Communication, Power and the Public by Allison Lampert

“You can walk up to anyone in the world and ask them what they say and they will know exactly what you mean. When in the history of the world has that happened?” This is a quote from the new television series FlashForward. While the blackout and flashforwards of the show may be fiction, the society is not. This show gives us a glimpse of what the world could be like if there was a truly global crisis. By watching the show we are viewing the possible social implications of our information society.

The premise is that at exactly the same time every single person in the word blacked out. However, they didn’t simply blackout, they had what they call a flashforward. For two minutes and seventeen seconds the entire world had a glimpse of the future. The flashforward is of April 29th 2010, six months from the date of the flashforward. The show follows a group of FBI agents investigating the flashforward. While trying to deal with the pressure of finding out answers about the flashforward, they also have to deal with the personal implications of their flashforwards, or in the case of one agent, the lack there of. One character doesn’t have a flashforward. One recovering alcoholic’s, Mark, flashforward is blurry because he is intoxicated. In Mark’s flashforward his is in the FBI office investigating the blackout. He sees the investigation board and all the clues posted there. The FBI team uses his memory of the board as a lead into what caused the blackout and if it will happen again. There are two sub-plots with the FBI team, the investigation of the flashforward and the characters personal lives. There is also a mysterious character, Simon. A group of scientists, including the man Mark’s wife saw herself with in her flashforward, apparently caused the blackout. Unfortunately the FBI team doesn’t know this.

The show is created by the same people who created Lost. When advertising for the series primer, this was heavily promoted. Since Lost is going into it’s last season, there was going to be a devote group of people wanted a good, suspense show where anything could happen. People trusted the creators of Lost to create another quality show, and did they deliver! This is important to consider when thinking about the show itself. There was a built in audience.

FlashForward may be fiction but there are many aspects of it that correlate to “real life”. It is set in the present day, the first episode aired one month, five days before the present date in the show. It is not set in a fictitious world. They have all the same technology and culture we have today. Their world is the same as ours minus, of course, the social effects of the blackout. Many of the social implications of the blackout are relevant and prevalent in our society.
Over 20 million people died during the flashforward globally. This is the definition of a global crisis. In times of national and international crises, communication, power, and the interactions between the two are very important. According to Manual Castells in Communication, Power and Counter-power in the Network Society mass communication is essential to politics and the power they have. Politicians and political activists use mass communication to inform the public about the issues and their opinions. This is not to say that the public thinks that everything they see on television is true. The public is an active audience, a literate audience, a participatory audience. Therefore the media do not control what the public thinks but more what they think about. This is the idea of the media as agenda setters. This is power of the media.

The effect of mass communication is evident in FlashForward. Every possible television station was reporting on the effect and the questions associated with the blackout. The media reacted initially by reporting the immediate effect of the blackout. The destruction and the deaths a global blackout caused. It didn’t take long, however, for the media to find “experts” to talk about the finer details of the blackout. In fact the audience first hears the concept of “flashforward” while watching an interview on a television with a medical expert. He says that brain scans of people showed that the part of the brain that deals with memory showed a sharp spike during the blackout. He says that they were experiencing memories. The FBI team consequently comes up with the term “flashforward”. The media also interviews the public. The find random people on the street and ask them their opinion on the blackout and the flashforwards. The most common question is “Do you think the flashforwards can be changed or are they concrete?” The very fact that the media is asking that question of the public is important. It shows that it is still a question that needs to be answered. Besides asking the experts and the public the media also asks the politicians.

The President is not the most charismatic person on television. This brings up the point of personality politics. According to Castells personality politics stems from election politics. The undecided public will often choose a candidate based on personality. Personality politics plays a role outside of elections. How the media portrays the President after a crisis will determine if the public trusts him to get them through this tough time. Since the character and trustworthiness of candidates and politicians play such a vital role in elections and politics in general, the goal is to keep your integrity while destroying your opponents’. Castells says that the destruction of character and credibility is one of the most sought after and cherished political weapons. The goal in politics these days isn’t so much as to build your own credibility but to destroy others.

In the political scene recently there is much evidence of scandal. In the recent election one of the biggest, dealt with the daughter of a vice president candidate. It came out during the election that republican Sara Palin’s teenage daughter was pregnant. Some people felt that she couldn’t help run the United States if she couldn’t even control her teenage daughter enough to keep her from becoming pregnant. This is just one example among many of a political scandal. For some undecided voters this may have been enough to turn them to the Democratic Party. According to Castells the effect of scandals are twofold. First there are obvious consequences for the individual or individuals involved with scandal. Instantly their credibility is destroyed. This will have an effect on the way people vote in an election. Dirty politics and mudslinging is common in this day and age. The negative advertisements and revealing of scandals can often sway the undecided voter. If the credibility of most or all of the candidates are in question the voters will vote for the lesser of the two evils. They will choose the misguided candidate with the values and ideas closest to their own. The second effect is the distrust of the political system as a whole. According to a poll by the US secretariat and the World Economic Forum in 2000 and 2002, two thirds of the world believes their country isn’t run by the will of the people. This has a large effect on how people vote. Instead of voting for a candidate because they want them to win, they vote for them because they don’t want the other candidate to win.

