In the debate about what is culturally and ethically appropriate to broadcast, there has arguably been great back-last against media events as news. To aide this understanding, there is a need to critically dissect the Media Event in terms of its newsworthiness in the past, present, and future. In this essay, the works of Daniel Dayan and Elihu Katz (1992) and Elihu Katz (1980) will be used to shape an overview of media events, their need and appeal in the media. Stuart Ewen (1996) will be used to shed light on a publicity-driven media, while Daniel Boorstin (1961) will emphasise on the vices of the media event; these will be critically assessed. Finally, in a self-developed case study about the rescue of Chilean miners in 2010, disasters will be discussed as a different form of media event.
The earlier works of Dayan and Katz can be understood as a twofold intervention in mass communication studies. Theoretically, one can argue that the original social science-created research standards of the media were merged by them with a grand narrative study to consolidate a novel broadcast ideology. While methodologically, the study of narratives that are neither ‘regular’ nor ‘normal’ was brought into
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Katz and Liebes (2007) point out that there is an increase in dilapidation by disasters, terrors and war as media events in lieu to celebratory events in the present. A major cause for this may be the downgrading of scheduled programmes, coupled with what is referred to as the ‘mobility and ubiquity’ of television technology (Hepp and Couldry, 2010, pp. 7-12), which refers to the ability of television today to be omnipresent. The attention-span of viewers is reduced and arguably now, it is not possible to draw viewers in without the creation of shock-value and