The name is absent

themselves where the manipulation of the audience and participants ends
and where the ‘truth’ begins. And this constant doubt, this questioning and
skepticism may well result in a pleasurable, simplified perception in which
everything is merely spectacle. Indeed, in the Opening Ceremony of the 2008
Beijing Olympic Games, the fireworks that amazed the world were actually
computer generated images of a display produced six months previous to the
live event itself. Thus, simulated fireworks were broadcast to an audience of
millions, thereby alleviating any possibility of embarrassment for the
organizers due to mis-timings or accidents. This made possible the impossible
broadcast of all the fireworks that simultaneously exploded in the sky over
Beijing (Reinoso, 2008). In this way, the reality perceived by spectators, both
diegetic and extra-diegetic, was an unreality that simulated the reality that
they expected to take place at the stadium. Indeed, the technological ability
to simulate reality 'live' has achieved such accuracy nowadays that the
computer generated display was only discovered five days later when news of
it was filtered to the media by members of the visual special effects team.¹¹

The dilemma that the media and audiences have to face is access to
the truth. Nevertheless, today, truth is more likely to be replaced by either
the plural, truths, which are moving, fluid, concepts constructed through
discourses and representations, or by credibility, which alludes to the reality
believed by each individual. Although there is a common and shared interest
in the message transmitted by the media, with a consumerist and ideological
intent the multiplicity of information that we receive produces a personal de-
codification and consequently an individual perception of the (un)reality in
which we live. This is the duality that for Henry Jenkins constitutes the
phenomenon known as media convergence, in which ‘both a top-down
corporate-driven process and a bottom up consumer-driven process’ converge
(Jenkins, 2004: 6). Jenkins writes:

¹¹ Also revealing is that the opening ceremony featured a photogenic child, a strategic substitution by the
organisers of a less attractive girl (whose audio was retained). Further, spectators were transported to
venues in droves to fill seats, a similar move to enhance the spectacle unfolding. Indeed, this is the
Olympics of the simulacrum or the simulacrum of the Olympics.

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