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Master thesis Television and Cross-Media Culture

Black Mirror and the Fear of Technology

Pim Janssen 11926430

First reader: Dhr. Dr. S.M. Dasgupta Second reader: Dhr. Dr. J.A. Teurlings Date: 28-05-2018

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

ABSTRACT 3

INTRODUCTION 4

CHAPTER 1: “ARKANGEL” AND THE TECHNOLOGIES OF PARENTAL CONTROL 10

1.1 “ARKANGEL” 10

1.2 PARENTAL CONTROL DUE TO FEAR 11

1.3 “ARKANGEL” PREMEDIATING FEAR 15

1.4 AESTHETICS 18

CHAPTER 2: “NOSEDIVE”, PUBLIC APPROVAL, AND ANTI-SOCIAL MEDIA 21

2.1 “NOSEDIVE” 21

2.2 PUBLIC APPROVAL AND ANTI-SOCIAL MEDIA 22

2.3 “NOSEDIVE” PREMEDIATING FEAR 28

2.4 AESTHETICS 31

CHAPTER 3: “CROCODILE” AND THE FEAR OF SURVEILLANCE AND TRACEABILITY 33

3.1 “CROCODILE” 33

3.2 FEARS OF PRIVACY INVASION AND TRACEABILITY 34

3.3 “CROCODILE” PREMEDIATING FEAR 39

3.4 AESTHETICS 42

CONCLUSION 45

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ABSTRACT

This thesis focuses on how Black Mirror premediates fears of the effects of technology around issues of censorship, social media, and surveillance. This is based on Richard Grusin’s concept of premediation, which he uses as a tool to explain how a familiar underlying level of anxiety can prevent the shock of future trauma’s. Grusin’s notion of premediation focuses on the effect being beneficial to the State and how it can be used to control its citizens. In the case of this thesis, Grusin’s notion is reimagined to do the opposite; not to spark fear about future events to control the masses, but to spark fear about dystopian futures to criticize the amount of control being exercised (through technology).

Through a textual and visual analysis of three different episodes (“Arkangel”,

“Nosedive”, and “Crocodile”) and their accompanying themes of parental censorship, social media dependency, and surveillance through data traceability. Each chapter focuses on a different episode, as to have a broader grasp of Black Mirror’s premediative qualities. After summarizing the plot, the subsequent themes and their tradition of fear are discussed. The two are then combined to analyze if any of the fears and issues with the themes can be detected or suggested in the specific episodes and their aesthetics.

The conclusion drawn from this analysis is that, through different plots and imagery about the possibility of the dystopian futures, the series attempts to spark a discussion about these impending issues. The episodes always seem to keep their foundation in reality to make the audience recognize how the issue is similar to something going on in current day society. The aesthetics of the three episodes definitely strengthen the premediative message, as well. This is done through low-fi recognizable imagery, vast contrasts between the image and the storyline to reinforce the message, and cold and violent imagery to strengthen the seriousness of the problem. Still, future studies could further analyze the effectivity of this reimagined use of premediation on top of analyzing more episodes and doing an audience research to actually see people’s reaction to the premediated messages instead of purely basing it off of theory.

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INTRODUCTION

“Someone I know actually decided to delete his Facebook account after watching this episode,” my friend told me after we finished watching a Black Mirror episode called

“Nosedive”. It is apparent that the series plays into people’s fears they may have when it comes to technological developments and the influence it has on society.

The title Black Mirror refers to a telephone screen turned off; a black mirror. This can be connected to Charlie Brooker’s vision for the television series, as it is an anthology series about the dark side of technology and a reflection of society depicted in dystopian visions. Due to the program’s concept it often emanates a dark and satiric tone that invites the

audience to reflect on societal and technological developments. This reflective quality and the dark stories and imagery have caused audiences to critically asses the issues addressed in the episodes. Since Black Mirror is an anthology series it has the ability to cover a broad scape of issues, as every episode can have a very different theme or discussion. The series is often categorized as a thriller, meaning the issues addressed in the episodes are often depicted through the use of chillingly imaginable plots and visuals. It is likely that the terrifying nature of the show is more successful in planting a seed of fear in people’s minds in order to have them realize and contemplate on how they want to approach technology and its growing societal influence. Whereas the series used to air on British television channel Channel 4, it now has a larger reach and audience after Netflix purchased the rights of the series in 2015 and started streaming new episodes from 2016 onward. This lifts the message of technology’s dark side to a digital and global level.

The Netflix episodes continue this underlying eeriness, which could be seen as a premediative tool meaning that, in the words of Richard Grusin, it prevents “citizens of the global mediasphere from experiencing […] systemic or traumatic shock” (2). Grusin illustrates this concept though the events of 9/11 and the repercussions. The term shares characteristics with ‘remediation’, which he claims to be the way media correct or modernize earlier mediums (1). An example of this could be how older films are remediated into newer television shows. Premediation, on the other hand, corrects media before instead of after the fact. The two concepts do coincide, for Grusin utters that “[p]remediating the future entails remediating the past” (8). In other words, by keeping a constant subtle layer of a familiar fear, citizens may be less traumatized or shocked if the fear becomes a reality (2). Premediation

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can therefore be seen as a preemptive procedure. Regarding 9/11 he states that “premediation characterizes the mediality of the first decade of the twenty-first century as focused on the cultural desire to make sure that the future has already been pre-mediated before it turns into the present” (4). In the example of post-9/11 mediation it is clarified that premediation is to prevent the unexpected shock the media and the US citizens experienced at the time of the tragic event (4). In this view media has now become ‘self-aware’ in the sense that it alters whatever they are setting out to transmit.

