Televisual Catastrophe

In Doane's essay, one key statement she makes is that television's greatest technological prowess is the ability to be there. (pg 238) The ability to be there at the scene while being in your living room is the edge television can bring to the viewer. Without televison, how would the 9/11 coverage have been? Or any other crisis or catastrophe? It would be like we were living 150 years ago. Another aspect televison brings to us from catastrophes is the loss of life aspect. As human beings, we usually connect death with catastrophes. As viewers it bring us closer to the reality of death. Especially knowing that people who have died may have been around the same age as the viewer and had a whole life to live.

Doane argues that televisual catastrophe is everything it is said not be, expected. She argues that catastrophe magnifies death over and over again and it becomes the norm of televisual practice. I totally agree with this statement. Flipping through CNN how many times have I heard about death in the world by some terrorist attack, earthquake, or some other event? Too many too count. As a spectator to this, I have become somewhat used to it. The only way us Americans as a whole react so strongly is when something happens to one of our own. When terrorism happens in Israel or Pakistan do we sit glued to the tv hours on end? Maybe some do, but not nearly to the magnitude of an event like 9/11, Hurrican Katrina, or Columbine.