.2
Sociologists Arthur Kroker and David Cook view television as "in a very literal sense, the real world...of postmodern culture, society and economy...of real popular culture driven onwards by the ecstasy and decay of the obscene spectacle."3 Eco has called "neo-TV," television which takes itself and its participants as its own subjects, television which constitutes the postmodern psycho-cultural condition, a world of simulations detached from reference to the real, which circulate endlessly.4 Kroker and Cook share the thinking of Baudrillard that television, viewed as an "instrument of oppression and intellectual deprivation," transforms individuals into passive media machines by directing a simulated "technocratically controlled identity" to viewers, substituting a world of flat images for a world of experience. As Baudrillard states, postmodern television represents the final stage before culture disappears into the control of the image, a stage of simultaneous ecstasy and decay.5
Raymond Williams and Fred Inglis view society as "the society of the spectacle," a world far removed from real life. Except for a small power elite, the public powerlessly watches television while the spectacle of society appears on the screen. If anything important occurs it will happen to the viewer, whose lack of power makes it impossible to make things happen. The viewer studies the framing by the screen, and follows the fate of the spectacle on television. Nicholas Garnham observes that the best explanation of people's use of television is that they feel powerless in private, so they leave the world as spectacle. Inglis believes that this could account for television's magic power, and the strange explanation of star, celebrity, and personality as enshrined on the screen.6
Photographic and telecommunication technologies have altered every dimension of social existence. The shimmer of dots and lines which make up a television image has been called dazzling and glamorous. The television image offers some three million dots per second to the receiver, from which a few dozen in each instant make up an image. The viewer of the television mosaic, with technical control of the image, unconsciously reconfigures the dots into an abstract pattern. The array of visual images received are readily accepted as commonplace.
Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz shows us that the world consists of series and sequences which are visible in small sections in disrupted order and intersect according to ordinary laws, so that one believes in breaks and discrepancies as in things that are out of the ordinary.7 Television news has become a mosaic of images of society, images which exist in their own realm and which never become firmly fixed in the real. The image fragments perception into successive sequences which RenČ Clair points out the viewer of film accepts as rational. While images are fragmented and contradictory, they are clearer and more impressive than the reality they claim to represent. The real has faded behind the endless images of our culture and it is the images that matter. Images are created and understood in relation to other images and the real is then read as an image.8 Once television provides an image, what happens to one's own image? Does the television image take precedence?
The dominant mode of television, according to Stephen Heath and Gillian Skinner, is the "relay," or transmission of reality without apparent selection, control or mediation. John Wyver sets the postmodernist mode of television against this method, which derives from and includes live broadcasts of news, making no pretense to be transmitting the "real."9 Journalist, Richard Strout 1982, commented that "television trivializes the news in a disgusting fashion. It's awfully hard to find out the meaning of anything."10 McLuhan represents that television censors suppress the media instead of seeking "content" control, believing that content or programming is the factor that influences outlook.11
As McLuhan points out, news events alone are not caught in the "visual webs of our image technologies."12 Photography, film and television have increasingly entered into and occupy the domain of story telling and entertainment. McLuhan would agree that the viewer accepts whatever the camera turns to and is transported to another world. Television news is not something set apart from the real world or the apparently neutral voice of journalistic authority. It is noticeably shaped by the world that it purports to cover objectively.13
The "objectivity" of the camera as a recording device has been called into question with increasing recognition that the camera records differentially. The viewer must match and make associations between the image and the world which in turn expresses meaning. The viewer focuses selectively on infinite aspects of the environment, interprets and evaluates what is seen and responds to theories about what is occurring. This process repeats itself with those who respond to their interpretation of actions. Similarly, the camera records selectively, choosing what is important and which objects to focus on, limiting the viewer's possibilities. One does not perceive an objective reality; the camera determines what one sees.14
The indiscernibility of the subjective and objective, real and imaginary, provides the camera with a vast amount of functions which include a new understanding of the frame and reframing. Objective and subjective images lose their distinction and identification in favor of a new perimeter, where they are replaced or merge with one another. As Deleuze points out, the distinction between what was viewed subjectively and what the camera saw objectively has disappeared. The camera has assumed a subjective presence, acquired an internal vision and entered into a relation of simulation with the viewer's way of seeing.15
In the image, a distinction is always made between the real and imaginary, objective and subjective, physical and mental, actual and virtual. This distinction becomes reversible and in that sense unrecognizable, distinct yet unrecognizable, the characteristics of the imaginary and the real. What is in play is no longer the real and the imaginary, but the true and the false. Just as the real and imaginary become difficult to distinguish in certain specific conditions of the image, the true and false become undecidable or complex.