Personality politics and scandal are apparent in FlashForward. For the most basic example, when all the different factions of the US government stand before the panel and explain their ideas on the blackout, the most credible person will receive the money and permission for further investigation. It is not quite as simple as that. When the head of the FBI team the show follows, Stan, is describing what they had found and why, a particular person on the board seems to really be grilling him and trying to destroy his credibility. The audience finds out that she holds information that could really hurt him. We also find that Stan has some dirt on the President. He threatens to expose an affair in an attempt to get the backing of the President to continue their investigation.

Within the last decade or two the global use of the internet has vastly expanded. According to Nielson Online, social networks/blogs are the 4th most popular online activity. Most blogs are personal and are a form of mass self-communication, according to Castells. Mass self-communication is similar to mass communication in that it uses a one-to-many model. The difference is that the blogger doesn’t always write with an audience in mind. Since most are personal, they are simply the blogger expressing themselves and trying to get their thoughts out. Usually there is no commercial intent.

After the blackout, mass self-communication rapidly increased. The FBI team created a website called Mosaic. This is a place where people could go to share their flashforwards as well as read others’. The FBI’s reason for creating it was to be able to use people’s flashforwords to futher their investigation. The website allows people to cross-reference their flashforwards. People can read other’s post and try to find someone in their flashforward they don’t know. This website is global and has global effects. It is about sharing and coming together in a time of crises. While the immediate danger of planes, cars, and ships crashing is over, the emotional and societal problems have just began. Many characters meet people and learn about their future through the website.

In times of social or political change, counter-power increases. According to Castells counter-power is “the capacity by social actors to challenge and eventually change the power relations institutionalized in society”. People try to change society. This is no new fact. What is newer is the rise of mass self-communication to try to build counter-power. People use mass self-communication to try to influence the values and beliefs of society. Once a person becomes active in counter-power it becomes their identity. People associate with others with the same beliefs and values.

Immediately after the blackout, the world changed. People saw their future, or lack of one. People’s decision making processes changed. Decisions are being made according to what people saw in their flashforwards. It is even influencing doctors’ decisions, as seen in the scene where a doctor tries harder to save a woman’s uterus than she would have before because she knew the woman was pregnant in her flashforward. Some people make decisions based on what they saw, others on what they didn’t. The belief that if you didn’t have a flashforward during the blackout, you will be dead by April 30th 2010, is a common one. Many of these people call themselves Ghosts, and this becomes their idenity. There is a website for this society. It subtly points the way to “death clubs”. These are places people can go to indulge in many dangerous, illegal and taboo acts. People are free to do whatever they want. This is counter-power. Counter-power has a large role in the post-blackout society.

There are 1 billion users of the internet today. There are extreme social implications of this. The internet is the closest thing we have to a public sphere. The internet allows us to communicate more often and with people we would not have before. Today we can web-chat in real time with someone across the globe for free. According to Jurgen Habermas in The Public Sphere: An encyclopedia article, newspapers, magazines, radio, and television are the examples of the public sphere. The internet is the ultimate public sphere. The public sphere is the mediator between the public and the state. You don’t have to have a production plant or studio to access or use the internet. Anyone can state their opinion in the internet. There are so many ways to have public discussions. With the advent of each new form of media the public sphere has changed. The internet has however expanded it as far as possible, the public sphere is now global. The extensive use of both the Mosaic and Ghost website is evidence of the new public sphere created by the internet.

The public sphere and public opinion is a very important aspect in post blackout society. Since no one has any real information on the blackout, the media turns to public opinion. The media interviews the people on the street to find out their opinions. They want to know what caused it, if it will happen again, and if the flashforwards are concrete or changeable. The use if the internet to express public opinion is also very important in FlashForward. The Mosiac and Ghost website show that.

New technology is causing a decrease in the private sphere. Modern constitutions give citizens the right to privacy. This is hard to enforce. Camera phones and the internet are just two of the major factors. In the case of the famous “star wars kid” on YouTube, private things going public can ruin lives. The “star wars kid” taped himself imitating a light saber fight and forgot to destroy it. Some students at his school found it and put in on YouTube. He has since changed schools and is in the process of suing the students who posted the video. It is hard for a regular high school student to keep his private life private. Politicians and celebrities have to work extra hard to keep a private life, even though the constitution guarantees us a private sphere. Politicians employ public relations specialist to do public relations work. Their work consists of trying to persuade the public to believe what they are saying. This is trying to change public opinion which should stay public, according to Habermas. This is often needed the most when something private becomes public.

Stan and the President find themselves threatened with the private going public. This is the nature of politics. If Stan’s secret gets out, his FBI team will not be able to continue their investigation. The fact that Mark was drunk in his flashforward is a private matter, until the entire investigation is based on what his flashforward. This when the decision has to be made if the right to privacy is more important than the credibility of the investigation and the FBI.
FlashForward is a television show that mirrors our lives. It shows us how our information society effects us, in both negative and positive ways. The audience looks at the use of technology and media and reflects on our own use. The audience sees the effect of an information society on the characters and notices the same effects in their lives. The information society we live in to today effects us in every aspect of our lives. From ruining a high school student’s reputation to helping a candidate become elected president, the implications are everywhere.