"GLAMORIZATION OF THE MEDIA"

“The scary thing is when glamour turns into an ideology”
–         Oleg Kashin, Columnist for Russia’s “Expert” Magazine

 The Eurasian Media Forum ends traditionally on a lighter note.  This year was no exception as a packed auditorium appeared to hang on every word uttered by some of their favourite television personalities.

 Indeed, there were more people in the audience than for the previous heavyweight session on post-invasion events in Afghanistan.

 It appeared that many in the audience were there to see Kseniya Sobchak, a blonde television host from Russia, who was joined on the panel by British actress and television presenter Chantel Shafie, Russian “media ideologist” Marina Lesko and a handful of men.

 “Traditionalists argue that the degeneration of television in this way –‘glamorized’ television without political analysis – is a sad reflection and even an encouragement to a wider cultural dumbing down in society,” said the agenda. “Why is this genre of programming so successful?”

 The session was chaired by Vladimir Rerikh, a senior Kazakh journalist. “When I hear the word ‘glamour’ it is something new in our vocabulary. It is covered with a thin layer of caramel. Public relations and glamour are twin idols of today’s world,” he said.

 He spoke of the “full and complete victory” of glamour in its attack on our media. “Glamour is nothing but a form of art, whether high or low.”

 Kazakh film director Rachid Nougmanov blamed the media for the current hysteria for “heroes” of glamour. “In the late 1980s we had heroes, heroic characters. When times change, these heroes are lost and people are confused. It is then that different ‘prophets’ emerge.”

 “The media, given society’s interest in it, responds with recipes of glamour,” he said.

 This was no bad thing, argued Jim Laurie, an International Broadcaster and Director of Broadcasting at Hong Kong University. He said there had always been a role for “sexiness and glamour in Western media, as a lead-in to meatier stories and as a way to pay for harder-hitting journalism.

 Laurie said he came from the place where glamour was invented: Hollywood.

 “Glamour and more serious issues in the media are very complimentary… PT Barnum, the inventor of the American circus, realized that to attract people in for the main event you had to have a certain amount of glamour.”

 “American television networks would not be able to exist without a glamour component in their broadcasting. That’s what pays for the news and current affairs,” Laurie added. “It is the… sexy part of television that sells. It is a very big economic component of the media.”

 Sobchak said glamour was good for business projects. “This is a trend in modern society.” She called glamour an “anti-ideology, a global sub-culture that will lead us into the future”.

 Several people pointed to the downside of glamour. Alexander Kogan, Chief Editor of Israel’s “Mnenia” (Opinions) Web Magazine, said: “I don’t like the word ‘glamour’. Sex is selling everything and glamour is just a part of this.”

 Oleg Kashin, a Columnist for Russia’s “Expert” Magazine, said: “The scary thing is when glamour turns into an ideology. It is trying to make sure that political or serious journalism should not be heard. This is happening worldwide.”

 Lesko defined glamour as “something real plus an exaggeration or beautification of reality.” Glamour, she claimed, “tells us how to live, and how to be loved.”

 Journalists should forego featuring facts and reporting reality. “Facts are not informative,” she said.

 In answer to a question relating to globalisation, Lesko described the 9/11 terror attacks as “a global reality show that united the whole world. It was a perfect production.”

 This remark sparked some sharp objections.   Kseniya Sobchak said she did not think it was a proper way to refer to an attack in which thousands of people had died.

 Vasiliy Arkanov, a television journalist based in the United States, also responded quickly. “I was not in New York on September 11, 2001, but talking about it as a production is totally unacceptable.”

 “If that is the level of this discussion I think we should all leave the stage,” he said.

 Lesko did not withdraw her remark but later in the discussion she said: “I like provoking people, that’s my job.”

 Discussing globalization, Arkanov said it started when the internet turned the world into a global village.  “Globalisation facilitated glamorization, there is no doubt about that,” he said.

 What of the future for glamour? “It does not make any sense to resist it or divert the process. It is like an avalanche, it keeps developing. What it can lead us to (is) a society that is less developed and protected.”