According to Baudrillard, the image is always a substitute or a sign for reality, and should not be thought of as its equivalent no matter how much it seems to be. The image is its own simulacrum and bears no relation to any reality. It is the reflection of a basic reality which masks, distorts and conceals the absence of a basic reality.16 On the notion that images directly show a reality, Victor Burgin takes the position that the image is an illusion, since all images operate within a network of relationships with other forms of representation. He argues that all photographs "inescapably implicate a world of activity responsible for, and to the fragments circumscribed by the frame...."17
The cinema-eye sees and records differently than the human eye. Limitations imposed by the position of the body or by how much one can see in a second do not exist for the cinema eye, which has much wider capabilities. Journalistic documentary pioneer, Dziga Vertov, made the creation of a new perception of the world his mission; an unknown world which he deciphered in a new way.18 Viewing himself as a "mechanical eye," the "eye of the cinema," a machine which shows a world as only he sees it, Vertov claims that his view presents a "fresh perception of the world."19
Creators of images rarely show us as we would like to be seen and call into question the assumption that their perspective is more objective or valid than that of their subjects. The camera projects a narrowly selected, highly personal, edited version of objects and events. Each frame which determines the limit of the image includes a potentially infinite amount of visual information. When the frame or screen functions as an instrument panel, printing or computing, the image is constantly being cut into another image, sliding over other images in a stream of messages. As Vertov states, "...it is not enough to show bits of truth on the screen, separate frames of truth. These frames must be thematically organized so that the whole is also a truth."20
David Barker believes that effective control and manipulation of screen space is one of the most crucial elements of television aesthetics. He has divided the controlling elements into two categories: "camera space" and "performer space." Camera space is comprised of the horizontal field of view, type of shot and camera positioning in relation to the performer. Performer space is primarily a function of performer positioning and movement along axes defined in relation to the camera.21 Wurtzel and Dominick 1971, argued that much of the perceived effectiveness of a television program depends on the director's choice of shots or field of view. Within the timespan of a shot is a continuous number of images. As James Monaco describes, a shot contains as much information as one wants to "read" in it. An image is "read" physically, mentally and psychologically. From a psychological perspective, various sets of perceived meanings are assimilated and experiences integrated.22
As McLuhan points out, experience rather than understanding influences behavior, especially where the individual is usually unaware of the effect of media and technology.23 Said suggests that we tend to overlook or make light of the extent to which we depend on individually formed and received interpretations and meanings for our sense of reality. As Said reminds us, these received interpretations are an essential part of living in society.24
In Mills' terms, "men live in second-hand worlds," meaning that their own experience is always indirect and they are aware of much more than personal experiences. In the course of daily life they do not experience a world of solid fact; experience itself is selected by stereotyped meanings and shaped by ready-made interpretations. These received and manipulated interpretations, which have probably been adapted from the representations of others, influence how one sees, feels and responds. Mills contends that man is dependent upon the "observation posts," "presentation depots" and "interpretation centers" for most of what he considers to be solid fact, sound interpretation and suitable presentation.25
The effect of television on our political life, and traditions of critical awareness testify to the safeguards we have posted against uses of power. Mass media, especially television, are not only changing the way government is covered, but the way it functions has altered the core of our political system. Television has also transformed the democratic process by establishing a direct communication link between political leaders and their constituents.26 The real power is revealed as existing in the institutions and technology itself. Television reporting is a spectacle which must be created to capture coverage. Issues, whether real or artificial, are stirred up to the point that they command national attention and affect national policy.
As an example of the effect of television images on political life, the 1960 television debates of "The Making of the President" points out the nature of the television image and its effects on viewers and candidates, as opposed to content of the debates and demeanor of the debaters.27 Television is a medium that rejects the sharp personality and favors the presentation of processes rather than products. This adaptation of television to processes explains the disillusionment experienced with this medium in its political uses.28 According to McLuhan, the effect of television is image and not "content." Given that the television image provides information, the "medium is the message" is the basic source of effects. As Kenneth Boulding states, "the meaning of the message is the change which it produces in the image."29 Attesting to this theory one need only look back at the debates between John F. Kennedy and Richard M. Nixon.
