By Ines Garcia (Y12)
We’re currently living in a communications revolution, driven by the algorithms designed to keep us glued to our phones. However, ours isn’t the first generation to experience this rapid shift: with the invention of the printing press in the 1440s, the world changed, with books becoming cheaper to make and increasingly accessible beyond the upper classes. Then came the telegraph, then the telephone, radio, film, television, the internet, and finally social media and its growing potential with AI. As new forms of media become embedded in everyday life, society has continuously had to change in accordance with them.
When television broadcasting was invented, many feared for the cinema’s livelihood: who would spend time and money at the movie theatre, when entertainment was available in the comfort of your own home? In 1949, the New York Times published an article titled “What Is Television Doing to Us” in which writer Jack Gould discusses a survey comparing the habits of members of households who did and didn’t own a television set, to get a sense of how the new technology was changing society. I will summarise his interesting findings so you don’t have to sit through 3,000 words plus a couple of unironic uses of the word youngster.
His observations struck me as incredibly accurate and applicable to our current period in time, suggesting that similar concerns are raised whenever technological advancements have allowed for a new form of media to emerge. Gould found that television brought with it a sense of togetherness and belonging, as the whole family would sit in the living room and watch the same thing. Though he’s quick to follow that thought with a reflection on whether this time is productive, as the family sits mute, having to devote their full attention to the pictures on the screen.
The idea of passive engagement appears again in Gould’s discussion of “spectator-itis”. The name sounds like some sort of infection or disease, and in a way, it is. “Spectator-itits” refers to an individual preferring to observe passively through a screen rather than actively engage in the activity they’re watching. A good example of this would be football: there is a staggering estimate of 3.5 to 5 billion people who are said to follow it, whereas only an estimated 260 million actually play the sport.
It is not only the way we watch that has changed but our experience of the content itself. Gould was writing at a time when cinema and television were still relatively new forms of mass entertainment and therefore made a significant impact on the people watching them; however, today the cultural effect of movies and what they represent has become significantly subdued in our world of social media and streaming services. It is not that we no longer appreciate or connect with film, but that it does not impact us on the same level it once did. Screenings of The Exorcist (1973) saw audience members fainting and having violent physical reactions to the projected film; only two years later, the film Jaws (1975) would instill an irrational fear of sharks into our collective consciousness. Now I am not saying that if a screening doesn’t make us sick or afraid of large bodies of water, then it’s not worth seeing, only that these cultural impacts wouldn’t be possible in today’s age.
If that is the case, then it is important to ask ourselves: what does draw us to the theatre? What gets us excited for a movie? Nowadays, it seems, the film needs to entice us; it needs to be controversial, hyped, or viral. Moments like “Barbenheimer” brought audiences to the cinema because of the momentum it generated across social media. Film studios have now adapted to accept this medium as a primary marketing tool, giving behind-the-scenes footage, curated snippets from the feature, or funny content from the actors to viewers. This begs the question of whether the magic of cinema- the anticipation and commotion once associated with seeing a motion picture on the big screen- will survive social media’s constant output of information about the film before its release.
It’s not only the marketing that has changed drastically; the content and story of the films themselves have also adapted. We have seen how movies centering around recognizable people, events, or anything with a built-in audience do very well at the box office. Sequels, reboots, or adaptations offer an existing fanbase to draw from, and are a surefire way to get audiences into the theatre.
This can be seen by taking a look at 2024’s highest-grossing films and establishing that they were all either sequels, adaptations, or part of a wider cinematic universe.
The film industry has changed, and so has how we discover and engage with films, but the way we actually consume them has also changed dramatically. During the global pandemic in 2020, we were all unable to leave the house, let alone enter a confined space alongside X many people to watch a film; cinemas inevitably suffered while streaming services thrived as they benefited from our boredom (and binge-watching). Years later, our attachment to streaming services has survived, and media consumption is no longer tied to a specific place or time. You can watch a movie on a plane or in your bed, and pause and resume it whenever you want.
Social media feeds take this one step further, creating a feeling of more flexibility and, through personalized algorithms, creating more disconnect in the content users consume. Film can lead to connection through interesting conversations and discussions of a shared like or dislike of a specific movie. With social media, on the other hand, there is a divide; each individual’s experience with the apps can be vastly different from another’s.
But this can end up working in favor of the film industry. Many are now using a trip to the cinema as an escape from the constant sensory overload of social media, turning instead to the slower-paced medium of film. The cinema experience forces you to focus on one thing: the projection on the screen, appealing to a public who may feel trapped and overwhelmed by short-form content. This contrasts with how we viewed the cinema a century ago, when it was a luxury that allowed you to move from the less interactive mediums of newspaper and radio to the full immersive experience of the silver screen. The cinema is now in an interesting position – while fewer people may be going regularly, the experience itself has become arguably more distinct. And so all of this is to say that our society is being reshaped: as ticket prices continually rise, and Swiss cinema admissions fall, it is increasingly becoming an experience reserved for special occasions.
There are some fears more unique to our specific wave in communications transformation: that despite audiences’ aversion to the use of AI in filmmaking or editing, whether that be to make concept art or generate a background, studios will be tempted to use it regardless. We have seen Oscar frontrunners like The Brutalist (2024) be condemned for its AI usage; however, the concern is that we will become oblivious to its existence in cinema in the future.
These issues all seem to center around one question: what we value most in film? Perhaps what makes films so special is that devoting that time and focus to one story emotionally invests us in it; it is ultimately something that the 60-second clips on social platforms cannot replicate as effectively, let alone a technology devoid of emotion like artificial intelligence. So I trust that, despite it all, film will once again push through the noise and continually remind us of what it means to be human.