The Weird Global Media Event

McKenzie Wark's The Weird Global Media Event is an interesting post on the nature of events played out in a global media culture.

quotes

It is only global in appearing to speak of a world; somewhere indifference reigns. But it does produce an image of the global for each of the interpretive spaces it touches. Images rendered incomparable by the different ideological narratives that rule in those domains.

It is odd mix of unexpected and familiar story elements that makes it at first weird. Retrospectively, what was weird will be made to seem an inevitable part of a predictable story. The predictable story then gives rise to predictable counter-narratives, also pre-scripted.

All of the facts take on meaning retrospectively, in the light of the event. The good guys will henceforth always have been good, etc. Much ideological work will go into making it always to have been so. There will be no more ambiguities.