The television camera projects electronically, by an
"image-orthicon tube" which has an x-ray effect. This effect resulted in Nixon suffering a disadvantage that was serious only on television. Nixon stayed close to the issues raised by his opponent. However, regardless of the value of his views and principles, he was victimized by his image with his five-o'clock shadow and dark, staring eyes which tended to give him a haggard look. Kennedy, who had a less well-defined image, looked fresh and clean cut. His great strength was that he was not debating but instead seizing the opportunity to address the whole nation.30
The journalist's mission to serve the public's "right to know" is generally interpreted as serving their "right to see" the public and events deemed newsworthy. Film and television have increasingly moved into the cultural arena, utilizing the powers of the camera to capture images anywhere in the world, for presentation to viewers in the form of carefully developed narratives. An illustration of this took place during the Iranian crisis, when viewers saw television images of chanting Islamic mobs and anti-Americanism commentary. The distance, unfamiliarity and threatening quality of the spectacle limited Islam to those characteristics, creating an image of negativity which evoked a confrontational response from the viewer.31
The creation of tension through the televised spectacle has become a staple of American politics, a kind of government. Public spectacle has always been used as a powerful medium for molding public opinion. Today, television is the major purveyor. The viewer is witness to the power of spectacle to engage all senses; its power to evoke and magnify simple emotions and the sense of group solidarity that it creates. Baudrillard represents that things occur only if there is the possibility of spectacle; the drive to spectacle being more powerful than the instinct of preservation. The morality of things has become subject to the ultimate terms of the spectacle.32
Baudrillard speaks of representations in film, television and advertising, as threatening the integrity of the private world and obscuring the distinction between private and public. The private world of the individual is often violated as a result of the scrutiny of television. The private world then becomes inhabited by the public world of historical events which are instantly projected by television. The public possesses the private and the private encompasses the public. Baudrillard calls this point of excess "obscenity," the explosion of visibility, which begins when there is no more spectacle, when everything is exposed to the severe light of information and communication.33
Theatrical convention seems to prevail in many news programs. Life is constructed as a series of performances, whether variety show format or cinematic mode of national television news. Drama, not news programming, takes the lead in setting patterns of ideas and attitudes, which may determine what will and will not be believed, distinguishing fact from fiction. The suspension of disbelief occurs when the drama becomes the norm. As Schopenhauer states, one is made aware of an existence of a different kind, a different world; something that cannot be known positively.34
Images are not comprised of a universal language to transcend cultural boundaries, or a purely individual mode of expression. Scholars have argued that images are polysemic, that they have a variety of potential meanings (Worth and Gross, l974, Sekula, l975 and Ruby, l976). Expectations differ about various communication events which occur in the production of images and motivates people to employ various interpretive strategies to obtain meaning from images (Worth and Gross, l974). These interpretive strategies are contained within a larger body of cultural knowledge and capability which are supported by a moral system.35
Discussions of the ethics of imagemaking attempt to establish principles from which one can infer ethical behavior under a variety of circumstances. Ethical principles without sanctions do not act as deterrents to those who would abuse ethics; those not motivated by logical constraint. On the other hand, ethical systems inclusive of sanctions and enforcement mechanisms contain a political dimension, a logic of compromise. Ethics are constantly changing with the constant reinterpretation of standards brought about by new technical or organizational circumstances. As a matter of practicality, the ethical problems of imagemaking must be resolved politically rather than logically.36
Moral imperatives common to all professional production and use of images must include a responsibility to adhere to the standards of the profession. With the use of selective editing, framing and lighting to produce a desired result, one could question the faith in the truthfulness of the image and belief in the possibility of objective reporting. What obligations do imagemakers have to their subjects and viewers if the camera is not objective, operates selectively and influences what and how one sees and interprets? There is growing awareness of subjectivity in the selection, framing, contextualization and presentation of images as well as their complexities and contradictions. Moral imperatives should demonstrate a commitment to produce images reflective of an obligation to the subject and responsibility to the viewer.