This can be connected to an important part of Grusin’s theory; affect and mediality. This means that, as Grusin says, the focus is on what the media does instead of what it represents (7). What the media does after the case of 9/11 is that “post-9/11 mediality

mobilizes affect according to a logic or trajectory of premediation that resembles, or serves to remind us of, or traces its origins to, the event of 9/11” (Grusin 10). That in combination with “the repetitive structure of the everyday built into televisual programming, the repeated premediation of future disasters or catastrophes works to guard against the recurrence of a media trauma like 9/11” (Grusin 16). Grusin uses examples from cinema to explain this affective post-9/11 reaction. One of his examples explains how War of the Worlds by Steven Spielberg does not obviously discuss 9/11, but does sensationalize the affect and theme of a post-catastrophic situation (18). The science fiction movie references a disastrous future that leaves the city it takes place in rubble similar to the aftermath of the events of 9/11. Since War of the Worlds was not the only disaster movie to come out since the events a repetition of this tragic imagery emerges in people’s daily lives.

Grusin claims that, besides these films, the strongest premediative exhibition can be found in the media coverage in the year after the events of 9/11 (41). The anthrax scare, is used to exemplify this exhibition, as the danger of a number letters containing deadly bacteria sent to a couple of organizations seems to be minute in comparison to “the magnitude of the AIDS epidemic, or to genocides in Darfur and elsewhere, which continue to receive only sporadic coverage in the US media, [though] the post-9/11 news media devoted an inordinate amount of attention to premediating potential attacks,” (Grusin 41) such as the ‘anthrax attacks’. This shows that instead of just commenting on what had happened, the media is now also commenting on what could conceivably happen next. Grusin exemplifies that in the case of the Bush administration’s misleading campaign for the War against Iraq the public was fooled into blatantly supporting the war straight after the events on the 11th of September (42).

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before it ever happened, the formal structure of US new media effectively supported US military doctrine, participating in the pre-emptive remediation of a future (premediated) war” (Grusin 45).

Even though Grusin uses this theory to discuss media after the 9/11 terrorist events it could also be a useful tool to analyze the fear Black Mirror exudes. Even though there are distinct differences between a horrible non-fictional event and an eerie fictional television series, premediation is, as Grusin claims, “not about getting the future right,” (46) but about preventing possible future events. However, in Grusin’s case the premediative effect is related to the state and government control. He explains this using Michel Foucault’s idea of

‘governmentality’, which holds that there is a dominant form of surveillance practiced by the state to be able to control its citizens (73). Premediation, then, is a way to control the security that society desires and strengthen the power of the state at the same time (Grusin 125). Grusin states that this “proliferation of media transactions or interactions […] help (as Foucault says of governmentality and the state) to ‘vitalize’ the political formation of securitization” (126). This vitalization of political securitization is a reaction to (what seems to be) a threatening media environment, which is counteracted by preemptive media

“maintaining low levels of affective intensity that provide a kind of buffer or safe space” (Grusin 126). Grusin uses the US Air Force as example of the secure safe place premediation creates, because their branding campaign creates a fear by acknowledging the possibility of them becoming a reality while also assuring that they are the power that will protect the public from these fears (50 & 51). The anxiety for future terrorist attacks that Grusin writes about can then also be traded with the fear of technology and its influence on people’s daily lives.

Premediation can therefore also be used as a tool to display what Black Mirror does, for the episodes include unnerving possible future events tied to technology in a way that sparks conversation among viewers. Conversation about the issues dealt with in the anthology can be seen as part of the prevention, as creating awareness is the first step to realizing the problems people may encounter due to developments in the technological field. In this case the premediative qualities of the series may not necessarily be underlying but can nonetheless still be preventative of imminent complications tied to the role of technology in society. Black Mirror, being a highly reflexive series, combines premediation and awareness as a form of preemption. That is not the only difference between, what can be seen as, Brookers form of premediation and Grusin’s concept of premediation. Whereas, Grusin’s idea of premediation

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is a way to control an ideology of increased security to reinforce the power of the state, Black Mirror has nothing to do with the state. If anything, Brooker’s series goes against the security the state tries to reach through premediative media. The content of the episodes warn people about how technology has the ability to create capitalist surveillance and ideology conditioned by anxiety. The relationship between these two ways of premediation is fascinating, for they are similar yet have completely varied aims. On the one hand, it can be a tool of the state that uses surveillance to control the public, while on the other hand in Black Mirror the

premediation can also be used to critique the state’s use of technology to regulate surveillance.

Grusin stresses the importance of the “interactions among humans, technology, and media,” (100) and how “humans co-evolve with technology and always have” (92).

Technology therefore has an important role in the concept of Grusin’s premediation as it has caused people to be connected to media at an almost constant level through smart phones, laptops, and other devices. This can then, in turn, make for an even more constant layer of low level fear. This is how technology can be used to premediate and control the masses. In the case of Black Mirror, there is an interesting reversal of this notion, for the series premediates the dangers of these technologies how they control people’s daily lives. This serves as an interesting oppositional use of Grusin’s concept to go against that same concept, which could be symbolized by fighting fire with fire.

For Grusin premediation takes on a sort of Big Brother type role of reminding the public of their surveillance, which should make them feel safer. However, Black Mirror battles this Big Brother type surveillance, by displaying its consequential dystopian futures. The results of the affect that comes out of the two different manners of premediation is then also dissimilar. The one is understated and aims to numb people for shock, whereas the other is fear-driven, which causes a more intense affective reaction, and aims to raise awareness among people. Before deleting Facebook, my friend’s friend would have used the medium on a daily basis as people “are determined not to miss anything [and] are always in high alert when we pay continuous partial attention” (Grusin 130). There is an automatism that upholds this “artificial sense of constant crisis [which] is more typical of continuous partial attention than it is of multi-tasking” (Grusin 130). This automatism (strengthened by technologies such as smart phones) is numbing in the sense that people are part of a constant flow of low level calamity.

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Before my friend’s friend deleted Facebook, the medium was a conditioned part of their daily live. This means that they probably did not think twice about using its services. According to Grusin, “all of these everyday technologies help to train the human sensorium to protect us from the shocks of modernity” (104). He explains that “[s]ocially networked media technologies, like other practices of mediation, help to maintain the security regime both by enabling or encouraging mobility […] and by promoting or proliferating everyday media transactions” (125). After watching Black Mirror, this changed, as premediation was turned around and used to highlight how the same services could also be detrimental to the person’s idea of security and the regime around it. So, where the state uses Facebook and other

technologies to maintain the public though surveillance, Brooker uses premediation to concretize and critique the dangers of the control the state has over the public through surveillance via technology.

