Comments on: The Notional Conversation

By: The Clanging Gongs of Doom 2009 (An Evolving Post) - Fustar – Recycling Cultural Waste Since 2005

Mon, 28 Dec 2009 12:24:35 +0000

[...] The Notional Conversation (Fergal Crehan, Tuppenceworth) [...]

By: Sniffle

Sniffle — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 16:00:34 +0000

What an excellent article.

I wonder though, will we ever have a viable alternative to what you document.

By: fústar

fústar — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 13:51:35 +0000

Popping in (quickly) late in the day to say how much I enjoyed this. Totally refreshing. Brilliant stuff.

By: Bock Pick of the Week - Bock The Robber

Bock Pick of the Week - Bock The Robber — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 20:11:56 +0000

[...] HERE [...]

By: Paddy

Paddy — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 00:49:45 +0000

Brilliant, scathing comment that sums up the nasty core of the insular coterie that dominates our society. Q&A was a control valve to give the plebs an illusion of debate.
Elections are supposed to give the plebs an actual say, but the establishment is tyring, as you point out, to neuter them to the point of being quaint sideshows.
If you and others keep reminding us of the reality of our situation, we might one day finally do something about it.
Thanks for your article.

By: Stan

Stan — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 11:41:13 +0000

Interesting post, and thank you for the glimpse behind the scenes at Q&A.

‘When real people intervene in the notional conversation, they need very quickly to be made less real, to be turned into a media talking point.’

Following McLuhan, this could be true of anything on television – real people, real testimonies, real events, and so on. Everything televised is inevitably and almost immediately diminished in some crucial way. It becomes recyclable material for future clips, retrospectives, and general navel-gazing. That’s not TV’s fault, of course; it’s just the nature of the medium, with its (usually unavoidable) constraints on time and depth.