The power of the media's role as messengers of information and purveyors of images of society, including the inside workings of the legal system, was evident in the Hill-Thomas hearings. The media not only block our view of important events but also intrude public scrutiny into individual and group privacy. The powers of media disclose the opportunity to uncover and communicate truths, deceive and manipulate, unify diverse groups, cultivate false impressions and stereotypes, bridge vast distances and overcome barriers. As a result, there are important ethical concerns brought about by the existence of visual media and the manner in which they are used.
Simulation/Hyperreality
"The simulacrum is never that which conceals the truth, it is the truth which conceals that there is none. The simulacrum is true."
[Ecclesiastes]
Baudrillard believes that mediaspace poses an equivalent danger to reality itself: the "dissolution of TV into life" and "the dissolution of life into TV." Likening the media to a "sort of genetic code which controls the mutation of the real into the hyperreal," he compares it to a micromolecular code which "controls the passage of the signal from a representative sphere of meaning to the genetic sphere of the programmed signal."37
Simulation transforms the "real" into the "hyperreal." Reality breaks down into hyperrealism, in the duplication of the real, i.e., the television newscast which creates the news, if only to be able to narrate it, or the soap opera whose daily events are reality for many viewers. As Baudrillard states, television manipulates and informs and makes the viewer "dependent on the analytical conception whose vanishing point is the horizon between reality and meaning."38 A separate reality, or hyperreality, which is that of the media, has been created. All of reality has been absorbed by the hyperreality of simulation. It is now a principle of simulation and not of reality that regulates the media. Has the television newscast become an illusion, an illusion of truth, an illusion of interpretation?
Before philosophy and before rational thinking, there was the world as appearance and the world as reality. Is the world what it appears to be or does "reality linger behind the scenes?" By the sixth century, the idea of two worlds had become a part of human consciousness. We learn that two worlds exist, the "real" and the "apparent"; that all things are not as they appear and that everything is [in reality] something else.39 If the mind imposes a certain structure on the world to understand it, this presupposes that the world in which the structure is imposed exists independent of it. This Kant considers the thing in itself, the object of perception as it really is, before and independent of categories of reason. The object as perceived by Kant is "phenomenon" or "appearance." The ultimate conclusion is that there are two worlds: the "real world" (the thing in itself) and the "apparent" world (the world of phenomena).
The basic idea that "I am and I think," the world of existence and the world of thought, leads to the notion that another world exists, the world in which thought resides. The world of thought and imagination is dynamic, accumulates experience, becomes enriched and is continuously expanding and changing. In the past, that which disappeared from the perceived world continued to exist, to live in the other world perceived only in thought, free of the ties of the physical world which disappeared in that other world. The world of thought becomes more real than the physical world and comes to be regarded as "the real world." Schopenhauer tells us that there is the likelihood that the physical world will be devalued in favor of the "real" world, that qualities in it will be transferred to the "real" world, until the physical world is stripped of all value and becomes a mere illusion, an appearance, which masks the other "real" world.40 "This world is a veil obscuring the light of reality."41
"Reality" or the way we perceive and make sense of reality is guided by the codes of our culture. There is no universal way of perceiving and making sense of things. What passes for reality in any culture is the product of that culture's codes, so reality is always already encoded. As Eco points out, one's original perception of things is influenced by emotion which obscures and falsifies knowledge and distorts judgment.42 Perception occurs through an act of seeing in which not everything appears as was originally presented. What is seen is perceived relative to the other objects seen, through perception of the relationship of the fact of the object seen. According to Kant's philosophy, appearance is not reality. Man must divide the world into two: the immediate and visible world (of an inferior degree of reality) and the hidden world, requiring discovery, but more real.43
Today reality is itself hyperrealistic. Political, social, historical and economic reality has become incorporated into the simulated dimension of hyperrealism. Man is presently living out the "aesthetic" illusion of reality. The world of "reality" is a staged world, a world immersed in hyperrealism; the real replicated preferably through another reproductive medium. Among mediums the real is, in a sense, reinforced through its own destruction, becoming its own reality. No longer the object of representation, the hyperreal becomes reality. Images are being created and interpreted in relation to other images and the real is then read as an image.
Postmodernists Baudrillard and Eco find the "hyperreal" landscape of advertising and mass media imagery captivating. Events themselves disappear behind the television screen, with disappearance becoming a strategy, a way of response, to this device for capture and forced identification. The television screen becomes the depicted form of the psychic world as it intersects responsively with the viewer's desires and representations.44 Television keeps awareness contained within its own firm channels and draws the viewer deeper into an already pervasive artificial reality.