It is not strange for society to fear technological developments, for this is a common matter that even has a name; technophobia. The rapidly changing face of the technological landscape, as Emilio Mordini states, “challenge basic implicit and explicit moral assumptions and legal norms” (546). He continues by claiming that this creates a sense of discomfort in people, as they cannot handle the rapid transformations and naturally question its safety (546). The basic moral assumptions that are challenged then incite an unsure attitude to how the developments are going to affect standards in human lives and lawmaking (Mordini 544). It can be hard to keep up with the newest technologies and how they may affect people’s norms and values. Mordini believes this is because people cannot get used to the integration of new technologies anymore and therefore cannot make sense of the meanings and accessory risks that come with these technological developments (546). He claims that this tradition of anxiety based on technology has been part of the human psyche even since the Baroque age (Mordini 546). These risks may include areas such as privacy, censorship, surveillance, and online relationships. People that grow up with these new technologies may not initially see these issues, in which case Black Mirror takes on the role of whistleblower in the shape of television entertainment. This is where the premediative aspect comes into play as well, for the series makes the audience aware of the risks that accompany certain technological advances. Instead of this form of premediation numbing the viewer for these technophobic fears, it uses these fears to spark a more intense affective reaction in order to expose how the dangers of these technologies and their governmentality.

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This thesis is asks: How does Black Mirror premediate fears of the effects of technology around issues of censorship, social media, and surveillance?

Each of these three issues is tied to a different episode of the anthology series. Consequently, there will be three chapters that set out to examine how Black Mirror premediates the fear that relates to the episode. To do so, each chapter sets out to critically define the concept which covers the theme of the episode. The textual analysis of the episode will include a close reading of the plot as well as the stylistic elements of the episode in order to connect it to how the show premediates the specific fear and is critical of the technologies behind them. This will uncover how these fears about premediative technology are tackled with the use of premediation itself.

Chapter one will be based on an analysis of the second episode of Black Mirror’s fourth season; “Arkangel”. The episode revolves around a mother terrified to lose her daughter and has the child implanted with a new technology that tracks her child and can censor any images or sounds deemed inappropriate. This can be connected to the issue of censorship, especially in the case of parental supervision. The chapter will set out to argue how “Arkangel” premediates the fear of (parental) censorship that comes with technological development.

Chapter two is intended to analyze the first episode of the series’ third season; “Nosedive”. This episode follows a young woman who lives in a world where people rate others based on their online and in-person communication. This rating seriously effects people’s statuses in society in a way that a certain score is needed to qualify for, for example, accommodation. This second chapter looks at how the fear of social media and its growing importance in modern day and future societies is premediated by “Nosedive”.

The third chapter will have the third episode of the fourth season, “Crocodile”, as the main source of analysis. “Crocodile” is about a woman whose criminal past comes up when a law enforcer uses a machine on her that can read memories and visualize them on a screen. The issue here is the misuse or anxiety of surveillance and privacy either by anyone including the government. How does this episode premediate the anxiety of the law or other people invading on someone’s privacy as a means of surveillance? The answer to this question, along with the findings in the other two chapters, will clarify how Black Mirror premediates these fears of technology through its plot as well as visual representation.

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CHAPTER 1: “ARKANGEL” AND THE TECHNOLOGIES OF PARENTAL CONTROL

1.1 “ARKANGEL”

As claimed before, Black Mirror is known for its controversial and critical view on technology and society. The episode “Arkangel”, which is the second episode of the fourth season, is a fitting example of this view. The episode, released on the 29th of December in

2017, is directed by acclaimed actor and director Jodie Foster. She directed a story about an overprotective mother, which is a very relatable topic with parents. It would not be a Black Mirror episode if this did not turn this issue into something intense and eerie, yet

frighteningly relatable with regard to modern technology.

Marie, a single mother, almost loses her child at birth, which causes her to be extremely protective of her daughter, Sara, as she is growing up. When a new experimental technology called “Arkangel” allows parents to track their children and censor any upsetting images or sounds, she is quick to sign up for the program. The implant that allows her to do this also gives her the ability to check on Sara’s health on top of being able to monitor her location and the censoring function. While at first the technology censors intimidating dogs and pornography, it falters when Sara’s grandfather goes into cardiac arrest and blurs the image and sound for being distressing. It causes her to be bullied for not having experience with any stress and therefore being at an underdeveloped mental state for her age. Sara starts rebelling against it and Marie decides to deactivate the application, which has already become controversial and on the verge of becoming illegal. After this Sara’s friends show her

everything she has been ‘missing’, such as pornographic and violent imagery. A couple of years later she is out with friends and lies to her mother about being at her friend’s place. When she does not come home on time, Marie finds out her daughter is not where she says she is and reactivates the app to find out she is having intercourse with a guy. This causes Marie to become suspicious of Sara and starts using the app again, though which she also finds out her daughter trying drugs and confronts the guy who handed Sara the drugs. On top of that, the medical monitoring shows that Sara may be pregnant. Marie slips a contraceptive in Sara’s drink to get rid of the pregnancy, but after she throws up she notices the box and figures out her mother has been monitoring her again. She beat Marie with the tablet used to control the app but does not see how bad she is hurting her due to the censoring of violent imagery. After the tablet breaks, she realizes what she has done and flees. Ironically, the

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extreme measures Marie has taken to not lose her daughter end up being the reason she ‘loses’ her daughter.

This technology is an idea of what the future of parental control my become, if people do not combat this. Black Mirror takes a current issue and plays it out a tad more developed and dystopic to wake the public from their numbness by using the same concept that is used to make them numb; premediation. Black Mirror sets out to start a mindful conversation about topics like how technology has invaded parenting to gain surveillance, but how the same thing can turn out to be negative. Control and censorship are a clear part of parenting technologies, only “Arkangel” shows a different side of how these technologies may develop if people are conditioned and not mindful about the use of them. The subsequent paragraph sets out to discuss some of the major issues that are connected to these technologies and their anxious motives.

