Tuesday, June 23, 2009

Iran's Impact on Future Media Outlets

I just recently viewed a video of Neda, an Iranian woman who attended the protest regarding the recount of ballots for President Ahmadinejad in defense of Mousavi, who was the opposing runner-up in the Iranian presidential election. She was with her father, standing there as peacefully as can be when her life was suddenly taken by an Iranian soldier. The Iranian soldier shot her and she instantly fell to the ground. Her eyes wandered upward toward the camera that was shoved in her space, which caught the entire death on film. As the blood rushed out and covered her face, her eyes were at a stand-still and everyone that had surrounded her knew she had passed.

The crowd that surrounded her was yelling due to the shock of what had just happened. A young man next to her was yelling in Farci, “Close it! Close it!”-- He was referring to her mouth, which had been the outlet of her flow of endless innocent blood.

When I first watched this video on You Tube, my first thought was that I was so shocked that this would even be allowed to be displayed so openly--I mean, this was not the movies. There was no corn syrup in place of blood and there were no actors being paid to yell and pretend that they were disgruntled by the death; this was real.

We’re in such a new trend of reality--it’s almost scary if you think about it. However, the video spoke to me on such deep and personal level. When the man in the crowd started screaming, I knew it was a real person experiencing real emotions.

I started to think about how much media is moving toward that direction of reality. Social media is the key that leads to the door, which leads toward the direction of reality that this video portrayed. The issue of ethics is present amongst many, but not enforced and I can’t help but wonder why that is? This must be the new direction for news media. The news anchors will stop having an impact on the television station’s viewers. You and I will become the issuers of news via our cell phones that have video cameras implanted. It’s a frightening thought.

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