Summary Of 'Videotape' By Don Delillo

One of the most noteworthy developments in postmodern literature is the ability to combine historical elements with fictionalized elements to create a story that presents an alternative truth—one that could be true and yet significantly deviates from the reported truth. Don DeLillo’s poignant novel Libra is a prime example of historiographic metafiction, bringing fictional characters, conversations, and events together to tell the story of Lee Harvey Oswald and the conspiracy to assassinate President John F. Kennedy. Likewise, philosopher Jacques Derrida poses the idea that the media has total control over the information presented as news. In his interview “Deconstruction and Actuality,” Derrida states, “…the time of this speaking is produced artificially. It is an artifact. In its actualization, the time of such a public act is calculated and constrained, ‘formatted’ and ‘initialised’ by (to put it briefly) the organisations of the media—and these alone would deserve an almost infinite analysis” (Malpas 75). DeLillo also addresses Derrida’s beliefs that organizations have more control over information and that the population needs to question in Libra.

THESIS STATEMENT: The world’s media today seem to have more violence than ever. Video games have vivid depictions of accident catastrophes, fighting and murder. Television news programs generally lead with a violent story in order to gain an audience. This is free society people can stay what they want. ‘’ Media violence has many negative effect on youth today to commit crimes in society.’’

Imagine capturing a homicide on film by accident when you are just a child. Well in this short story titled “Videotape” by Don DeLillo which was published in 1994, a young girl by the age of 12 was recording with a video camera when she caught a murder. The story is being told by a man who is watching this footage over and over again. He is clearly in awe and shock of what he is witnessing in the video. Witnessing a murder is not easy for some people, and sometimes people do not know how to react to these type of things.

Nowadays, Americans find violence entertaining. It is recorded, viewed, and shared constantly. In Don DeLillo’s short story, “Videotape” a young girl recorded a man that was shot while driving in a car; the video was shown on the news repetitively. The short story revolves around a man at home attentively watching the video; he continuously called on his wife to watch the video with him. This videotape represents how everyone is being desensitized to violence, how there is a growing obsession with violence, and how quickly life can be taken away.

Don DeLillo’s Videotape explains the story of how a young girl videotaped a gruesome crime of the Texas Highway Killer. DeLillo immediately wraps us into the footage of a young man being videotaped on a highway from the car in front of him. The tape is so innocent, so real, and footage is raw and uncut. DeLillo captures our attention and we become obsessed. Without seeing the videotape we can picture everything; we can feel what the little girl feels. In a split second and a jolt, the man’s life comes to an end, which draws us in even more. Readers and viewers become addicted to the footage because of the thrill they receive. As DeLillo states, “…it’s on all the time, they show it a thousand times a day. They show it because it exists, because they

The media is the most powerful entity on earth. They have the power to make the innocent guilty and to make the guilty innocent, and that 's power. The article “Reality TV Goes Where Football Meets the Hijab”, published in the New York Times in November 2011, introduces how the media controls the minds of the masses. Media has become a major issue in our daily lives. We live in a world that we cannot have access to what is going around us, unless we refer to the media. For instance, in our daily routine we usually listen to the news in the morning or at night before we sleep. The news has already been reported and its being delivered to us that fast, but how do we know if what is being said is what is actually happening or if it has been manipulated for political/social reasons? In the beginning of the article, Porochista Khakpour the author of the article, Iranian born American reared, mentions: “If anything made me, an American, it was televisions.” TV, especially the reality TV, resembles the characters and movie stars the way they want to not the way they are. Khakpour said, "Darkness-dark hair, dark eyes, dark skin-always equaled trouble, as if it actually implied a dark side". When we watch TV, most of the movie characters are labeled, either by their gender, religion, or color. Khakpour reaches out to the "outcasts", to prove her point on reality TV shows shaping our beliefs towards each other, especially the "freaks”.

The lives of almost everyone in this society revolves around technology. Everywhere in this society technology is used even out in the town. School systems are revolved around technology,

Everyone is influenced and shaped by society. Society affects our perceptions, our consciousness, and our actions. A majority of the influence, especially on the younger demographic comes through the media; specifically through television. It is important to examine how violence in the media develops a pervasive cultural environment that cultivates a heightened state of insecurity, exaggerated perceptions of risk and danger, and a fear-driven propensity for hard-line political solutions to social problems. The purpose of this essay is to evaluate the impact of television and media violence, as well as the human cost of violent media, and the overall effects on society from watching TV.

American television viewers have an insatiable appetite for televised violence, and as they become desensitized to violent images they seek out stronger images. The image providers have discovered a novel way to increase the intensity of the violent images -- move away from entertainment violence and show real violence. In the past few years real "life and death" programming has become more commonplace on television, both as news and entertainment programming. Shows like Cops, Real Life Encounters with Wild Animals, and Real Highway Pursuits have begun to appear on our television screens with an incresing regularity. These programs routinely show acts of real violence, caught on home video. Television news directors have adopted the credo "if it bleeds, it leads" to such an extent that it has almost become cliche. The thrill of watching fake violence is waning and being replaced by the drama of watching real violence. And the higher the body count, the more we watch.

The video ultimately argues that violent crime rates has decreased significantly since the 1990’s. Although gun sales has hastily risen, but this could account for the media displaying increasingly more harsh and violent imagery than ever before. Paul Bond says in his article ‘Stud: TV Violence Linked to ‘Mean World Syndrome’’, “In 1972, there

In the present world, violence is considered to be Cinematographic Enchantment which has no relation to the real world without making any effect on the common life. In his article “The Postmorbid Condition”, Vivian C. Sobchack considers this aspect as a global carelessness and insensible desire for violence on the human flesh and environment. Furthermore, the absence of criticism against the violence on television or any other kinds of violence develops wrong stereotypes and social impressions on the common life. Form this ideology, Sobchack coins the term “senseless violence”, which is used as a fulfillment of the scene. In the most relevant cases, violence is used as block of behavioral establishment or emotionally manipulative reasons.

Media Violence Currently observed increase in the number of crimes related to violence, especially among children and adolescents, makes us think what is the main causes of violence in society that leading us to it? We live in the world of fear, when each of us waiting for a moment when random guy from the streets will kidnap us then torture and kill. And mostly this “random guy” is Latinos, black or Muslim. This stereotypes were created in our mind because of media that controlled by government, however it not only creates stereotypes, but also it makes us act violent against each other. Nowadays the media portrays drugs, sex, guns, even though they know that most of their viewers are kids, so media builds the base of violence in children’s minds.

Technology has affected the people in the novel so much that they have no real notion of what happens in the world around them:

Mass media mayhem via the influence of the media has progressively pushed the envelope on their level of violence. The “mass media mayhem” is rightfully the title of this global epidemic casted by the television networks. Perhaps, because the violence is innately a desire we crave internally on a psychological level. Or the programming of the television network who deliberately make efforts to desensitize for potential for aggression. Although there are differences of opinion, our focus is to analyze recent innocent murders initiated by the government.

In an ever-increasingly mediated society, mass media has become inseparable with the production of everyday life. Media is now a platform for members of society to connect with global events and other people beyond their own personal experience. For many, the media is a major source of information and “accounts of violence, as presented by the mass media, are the primary medium by which the average person comes to know crime and justice” (Barak, 1994). The following essay will explore the theories of both cultivation analysis, as established by George Gerbner, as well as agenda setting, reputable to Maxwell McCombs and Donald Shaw. These concepts will demonstrate how the recent Santa Barbara Shooting is a major media event that reflects a