On a Wing and a Fare

I was just thinking about the emergency landing of the Jet Blue flight on Wednesday. From a media studies perspective, I'm really interested in the fact that the passengers were able to watch the televised newscasts of what was happening (via streaming satellite). Apparently the onboard screens were shut off ~15min before landing, but they were still able to watch live footage of themselves circling for hours while experts were hypothesizing as to what their fate would be. I was thinking back to the concept of immediacy. Live television, for good or bad, has become a staple of modern televised news. Live TV gives us perhaps a greater sense of immediacy, as we see what is unraveling as the event itself takes place. Spectators at the landing - when the freeway was shut down and everyone watched - could be said to have an even greater sense of immediacy, as there is no mediation imposed on them by broadcasted news. The passengers are in the most immediate of all states, though, in that they are simultaneously the spectator and the spectacle.

Just thought that was an interesting set of circumstances.