Tuesday, March 16, 2004
Fakeness of Television...
For all that WaiWai is pretty much a mini meta-tabloid for strange topics in Japan, they do have some interesting stuff from time to time. Witness this article on some of the instances of obvious fakery on supposedly real events on TV. Some of it is quite subtle, such as a show which points out deals it has found at hotels, deals which were worked out ahead of time between the station and hotels, which of course gives the hotels good publicity in the process.
Obviously that sort of thing isn't limited to Japan. I see it cropping up everywhere and it is especially it is the more subtle aspects of marketing that I find most disturbing.
Looking at something like the shows of TechTV, there are obviously some good stuff going on, especially at Screen Savers, where the people involved seem a little less in the hype machine, but there is still plenty of stuff going around. For instance TechLive might have a story about nanotechnology, but they also can't help comparing the facts to the fiction of something like Jake 2.0. The information might be good, but it is directly tied into promoting the show at hand.
Of course a better parallel to the original article (not just promotion, but outright falsities) is reality shows and a lot of what is on MTV. We might want reality and rebellion, but most of the time we actually get totally distorted versions of these things. One more reason to turn off the tube once in a while..
Obviously that sort of thing isn't limited to Japan. I see it cropping up everywhere and it is especially it is the more subtle aspects of marketing that I find most disturbing.
Looking at something like the shows of TechTV, there are obviously some good stuff going on, especially at Screen Savers, where the people involved seem a little less in the hype machine, but there is still plenty of stuff going around. For instance TechLive might have a story about nanotechnology, but they also can't help comparing the facts to the fiction of something like Jake 2.0. The information might be good, but it is directly tied into promoting the show at hand.
Of course a better parallel to the original article (not just promotion, but outright falsities) is reality shows and a lot of what is on MTV. We might want reality and rebellion, but most of the time we actually get totally distorted versions of these things. One more reason to turn off the tube once in a while..