Baudrillard's work has shed invaluable light on understanding the impact of new communication forms on society. Referred to as the era of high-tech capitalism, the imaginary are presented as real in a world of simulations of reality. The proliferation of the hyperreal through the media deprives the rational subject of its access to truth. Baudrillard suggests that the media generate a world of simulations which are immune to rationalist evaluation, presenting an excess of information in a manner which precludes response. Critical theorists, Pierre Bourdieu and Michel de Certeau, argue that the masses resignify meanings presented by the media. By incorporating the simulations of the media, the masses represent a new way of comprehending the impact of the media.45 It is Baudrillard's contention that the masses undermine and subvert media simulation by remaining silent or passive.
The television image requires that one fill in the spaces in a type of kinetic and tactile participation. The viewer in the position of projecting his own fantasies engages in the creation of reality. It is not only the spectacle which tends to overflow the real, it is the everyday which continually establishes itself as a traveling spectacle. The spectacle appears as a means of ridiculing both the social and political, to destroy the political as will, representation and meaning through the affect of simulation.46 In an analysis of film, Barthelemy Amengual finds that "the real becomes a spectacle or spectacular, and fascinates for being the real thing...the everyday is identified with the spectacular...."47
The masses escape reality in these simulative devices which are designed to capture them. This strategy of power imposes its own truth in the media by exercising the power of the refusal of truth and denial of reality. For Baudrillard, the media are nothing more than an instrument for destabilizing the real and true. The public has become addicted to the media, desirous of this distortion of truth and deception, destruction of meaning in the operation of the medium, resistance to historical and political reason, desirous for a show, for simulation.48 Are the mass media on the side of power in the manipulation of the masses, or on the side of the masses in the deletion of meaning?
Simulation is the generation by models of a real without origin or reality, a hyperreal. The real is produced from individual frames and since it is not measured against an ideal does not have to be rational, substituting images of the real for the real itself. Simulation, which McLuhan refers to as the "subtle, maleficent, elusive twisting of meaning," threatens the difference between real and imaginary, true and false. When the real is no longer what it was, there is an increase in signs of reality, second-hand truths, objectivity and authenticity, and an acceleration of the true, of the lived experience. Simulation appears as a frenetic production of the real.49 One can question whether present day simulators try to make the real coincide with simulation models.
Disneyland and Watergate are both examples of imaginary effects concealing the existence of reality. Watergate, a scandal-effect concealing the differences between facts and their allegation. Disneyland, a play of illusion and fantasy which draws one vicariously into a real or imaginary world; the idealized shifting of an inconsistent reality, concealing an "ideological" cover on a simulation.50 Is Disneyland presented as imaginary so that we believe all else is real? Or, is all else no longer real, but of the order of hyperreal and simulation, or a saving of the reality principle? Is Disneyland a false representation of reality or concealment of the fact that the real no longer is?
All works of art attempt to portray life and things as they are in reality, projecting an image and, giving form and color from which the appearance of reality arises. Art will only provide a fragment of life, not the whole which, as Schopenhauer says, can be found only in the universality of the concept. Life and things as they are in reality, however, cannot be understood directly by everyone through the veil of objective and subjective possibilities. The ideas of things are more appealing than reality, since a work of art lies outside of the will existing merely for knowledge. In one's perception of the world, things are considered according to their relative, rather than absolute, existence and essence and with the notion of their relation to the self.51
Perception is the source of all knowledge, according to Schopenhauer, and is solely responsible for providing insight, through which all concepts are realized. If knowledge of perception is limited, correct understanding, insight and judgment of the world of perception is also limited. All concepts, all thoughts, are only abstractions and, as such, partial representations from perception having arisen through thought.52
As Benjamin shows, reproduction absorbs the process of production and alters its goals, the status of the product and producer. Though Benjamin established this in art, cinema and photography, the same holds true for media, information and communication networks. If theatre imitates daily life, where is the power of illusion? It is in this sense that art appears to escape and deny itself: the real concedes to the benefit of the more real than real (the hyperreal) and to the more true than true. This is simulation.53 Benjamin and, subsequently, McLuhan understood technique as medium which dominates the "message" of the product, as the form and principle of a new era of meaning. The real message was perceived in the reproduction itself.54 At the conclusion of the reproduction process reality is not eliminated but rather, the real becomes the hyperreal, that which is already reproduced. Hyperrealism is beyond representation in that it functions within the realm of simulation.