1.2 PARENTAL CONTROL DUE TO FEAR

Developments in technology have created many opportunities for parents to control their children and censor what they can or cannot watch. However, this is not a very recent change. Stephen Groening explains the emergence of Raymond Williams’ idea of ‘mobile privatization’, which entails that technologies promise “new freedoms and forms of mobility in the seclusion of the domestic space” (1332). This concept displays how people are

becoming more mobile while being in the privacy of their own home. For example, in the case television this means that people are able to watch images from afar in the comfort of their own house. Groening pulls this concept to a more modern perspective as he claims that cellular phones now also are adopted “as television platforms [which] presages a changing role for television in the public/private divide” (1333). Public and private spheres are merging, as people use portable technologies that allow them to take their private lives with them in public. This allows people to control their private lives in areas they would not have been able to before. These new technologies, thus strengthen the amount of control people can exercise. The notion of parenting is always about control. Even before the smartphones and tablets, technologies already gave way for parents to go further in this control. This would then take away from the privacy of the children in question. An example of this is the nanny-cam; a hidden camera to secretly watch the children and anyone with them. It is called the nanny-cam because this way the parents can also check on the nanny, in fear of what the nanny could possibly do to their child. On the other hand, it also allows them to constantly

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monitor their children and punish them for what they saw on the footage. This kind of

parenting is often referred to as helicopter parenting, as the parents ‘hover’ over their children and watch them on a distance to be able to prevent anything bad from happening to them. Laura M. Padilla-Walker and Larry J. Nelson analyzed helicopter parenting and claim that it is a form of over-involved parenting that “represents parenting that is high on

warmth/support, high on control, and low on granting autonomy” (1178). They state that the fear behind this has ties to “certain forms of psychological control that are driven by parental separation anxiety […] and are specifically aimed at limiting adolescents’ increasing

separation and independence” (1178). The overprotective attitude can become a burden rather than something positive, especially since technologies offer easier way to contact, track, and check on their children. This idea of “[o]versolicitous parenting has repeatedly been linked with maladaptive outcomes (e.g. anxiety-related problems, social withdrawal/shyness, peer difficulties)” (Padilla-Walker and Nelson 1178). Yet, this is because the parents fear that their child may land in distressing situations where something terrible might even happen to them. It is understandable that parents want to protect their children from any physical, emotional, and moral threats, but, according to Padilla-Walker and Nelson, “it appears that parental oversolicitous behavior is a problem because it reflects parental involvement, or control, when it is either developmentally or contextually inappropriate” (1179).

Especially in the case of older children that are close to reaching adolescence, as research has shown that psychological control by parents can negatively affect the parent-child relationship and lead to them participating in hazardous behavior (Padilla-Walker and Nelson 1179). On top of that a study confirmed that children with parents who are controlling in both behavior and psychology are more likely to be anxious, depressed, impulsive, have a lower self-image, and tend to be less close to their parents (Padilla-Walker and Nelson 1179). These issues may only surface later in life, though that does not take away the severity of the problem. The problem is that helicopter parenting is done out of sheer concern for the success and health of the children, though it can often end up detrimental to the success or health of the children. The role that technology plays in this grants parents countless other ways to carry out this type of parenting. That relation between parenting and technology may then also strengthen the possible negative outcomes of oversolicitous parenting brought up by Padilla-Walker and Nelson. This is taken from the idea that these technologies may cause parents to monitor their children even more in addition to granting them even less autonomy.

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An example of this may be the V-Chip, as discussed by Jessica Nihlén Fahlquist and Ibo van de Poel. They explain the V-Chip to be “an electronic device that can be built into television sets to block programs that are violent or otherwise deemed unsuitable to children” (286). They add another interesting facet to control-based parenting, which is the issue of responsibility. The reasoning behind the ways of parenting analyzed by Padilla-Walker and Nelson is very much based on the feeling of responsibility parents have towards the health and success of their offspring. Technologies may help parents with these protective

responsibilities, though this also allows them to easily become overprotection. This is where there is an interesting overlap between Padilla-Walker and Nelson’s analysis and Fahlquist and van de Poel’s analysis, which is a the a core point of discussion within this issue explained by Fahlquist and van de Poel when they mention that “[t]he tendency to want to protect one’s child is quite natural and it is likely that parents will use available technology if they can afford it. It is, of course, another question whether it is right or wrong to do it” (286). In the case of the V-Chip they differentiate between the parents using it to have more control and responsibility over what their children watch, but on the other hand it may also be away to give away responsibility to the V-Chip instead of exercising it themselves (291). This means that technologies may increase the level of control and security parents implement, but also take part of the responsibility of this control and security away from the parents. In a way, if the V-Chip were to be a part of helicopter parenting, the parents would be in constant control even if they are giving away part of the control and responsibility to a technology. This not only causes the children to possibly disconnect with their parents due to the amount of control they are introducing, but also because the parents themselves disconnect with a certain responsibility that is now controlled by a technology. Ironically enough one of the reasons behind the invention of the V-Chip is “to help the child grow, to protect her from harm and to not let fear and anxiety affect her negatively. To watch violent movies may cause fear and inhibit the child’s development” (Fahlquist and van de Poel 296 and 297). This is where the two different theories on parenting break, for Nelson and Padilla-Walker believe that excessively protective parenting can actually be the cause of the anxiety and negative affect the V-Chip tries to battle. Where van de Poel and Fahlquist claim that “children who watch violent programs become fearful and anxious to a greater extent than children who do not consume violent media,” (297) Padilla-Walker and Nelson provide evidence for the argument that “as children get older […] high levels of both support and control have been found to predict risky peer context and problem behaviors” (1179). The divergence of these two points makes the issue harder to clarify and formulate a strong solution, however if we

