Question 9

Onion News Story: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dRoVFK2XkN0&feature=related

Real News Story: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IetZuu_seb8

As discussed in class, photos form 9/11 were controlled and censored. The only picture that news outlets had for weeks after the attack was the now iconic image of the smoking towers. The real newscast had the somber day of attack stories. Images of the flag for long periods of time and only a few shots of the building were shown. Tying the day with strong patriotic feelings set an agenda to tie any actins in response to this attack as patriotic and for America. This made it hard to oppose any wars that started against Terrorism, read Islam and the Middle East. Also with the control of images comes the gate keeping. Once outlets were censored it became easy to make any image the iconic 9/11 image. It could have been any number of pictures. That was selected. The Onion network video is the ontological anniversary text. Instead of patriotism, it inserts masturbation as the focal act and idea of 9/11. The onion breaks down the key signifiers of a stereotyped 9/11 anniversary broadcast. It shows the vigils being held, the close ups on random people crying or having deep emotions, it shows the flag being raised at the attack site, and as all include a shot of fire fighters. It uses real footage spliced with mock interviews about masturbation. A normal anniversary newscast has people describing their feeling or where they were on “that day.” The discourse comes with making this fake newscast about something totally inappropriate and unrelated to the events and emotions of the attack day. The re-evaluation is the changing of signifiers and inserting these masturbation references. It is very similar to Baym’s Daily Show example of the imitation “now this” of many news broadcasts. Like real newscasts, Stewart switches rapidly form story to story. Also in Baym’s article the idea of splicing and misrepresenting given texts is brought up. I am sure if the clips of the people mourning were shown to them after the video was made, they would not be so happy.