As Schopenhauer states, realism begins with an arbitrary assumption which appears to be rooted in fact. The objective world and existence of things are merely representation. The objective exists in the consciousness of a subject and so there can never be an existence which is absolutely objective. In Kant's principle as well, the objective world exists as representation, a world view from which knowledge is derived from mental images. Does the world which exists independently of us correspond to these mental images and, if so, to what extent? Is the reality of the external world objective or subjective in origin? For Schopenhauer, every object is essentially only the subject's representation. Regardless of its origin, object is conditioned by subject.
Simulacra is proving the real by the imaginary; proving truth by scandal; proving the system by crisis. "Every form of power, every situation speaks of itself by denial, in order to attempt to escape by simulation...." Constantly present in simulation is the implication that law and order might be nothing more than a simulation. It is virtually impossible to isolate the process of simulation; it is impossible to isolate the process of, or prove, the real. The real upsets the order of things whereas the simulation interferes with the principle of reality. As far as the established order is concerned, it is always the order of the real. In simulation, truth has absorbed all the strength of the false.55
The era of simulation is initiated by the interchangeability of contradictory terms: the true and false in every media message, the right and left in politics. By the simulation of a conventional perspective political credibility, including objective analysis, can be maintained. The political is a simulation model, which manifestations are merely achieved effects. The search for the objectivity of the facts does not lend itself to interpretation. We are in a logic of simulation which has no bearing on fact or order of reason.
A subject of debate within postmodern cultural theory, as Jacques Derrida, Deleuze and others have argued, is the fact that man continually depends upon an opposition between things perceived of as immediate and "real," and representations of things envisioned as secondary and therefore "false." Repetition is instrumental in sustaining a sense of the real since, as Deleuze argues, it is tied to the concept of a return of the same. Benjamin believes that the quality of an original work of art is lost with the predominance of mechanical reproduction, and Baudrillard contends that the opposition between original and copy has been lost in an age of simulacra. According to Baudrillard, the real is produced as an "intensified version of itself, as hyperreality."56
The journalist assumes the position of absolving and renewing moral order, which are components of its indifferent and shifting configuration in the moral and political consciousness of people. Does one receive it as rational or moral or reject it in the name of rationality or morality? We are surrounded by "messages," products of political and economic power, which we must know how to analyze and criticize. Objects which one wants to connote as being real must appear to be real. The "completely real" becomes identified with the "completely fake" and unreality is suggested as a real presence. To achieve the real the completely fake must be created, and the boundaries between reality and illusion become blurred. Everything must equal reality even if reality is fantasy.57
It is Baudrillard's contention that "the denunciation of scandal always pays homage to the law."58 Was "Watergate," a simulation of scandal to regenerative ends, a trap set by the system to catch adversaries; or a manipulation of leftist journalists to dethrone Nixon? Watergate was successful in imparting the notion that Watergate was a scandal and, in this sense, reintroduced political morality on a global scale. Was the strategy of Watergate to dissimulate scandal or to conceal the fact that there was no scandal? Or, is dissimulation the scandal, employed to conceal by masking a strengthening of morality? Following this thinking, was Hill caught in a trap set by the system to manipulate journalists to overthrow Thomas' nomination?
One can argue that the Hill-Thomas hearings were not understood in terms of their relation to the real event. It was not content but the effect of the television image which has been interpreted. The staged world has become confused with the real thing. Are we viewing a scene from a soap opera or a Senate Committee hearing? Through the manipulation of control, the distinction between the medium and the message has become hyperreal. We have become completely absorbed by simulation while watching television, where the real events follow one another in perfect relation through unreal, stereotyped traits. We no longer know what is imaginary or real, physical or mental. It is as if the real and imaginary were being reflected in the other. The media has put an end to the real event, with the power of illusion imitating daily life.
When we speak of the truth of television, are we referring to the truth of Thomas' confirmation process or to the truth of television? In fact, it is television which is true, which presents the manipulative truth of the test which explores and interrogates. It is this kind of truth that Hill and Thomas were subjected to by the medium of television. The real is not distorted by the medium, it is confused with the medium. Baudrillard would say that the medium itself is no longer identifiable, it is irrelevant, dispersed and diffracted in the real and, in a literal sense, no longer exists.59