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are to believe that the V-chip “is a way of increasing parent’s control, i.e. to give them the opportunity to exercise their responsibility,” (Fahlquist and van der Poel 298) this goes hand in hand with Nelson and Padilla-Walkers findings that “[t]here is emerging evidence

suggesting that, indeed, psychological and behavioral control are related to negative

outcomes” (1179). Technologies like the V-Chip could amount to parents handing off a part of their responsibility to said technology. This then creates an even greater level of parental control over censorship, surveillance, and consequential behavior. Yet, it remains vital to keep in mind “how particular technologies affect responsibility” (Fahlquist and van der Poel 299). Responsibility taken out of parents’ hands can also be a fearful experience, as there is a certain control that cannot be fully supervised by them, though they may still feel liable for letting go of that responsibility. Dallas attorney Joe Zopolsky states in this case of censorship and responsibility “parental or like figures are charged with the awesome responsibility of monitoring Internet user by those in their charge” (2). Zopolsky addresses the issue of censorship as well, but instead of television he zooms in on the internet. This shows the broadness of parental control and, thus, how much the life of children can be monitored in modern society. Whereas before parents found ways, such as the nanny-cam, it is now much easier for them to do so. Even though Zopolsky believes that this censorship may sometimes be a necessary protective tool, he does realize that children raised “in a sheltered environment […] will always cry for more protection, and request that more decisions be made on their behalf [while] [o]thers champion the freedom to make their own choices” (8). The latter can be connected to Padilla-Walker and Nelson’s point made about children rebelling against their parents’ controlling behavior.

In these cases, there is no initial fear about the technologies. Contrastingly, there seems to be an initial acceptance of the technologies as they can be used to enlarge the range of parents’ monitoring and controlling behaviors. Even more so since parents seem to feel responsible to go these lengths to gain control over their children. The internet ‘filters’ and the V-Chip are some of the examples of the ways parents exercise their ‘helicopter parenting’. Strangely, as opposed to Emilio Mordini’s statement on the history of initial anxiety of technology (546), these parents are not afraid of these technologies, but about what may happen to their children if they were to not make use of them. They fear losing their child or any negative affect they may encounter when encountering what their parents prevent them from coming across. Zopolsky states this is because some parents “distrust strangers,

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is what technologies like internet ‘filters’ and the V-Chip do; they shelter children from the real world. As Padilla-Walker and Nelson stated this sheltering looks like “[an aspect] of ‘good’ parenting, [which] leads to the question of when and whether a parent can give too much of a ‘good’ thing” (1178). This overprotective “psychological control and behavioral control appear to be destructive to children” (Padilla-Walker and Nelson 1888).

The concept of ‘mobile privatization’ displays that people are able to watch the outside from the comfort of their home, but also watch their home from any public space. This allows parents to monitor and consequently control their children. This overprotective attitude can be detrimental to the children, for it can cause social, anxiety, and peer problems (Padilla-Walker and Nelson 1178). Most parents will use the technologies available to them to protect their children from possible threats to their physical and mental well-being. The V-chip, for

example, is used to monitor and limit what children can watch on TV. This poses the problem of the parents putting a technology in control of a specific responsibility. Besides the

maladaptive outcomes of this sheltering behavior, the parents also have to blindly trust the technology to work for them while they are absent. Ironically so, both the older and more newly developed technological measures may lead to the detriment they were primarily trying to shield their offspring from; damage to their well-being. The following paragraph will connect the previous two paragraphs to analyze how the episode premediates the parental fears of technology.

1.3 “ARKANGEL” PREMEDIATING FEAR

There is a clear interconnectivity between the Black Mirror episode and the issues on oversolicitous parenting and the role technology plays in this. The bigger issue of

overprotective parenting is the cause of dysfunctionality in children in the form of anxiety, social defects, and peer problems (Padilla-Walker and Nelson 1178). This is a very clear theme in the plot of “Arkangel”, for Marie’s controlling parenting causes Sara to eventually lie to her and have peer problems in the way that she hangs out with the wrong people. Marie clearly would not have wanted her daughter to do drugs and lie to her about where she is, which shows that this kind of parenting can have ironically twisted results. Marie definitely cares for her daughter, so she is loving but high on control, which makes her style of

parenting fit with the description of ‘helicopter parenting’ (Padilla-Walker and Nelson 1178). This strict control and censorship causes Sara to stab her hand with a pencil to see what blood

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looks like, which immediately gets blurred out for being disturbing and consequently shields her from seeing how bad she is injuring herself. This is exactly what Zopolsky mentioned in the case of children growing up in a highly sheltered setting; some children may rebel against their parents to gain freedom over their own decisions (8). From this it is clear that Sara has had enough of her mother/the technology deciding what she is able or unable to see, which is the cause of her hurting herself. This may even be seen as a larger symbolic image in

parenting and how, as Padilla-Walker and Nelson claim, heavy parental control can

negatively affect the child and lead to them to exercise harmful behavior (Padilla-Walker and Nelson 1179). “Arkangel” uses this plotline to critique how their excessive controlling behavior and surveillance through premediation. Even in an aesthetic sense of the image, Marie, while thinking she has control over the situation, watches her child slip into rebellion and harmful behavior (Figure 1). In the shot she is in the dark background watching it happen.

Figure 1 Sara stabbing her hand with a pencil from "Arkangel"

https://www.vice.com/en_nz/article/mbb55y/breaking-down-the-cryptic-new-black-mirror-teaser-vgtrn

Without the ‘helicopter parenting’ in addition to the technology that strengthens it, this

horrific event may never have happened. The shock this image induces can be seen as causing an affective (premediative) reaction in the parents in the audience. This premediative strategy therefore has the ability to spark a discussion about how far one can use technology to control and surveil over their offspring and if it may actually be more detrimental than it may initially seem. The outcome of the dystopian future regarding parenting technology coincides with Padilla-Walker and Nelsons research as they claim that children with parents who are controlling in behavior and psychology tend to be more prone to impulsive behavior and being more distanced from their parents (1179). The connection between that evidence and the episode is that Sara ends up impulsively trying sexual acts and drugs on top of ending up running away from home and distancing herself from her mother. This can be taken as a criticism on the role of technology in parenting, but also as a general criticism on ‘helicopter

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parenting’ outside of the technological tools available to strengthen this type of control. According to Alex Brannan, who reviewed the episode for CineFiles, the episode uses the neurotic form of parenting and accessory technology to premediate the fear of losing one’s child (Brannan).

