Are we addicted to jeopardy?

I have been working within the frenetic and often abstruse world of media in varying different guises over the last ten years or so. I would be disingenuous if I were to advocate that I have enjoyed every element of it, but to be fair I have found the vast majority of my experiences and challenges enjoyable and have been lucky that most of the people I have ended up working with have been predominantly sound, professional and well natured.

When you are working within the cauldron of mainstream media, whether that be TV, radio or journalism, you could be forgiven for becoming slightly blinded by how it is being consumed and engaged with by the public, getting more caught up with figures and ratings rather than the essence of what is being communicated. It becomes your job and can be therefore increasingly arduous to be objective when you yourself become the consumer.

One of the phrases that is common within the world of TV production is “where is the jeopardy”? This means creating moments of tension and suspense that aim to beguile the viewer with the purpose of keeping spectators on the edge of their seat before a show would cut to a commercial break – just time for a piss, cup of tea – and back to the hypnotising drama that offers escapism. That is the essence of entertainment television in general and is a universally accepted tenet by creators and consumers alike.

When I commenced working on documentary projects for TV, I quickly made the realisation that the same template was often adapted, which I understood on one hand but had a slight issue with on the other. With the type of documentaries that I was hoping to make, the subject matter had its core foundations in mental health and emotional well-being and the outcome I was hoping to achieve was to perhaps aim away from a culture of “jeopardy” or creating fear and instead moving towards compassion, safety and assurance.

I’ll be honest, this wasn’t an easy road to take as it’s not the usual structure of many documentaries. On “Ironmind” I wanted the viewer to feel empowered, inspired and galvanised by the stories and journeys of the immensely brave cast, and we achieved this outcome, not by cultivating contrived “jeopardy” but by being transparent, honest and empathetic, by being human. The reaction by both the public and on social media mirrored this, for me validating the fact that there is an alternative to jeopardy that can still engage the viewer.

I suppose having worked in this area and attempting to comprehend it to a point, I can’t help but notice how a vast majority of our media place far too much emphasis on “jeopardy” especially within the television arena, in order to attract ratings and figures, which in turn attract higher commercial rates on advertising which in turn make the channel more profitable and sustainable. I get it, it’s business. However, TV producers and creators are simply providing the market with what they want, what they consume, what they engage and interact with. I suppose the question therefore is, have we become addicted to jeopardy?

This is not a question I have a definitive answer for by any means, I suppose I have my opinions on it but welcome others in the discussion and debate. Have we perhaps as a society habitually trained to desensitise ourselves, be it consciously or subconsciously, in order to adapt and cope with the often chaotic images and stories we see and hear every day on the internet, papers and on television? Have our minds evolved to view extreme pain, trauma, crisis, fear and hardship (which take up much of our TV screens as well as gaming consoles etc.) as a normalised part of society? After all, if we are consistently exposed to certain environments our senses and minds will adapt to its surroundings. For example, if you play loud music to someone for the first few minutes it will blow their heads off, but as their senses adapt to the decibel levels it becomes a little more normal.

Have we even gone as far as craving such exposure to chaos and pain, as we are bombarded with it on a daily basis? With addictions they lose their pay off over time, so will we want more jeopardy and bigger fucking disasters to satisfy these cravings? Where will it stop? Only last month did a group of individual’s post themselves torturing someone on Facebook live. It was the muted “shoulder shaking” reaction to this that was just as shocking as the act itself.

The language around the media both in print, radio and TV is increasingly incendiary. It’s sculpting an unprecedented magnified level of fear not seen before on this scale, so much so that it is an almost impossible task to decipher between fiction and reality. The reality for many is too distressing and soul destroying that it becomes easier to masquerade it as fiction, while others portray fiction as fact, leaving us utterly confused and disoriented as individuals and as a society that no wonder we have become immune to what we are seeing and reading on our media mediums.

Watching Celebrity Big Brother, it seems almost too obvious that the producers seek out emotionally vulnerable and sometimes unstable individuals to go on the show, knowing that with the right amount of manipulation they can force them to perhaps breakdown, which therefore creates “jeopardy” and “good TV” and even better ratings, all while some individual has a mental breakdown in front of millions of engaged viewers satisfying their cravings for “bad shit to happen”. Now, I don’t know about you but watching another human being suffering and in pain does not entertain me, in fact it makes my skin scratchingly uncomfortable but the reality is, that is apparently what the audience want, and until they stop watching, it will be what we continue to get.

In the midst of all the chaos of 2016, surely there is an alternative to this? Perhaps if our audiences were given more options within mainstream media that weighed more on how in general, most people on this planet are fucking sound, media could be harnessed to create waves of positivity rather than adding to the sea of fear.

The last Euros football campaign is a well crafted example of how the alternative can influence a mood and an energy within a culture and society. While a few of the Russian and English “fans” beat the lumps clean out of each other, tearing up stadiums, rioting with police and abusing the locals, the Irish fans were serenading pretty Swedish fans while beautifully butchering ABBA (a crime in my book), as well as helping to fix elderly couples broken down cars – the united nations of the football world. Where did the world’s media turn their eyes to? The Irish of course, and not in their often clichéd leprechaun, ‘top of the mornin’ stereotypical way. A light was shone on these large groups of men and women at a major sporting event having fun, being sound, respectful and heart warmingly positive.

The media embraced an alternative to the knuckle headed hooligans that wanted to act like moronic arseholes. Yes I may be biased, but I was so proud watching that, not just because it made me feel good, but because the media were recognising “good news” can be much more impactful than “bad news”.

In essence it is important to recognise that jeopardy, adversity, hardship, trauma and crisis are of course a part of everyday life all over the planet and therefore should be represented in our media but these elements don’t fully define life and human potential. It’s often our capacity to cope and return from adversity that has much more power.

Finally, if our collective thought creates our reality surely it’s better for our minds not to be constantly consuming the fear, pain and hatred that much of our media offers? Facing into 2017 we need to create alternatives that have a greater focus on compassion, healing and truth, in fact I don’t think it’s ever been more important than now to do so.