Television and crowd control

Umberto Eco. Paleo television 

 

Once upon a time there was Paleotelevision, which was made in Rome or Milan, for all viewers, and which spoke of inaugurations presided over by ministers and tried to ensure that the public learned only innocent things, even at the cost of telling lies. Now, with the multiplication of channels, with privatization, with the advent of new electronic marvels, we are living in the age of Neotelevision,  fading away because of the Internet and social media. From Paleo TV a small dictionary could be made with the names of the protagonists and the titles of the broadcasts. With Neo TV it would be impossible, not only because the characters and the rubrics are infinite, not only because no one is able to remember and recognize them anymore, but also because the same character today plays different roles depending on whether he speaks on state or private screens. Studies have already been carried out on the characteristics of Neo TV (for example, the recent investigation into entertainment programs, carried out on behalf of the parliamentary surveillance commission, by a group of researchers from the University of Bologna). The speech that follows does not want to be a summary of this or other important investigations, but takes into account the new panorama that these works have discovered.

 

The main feature of Neo TV is that it talks less and less (as Paleo TV did or pretended to do) about the outside world. She talks about  herself and the contact she is establishing with the public. It matters little what she says or what she talks about (because the public, with the remote control, decides when to let her speak and when to switch to another channel). In order to survive this switching power, it then tries to retain the viewer by saying: “I am here, I am me and I am you.” The biggest story offered by Neo TV, whether it's about missiles or about Stan Laurel making a closet fall, is this: “I'm telling you, oh wonder, you're looking at me; If you don't believe it, try it, dial this number, call me and I'll answer you”.