Whereas the previous issue was more based on parents, there also are some critiques that are based more on technologies that are evidently tied to Fahlquist and van der Poel’s views on censorship and responsibility. They believe that it is possible that technologies take control over certain responsibilities that parents can then disregard, however the technologies may not always recognize certain issues parents would (299). There is a very clear moment in “Arkangel” that criticizes the responsibility parents give away, through which they blindly rely on the quality of the technology. In this case, the implant Sara has is able to censor any disturbing images and sounds to prevent her from experiencing any trauma, very much like Grusin’s concept of premediation as a numbing instrument in a way. Marie has the ability to switch this mode on and off, however when the mode is on the technology has control over what it censors and what it does not censor. Now, to premediate the danger of this the show has a shocking but appropriate example of how the protective measure is controlled by an unfeeling technology that is seems to calculate censorship in a very ‘black and white’ manner. In this example the technology approaches Sara’s grandfather going into cardiac arrest very unsympathetically in the way that it sees it as a shocking image that could be traumatic and does not differentiate between censoring the person being her grandfather or a random strange man on television (Figure 2). Sara is so shielded from the world and what goes on that she just carries on with her day, which almost causes her grandfather to pass away.

Figure 2 Sara's grandfather's cardiac arrest is censored from "Arkangel”

https://www.netflix.com/watch/80131566?trackId=200257859

Even though the use of the microchip is a decision made by Marie, the “Arkangel” chip, similarly to the V-Chip, “redistributes responsibility in a way that wrongly reduces parental

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responsibility” (Fahlquist and van de Poel 287). The shock of Sara’s grandfather almost dying is used to premediate the fear of how technology may not fully understand situations like humans do. Consequently, it sets out to shock the viewer into rethinking their ideas of who has the responsibility to surveil children and how technology may wrongly take away from parents’ concern towards their children. The episode does this effectively, for it first shows the positive effects of this device that drive parents to use every means available to them. It shows the chip blurring out an aggressively barking dog in a similar way to the effect in Figure 2. The sound of the barking is also muffled, so she is unbothered by the dog and safely continues her way to school. She is shielded from a possibly traumatic experience, which is the reason why some parents might instinctively use a technology like this. Any parent watching the episode may recognize themselves in Marie who uses all means to protect her child. However, it later goes on to show how the same censor-technology can also be

detrimental in certain situations. Now it may seem unrealistic since this is a fictional futuristic device, though it symbolizes how a child would not understand certain situations if they are always safeguarded from them.

Padilla-Walker and Nelson also illustrate this issue when they argue that this type of overprotection “may inhibit children’s ability to develop the skills and abilities needed to act on one’s own,” (1187) and “is particularly harmful in the development of a child’s

psychological self” (1180). It premediates the fear of technology undermining the mental development of children through over-censoring, especially when the censoring is done by a technology that takes over the censoring duty from the parents. As reviewer Sophie Gilbert states in her review on “Arkangel” for The Atlantic, “parents who deny their children the freedom to experiment will end up losing them” (Gilbert). That may seem like a very extreme comment, but in this case, it perfectly illustrates the way the episode tries to premediate this message; by making confronting parents with the worst that could happen either with future technologies or current technologies that are already leaning towards what “Arkangel” displays.

1.4 AESTHETICS

The fusion of future and today in the episode strengthens the message as it becomes more relatable and easily comparable to currently available technologies (e.g. internet

‘filters’, the V-Chip, tracking devices, etc.). The aesthetics of the episode support this fusion, for the imagery is not overly futuristic and set in a neighborhood that looks very

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technologies they use, though they are not unrealistically futuristic. The concept may be ‘futuristic’ but the look of the tablet used to control the chip, for example, looks exactly like any tablet one could be using nowadays (Figure 3).

Figure 3 Marie using the "Arkangel” tablet from "Arkangel"

https://www.netflix.com/watch/80131566?trackId=200257859

The clear reasoning behind this is to create a recognition with the images, which becomes increasingly eerie as the plot worsens. The recognizability of the images causes the shock of the negative outcome to ‘hit closer to home’, which consequently evokes a more intense affective reaction that sparks doubt about current technologies comparable to “Arkangel”. Gilbert observers that the low-fi aesthetic displays an unnerving familiarity with the imagery used in “Arkangel” (Gilbert). The ‘low-fi’ aesthetic she mentions is what creates a more real and less ‘expensive’ look that makes a more familiar impression of human life rather than using expensive shots and effects to create an extraordinary and show-stopping picture. This low-fi look makes everything seem very ordinary, which would be detrimental to the quality of a major blockbuster movie but creates the desired recognizability in the case of

“Arkangel”. In a way, by ‘weakening’ the complexity of the aesthetic and making it very understated, there is more room for the plot and its message to be strengthened. This understated look also translates to the setting of the episode.

The town or city the story is set in is never named and has no identifiable landmarks that set it apart from other towns or cities. Gilbert sees this as being “deliberately muted, set in a nondescript EveryTown USA rather than […] shiny, isolated glass mansions” (Gilbert). The muted EveryTown is another choice made to create a look that could be anywhere, again making it recognizable and possibly ‘literally’ close to home. The bleakness of the episode and the issue it raises is premediated in a way that a viewer can almost imagine themselves or someone else in the same situation. By being more muted, the episode speaks louder than it

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would have if it was not visually muted. Even though the aesthetics are not spectacular, they are strong in their simplicity and ordinariness. This shows how aesthetics can strengthen a series premediative qualities to a great degree, which “Arkangel” is a clear example of. Through its aesthetics this episode strengthens its premediative critique on parental control through technological censorship and surveillance by not having a specific place or time, so that it becomes an issue for every place, every time, and everyone. By creating a nondescript town and having technological devices similar to the ones people currently use, connections between our world and the world of “Arkangel” can be made easily. For this exact reason the episode premediates the distressing nature of these fictional technologies that are grounded in technologies that are already available to anyone.

