MUMBAI 26/11 - A CELEBRITY DISASTER

The idea of a nation is the most celebrated idea that media mediates during a disaster. mumbai 26/11 is such one. here's an analysis of how media transformed a terror disaster into a celebrity disaster.

MUMBAI 26/11 - A CELEBRITY DISASTER

The role of media and the relationship between media and audience were influential in making the recent Mumbai terror attacks into a celebrity disaster. The terror site (taj hotel) was made into a celebrity site through images which depicted terror. The images were converted into a system of signs. Apparently, the signs signified multiple meanings and worked as a text. By doing so, the idea of India as a nation was condensed and mediated as a celebrity idea.

1. Media’s role

Live coverage and commentary (for a continuous 60 hours) gave the attacks a spectacle effect. Media portrayed a monolithic depiction of the popular reaction. In captions like ‘political India responds unitedly’, ‘a grave moment to the nation’ and etc., it homogenised the response. The disaster’s mediation accounted a narrative of unity and integration. Western media and Indian media (English) appropriated as well as borrowed coinages. For instance – ‘India’s 9/11’, ‘war on terror’,’ India strikes back’. Media was reactive and therefore provocative. Indian media portrayed a celebrity driven response where as Western media portrayed the terror site (India) as chaotic and exotic. For example- the Larry king’s (cnn) guest, post- attack was Deepak chopra, a philosopher and a post modern guru. As a celebrity is mediated and constructed through media, this disaster was mediated and constructed by tv news channels. However, Mumbai 26/11 became a celebrity disaster due to audience’s participation in co-constructing the text.

2. Construction of Audience.

The audience was conditioned to learn the reaction from the media. This created a distant yet intimate relationship with the gravity of the disaster. Media urged businessmen, authors, corporate leaders, media personalities, bollywood celebrities and sports icons respond to the attacks. Therefore, the people who reported, they themselves were an audience to the disaster. The tv audience were conditioned to believe that Pakistan was their enemy and one should lose faith in the Indian government. An attempt was made to create an ‘alternate government space’. Therefore, media worked as a consent generating machinery.However, there was an interface between media and audience in the internet space. Social network sites such as twitter and jextr updated live feeds of the proceedings. It is reported that information came from people who updated from the besieged hotels. The stance of news media as an authoritative, authentic source of information was challenged. The differences between audience and media were partly erased. Co-construction happened in the mediation of information.Starting fan groups for karkare, sandeep unnikrishnan (over 7000 visits were made to his orkut profile, the week post attacks), and kasab/kasav were examples of co-constructing the celebrity, as authors as well as an audience.

3. ‘Terrorography’ and terror scapes.

Media used images of the terror sites to construct multiple meanings. For instance the image of ‘twin towers-9/11’ connotes America 9/11, alqaeda, George bush, the wars on terror (Afghanistan and Iraq), osama, obama and etc. The continuous telecast of the image of taj hotel blanketed by smoke is an analogy. In fact, visuals are necessary to construct a celebrity. Therefore these tele -visuals depicted crisis and converted the disaster site into a celebrity site.Later, the stories that revolved about jamsetji tata and taj, its history, deshmukh’s ‘terror tourism’ and taj as a potential site for producing films were examples of taj’s conversion into a celebrity site.As a story evolved around a ruin in the romantics, an attempt was made to mediate the idea of a nation through visuals of taj 26- 28/11.