Pre-Production Unit: Relating Different Perspectives to the Modern World

In my dissertation, Being Human: Doctor Who in the Post-Modern World, I have talked a lot about the influence of different aspects of capitalism on a post-modern society.

When creating my idea for my , I decided that I wanted to comment on the medias ability to create a 'false reality'. Being quite politically minded, it effects how I see capitalism so I feel like aspects of my personality came out when developing my idea. Being a democratic socialist I want to input some of my political views into the show and how I see it reflects the show. Capitalism in my view largely encourages mass media to control aspects of society and effects democracy to the effect that many feel like certain choices are forced upon them. This is something I want to convey in my idea, how Elliott is being filmed as part of the show against his wishes and how he gets ignored by people who don't want to upset the balance of their world or question what they've become used to. This is something that I have become interested in talking about in my project.

I want the show to convey how from a sociological and demographical point of view, Different Perspectives shows how people react when confined to a level of observation which they can't escape from. This links it closely to Big Brother which was originally started by Channel 4 (now Five) as a 'social experiment'.

I found this quote on the show, which I found quite interesting as it explains audiences motives for watching as well as its large popularity -

I've been looking at how Big Brother is used as a 'social experiment'
and immerses audiences into the lives of others.

"For viewers, the main attraction of the programme is that it offers unprecedented closeness to the lives of other people. Also, what is fascinating about people in the house is that they are not two-dimensional like soap opera characters. They can surprise us and often themselves. They are a constantly changing kaleidoscope of images and this turns us into part-time detectives. We are fascinated by other people and their motivations.

At its base, Big Brother is a psychological show. It is no coincidence that the producers selected psychologists to take part. The viewers are amateur psychologists and the programme's psychologists act as catalysts in a sense, drawing viewers' attention to things they might not have noticed."

https://www.timeshighereducation.com/news/why-i-think-big-brother-is-more-than-a-game-show/164059.article

In a world in which we are constantly being filmed
I want to comment on the level of control over
individuals lives it can hold.

I find this useful as it deepens my understanding of how society can get so immersive into other peoples lives in these types of situations. I want to show how I think someone would react if it wasn't all planned out and they knew people were watching them as I feel they would react quite differently.

The way in which privacy has been lost and in which people are being monitored has been referred to as "worse than Orwell" by the UN's privacy chief in a recent Guardian interview which is a reference to George Orwell's work, primarily 1984 and how social elements are being controlled by use of propaganda, surveillance and misinformation.

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/aug/24/we-need-geneva-convention-for-the-internet-says-new-un-privacy-chief
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/nov/30/government-surveillance-privacy-internet

Two books I have been reading recently have given me a lot of insight into how the level of control that can be used to control society. The first is very well known of course, 1984. A story about a dystopian society under a level of control and manipulation it wants to escape from. The second, The Establishment: and how they get away with it is similar in certain ways and relates to the issue of political control in modern establishment, this relates very much to Orwell's work however and the use of propaganda, a society strongly influenced by capitalists and out of the control of most of the public. All of these concepts have been very influential and explain how I came to the conclusion to develop Different Perspectives using these concepts.