This is thus how the episode premediates the dangerously ambivalent nature of parental control. Just like Black Mirror in general, the criticism is not just on the technologies or on the people; it demonstrates a critique of both. Parents’ choice to monitor and control their children adversely affect them, as they are shielded from the difficulties in real life. This parental behavior can lead to rebellious behavior. In the episode this is shown through Sara becoming more and more interested in the threats her mother is keeping her from. This choice is made with the best intentions, but could have the opposite effect if it is taken too far.

Technology is one of the things that enables these parents to take their level of overprotective control too far. The Arkangel technology enables Marie to, concurring to the concept of ‘mobile privatization’, monitor her child from her home on top of being able to censor any possibly threatening imagery or sound. The combination of human behavior and the controlling power technology enables is what invites overprotection, which, in turn, can decrease the development of the child. The commonplace and low-fi aesthetic “Arkangel” strengthens the dystopian future it premediates. As Grusin explains, premediation of the future asks for the remediation of current and past issues that are similar (Grusin 8). By showing an eerily impending dystopia about extreme parental control technologies, “Arkangel” controls the present from this possible future threat.

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CHAPTER 2: “NOSEDIVE”, PUBLIC APPROVAL, AND ANTI-SOCIAL MEDIA

2.1 “NOSEDIVE”

Since Black Mirror is an anthology series there is no clear coherence between the episodes and their respective themes. Therefore, this episode is not about the same

technological fear as “Arkangel”. “Nosedive”, the first episode of the third season, is very different in both story and style. The only similarities between this episode and “Arkangel” is that they turn their respective issues into something horrific, which then creates an eerie connection to modern day technologies that we already use.

The episode follows a woman named Lacie (played by Bryce Dallas Howard) in a near future where the ratings they get on social media actually affect their social status in real life. As these ratings are crucial, Lacie is preoccupied with making sure people give her high ratings. People have technologies such as phones, tablets, and eye implants to share their daily lives and use the same technologies to rate others. Even one-on-one interactions can be rated, which consequently affects their total ‘score’. Lacie is even seen practicing her interactions and laugh in the mirror, to make sure people give her high ratings. She is seeking to live in a more comfortable apartment but needs a score of 4.5 to achieve a discount for the place she has her eye on. A suggestion is made that she needs people with high ranks to rate her 5 stars to make her current rank of 4.2 grow to 4.5 or more. She digs up an old teddy bear she made with a friend who now has a high score and posts a picture of it. Through this her friend contacts her and asks her to be her maid of honor, which Lacie sees as a great opportunity to enhance her rating. She even practices fake crying, so she can use it as a tool to gain

sympathy during her speech. After a fight with her brother, who does not care about the fake interactions and consequent rating, she misses her taxi and is given a low score by the driver. She comes to find out that her flight is cancelled and that she cannot afford a transfer with her current score. She gets angry to which security drags her away and gives her a penalty that takes one whole point off her total score for 24 hours as well as increasing the impact of any future low ratings by others. Due to the deducted points she can only afford to rent an old car, which breaks down and causes her to hitch a ride with a woman that has an extremely low score. As they get to talking the woman tells her that she and her husband once had an extremely high score, but not high enough for her husband to be chosen for a cancer

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Lacie gets a call from her friend telling her not to come due to her currently low rating, which causes Lacie to be furious and go to the wedding to give her a piece of mind. She gives an aggressive and emotional speech with a knife in her hands to keep the guards away, but everyone at the wedding scores her so negatively that she reaches a score of zero. This results in her being locked up in prison. She even gets into a cursing war with a man in a cell across from her without any worries or consequences regarding ratings.

In “Nosedive” the technology that allows for this dystopian future seems to be an exaggerated version of current social media. On Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram, for

example, people share their daily activities, which peers then decide to like or not to like. The YouTube platform even enables users to dislike content. Likes and followers are an

increasingly crucial part of the lives of this generation and generations to come. As a result there is a lot of (social) anxiety surrounding social media and its connection social status. This episode of Black Mirror sets out to display a future society that may be the result of the increasing importance of online status. There is a reason why my friend’s friend decided to deactivate his Facebook account after watching “Nosedive”. Before discussing the effect of the episode, the following subchapter will first look at the fear of social media in general.

2.2 PUBLIC APPROVAL AND ANTI-SOCIAL MEDIA

Technology has enabled us to be able to socialize with others regardless of time and space, which initially does not seem particularly harmful. Nowadays, one can be social without any other people actually being around. This also allows for people to construct their own online identity in a way, for when no one is around it is easy to put up a front or

selectively share only one’s best moments with peers. These ‘status updates’ can ironically determine a person’s social status and can therefore boost or lessen their confidence. Patti M. Valkenburg, Jochen Peter, and Alexander P. Schouten researched adolescents’ well-being and self-esteem issues as a result of these online social platforms. They claim that, especially during adolescence, people “tend to overestimate the extent to which other are watching and evaluating and, as a result, can be extremely preoccupied with how they appear in the eyes of others” (585). Social media technologies particularly strengthen this as it gives people more ways to construct a view of how they want to be perceived. It also includes the idea that there is peer pressure to have accounts on these platforms. Valkenburg, Peter, and Schouten argue that social self-esteem causes a particular effect on a person’s well-being, which means that

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self-esteem is a major part of someone’s general happiness (585). Their research has a strong focus on this relationship and analyzes it by taking into account the effect of the amount of relationships formed on these platforms, the amount of reactions people may get on their pictures and posts, and the negative or positive tone of these reactions on adolescents’ self-esteem and consequential well-being (586). This analysis seems highly plausible, for the number of friends and likes may indicate higher self-esteem and consequential happiness. This would also mean that, on the other hand, negative exchanges on these public platforms may have an opposing effect on someone’s confidence (Valkenburg, Peter, and Schouten 586).

The fact that all this happens in a public medium also indicates that everyone can see these interactions, which likely puts a certain amount of pressure on individuals who deem the amount of reactions and connections to be significant. This has to do with how a large amount of (in this case) adolescents care about how they present themselves in others’ eyes. Therefore Valkenburg, Peter, and Schouten also found that “users of social networking sites are quite able to learn how to optimize their self-presentation through their profiles” (589). According to them, the focus with these technologies lies more on self-presentation and the tone of the reactions and connections rather than the number of friends, followers, likes, or reactions (589).

