Pseudo Events

Pseudo events are events created by the media to generate news. The need for pseudo events comes from the general public. People expect papers to be full of news. If a reporter cannot find a story they are expected to make one. We demand more news than the world can give us resulting in fabricated stories. We keep these news reporters in business by demanding that they fill our consciousness. More and more of what we are seeing in the news are pseudo events, but this is because we expect them so therefore we are given them. These events become 'need to know' by the general public and therefore the lines between what people really need to know and what they can know become blurred. This news then becomes 'packaged' news. The news reporters select, invent and plan these events and news stories.

Pseudo events have 6 characteristics:
1. They are more dramatic and easy to get across and receive
2. Can be repeated/re-enforced
3. Cost money to create so they are advertised in advance
4. More sociable, easy to digest, convenient
5. Knowledge of the event becomes the test of being 'informed'
6. Pseudo events spawn other pseudo events that dominate our consciousness

A very recent example of what could be a pseudo event is from the Grammy Awards last night. Rihanna was seen at the awards ceremony wearing a ring on her engagement finger. She was sitting in the audience with Chris Brown, now four years after he assaulted her, wearing many rings on her fingers including her wedding finger, and she was clearly showing them off. When the singer then got on stage to perform she just had one simple silver band on her wedding finger. This lead to speculation on twitter about an engagement. This kind of of event being captured and reported on generates a lot of free publicity for Rihanna and Chris Brown. All she has to do is show up at an event with a ring on her finger and without even saying anything everyone on the internet is talking about it. This could have been totally planned by the singers PR team to get people talking and the ring could really mean absolutely nothing, knowing that the news reporters would need this as news. It could also be a plan to show the doubters and skeptics how happy and together the couple are on the 4 year anniversary of her beating from Chris Brown. Here is a link to the story that I found on the mail online website:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-2276772/Grammys-2013-Rihanna-snuggles-Chris-Brown-flaunts-engagement-ring.html#axzz2KbB4OHzP