However, it also seems plausible that a large number of followers, friends, and likes indicates a certain amount of popularity that many would strive for. The idea of status cannot be disregarded, for this may also be an important variable in shaping a person’s

self-confidence and related contentment. Negative or positive comments on a profile or picture may be a more direct cause of change in someone’s social self-esteem. The number of followers or friends and the frequency of responses, however, definitely amount to self-esteem as well. Large amounts of followers, friends, and feedback equal a large amount of popularity and possible higher status in social circles. Mark D. Holder and Ben Coleman would agree with this statement, for they analyzed popularity’s relation to happiness and claim that, in both children and adults, “status relative to [someone’s] peers is positively correlated with well-being” (281). This is taken from, for example, the notion that suicidality among adolescents is often associated with a lower level of popularity, but also how bullied children tend to be less popular and less happy (Holder and Coleman 281). This can then be connected to the idea of cyberbullying as well, which means that online bullying may also tend to be exercised towards less popular users. Holder and Coleman found that attractive

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children are often thought to be more popular (281). This translates to online popularity as well, however in the online sphere it is based on how a person presents themselves on their profile.

As mentioned before, users of these technologies can easily manipulate the way people think about them through shaping their personal image into how they want to be seen by others and grow in popularity. Popularity in itself can be seen as an affirmation of positive characteristics of a person. This means that the number of friends, followers, and likes would be a pronouncement of the same positive effect as the positive reactions on one’s profile. Popularity could, in this case, equal the idea that someone has successfully created their online image. As claimed before this popularity can also signify influence, which leads to the idea that the feedback does not necessarily have to be positive.

Some likes and comments may definitely be a sign of appreciation, but in other cases popularity has more to do with attention and influence. For example, it is easier to leave positive feedback on a selfie, rather than a post about a controversial political debate. If a post like that reaches a lot of people, it does show a great amount of online popularity, however it does not mean the person who created the post is appreciated on a personal level. Therefore, this type of online popularity may not directly lead to someone feeling appreciated through positive feedback in the form of flattery. It may rather lead to the person’s image as based solely on the debate and not on themselves. It may even lead to them creating a more controversial online image, which is not necessarily positive and may cause people to yearn for the more positive and appreciative response.

The issue that technologies such as Facebook and Instagram create is that rejection, acceptance, and consequential popularity become statistics that are visible to the public. This may be one of the reasons why Holder and Coleman found students who valued personal image and the accessory popularity “spent more time being unhappy, had lower levels of general happiness, and spent less time being happy” (281). Ironically, the amount of time spent on popularity may result in eventual unhappiness. In the case of the technological development of social media, this may be strengthened even more because the platforms are fundamentally based on putting out one’s personal image. On top of that, popularity can now be measured extremely easily through the use of the publicly available numbers of likes, followers, friends, and reactions. Even though Holder and Coleman did not specify offline from online popularity, it can still be said that in both cases the issues can be traced back to a fear of social rejection (297).

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When regarding modern society and the concept of portable technologies, social media can be accessed anywhere and anytime and on any device. This generation’s children are already growing up accustomed to these devices and social media. Amanda Lenhart, Kristen Purcell, Aaron Smith, and Kathryn Zickuhr analyzed social media and mobile internet use among young adults and teens and found that, whereas 55% of American teens used social networking sites in 2006, in 2010 this had already increased to be 76% of teens (2). On top of that, they also found that, in 2010, “three-quarters (75%) of teens and 93% of adults ages 18-29 […] have a cell phone” (3). Cell phones now are even more developed, since they became ‘smarter’. Now, everyone can check their Facebook or Instagram anytime they want. The sheer amount of people that own smart phones and are able to update their profiles whenever they desire can be seen as peer pressure. This may not directly seem like a negative kind of pressure, but many users may claim they started using social media because all their friends were using social media too.

According to Katerina Lup, Leora Trub, and Lisa Rosenthal there even are distinctions between active and passive use of social media, as “there is evidence of both positive and negative consequences of social networking for well-being, with passive use in particular being linked to negative consequences” (248). They claim that “passively looking at others’ profiles displaying photos of vacations or social event to which one was not invited often triggers resentment, envy, and loneliness” (248). This can not only be lead back to a fear of rejection, but also to a concern often referred to as the ‘fear of missing out’. What more can people without social media or online popularity be missing out on?

Social media has grown so much it can now even be regarded as a career opportunity for some. There are many companies with social media accounts and since this is a very universal medium of communication they use it to their advantage to advertise their products. Companies on Instagram, for example, recruit users with a lot of followers to promote their products to their followers and peers. These users are paid and receive free products, which is in indicator of online popularity defining some sort of rank; popular Instagram users get more advantages than unpopular users. The commercialization of social media profiles leads to the financialization of that person’s image or lifestyle. This financialization happens after a person has created an image, which means that said person can ‘choose’ the lifestyle or image they want to make money with. This idea of being able to financially benefit from one’s online presence can then also be seen as yet another reason for people to strive for online popularity. Instagram eliminates the ‘friend’ category and replaces it with ‘followers’, which

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means that the people one follows do not have to be actual acquaintances. To gain followers, some people make use of hashtags; categories through which strangers can find others’ pictures related to that category.

Alice E. Marwick, who analyzed ‘Instafame’, claims that, “while the most followed users are primarily celebrities […] to many Instagram users, gathering thousands, or even hundreds, of followers can be a motivating force” (137). She calls this microcelebrities, which can be categorized as a rank under ‘regular’ celebrities. Marwick continues this thought by uttering that this allows for ‘niche celebrities’ to reach their audience through ‘self-branding’ on Instagram (140). This brings up the idea of self-presentation again, but this time as a “strategy that requires viewing oneself as a consumer product and selling this image to others” (Marwick 140). These microcelebrities are seen as successful Instagram users, who, through their ‘Instafame’, are able to enjoy the benefits of free products and job opportunities. The lives of these people seem exciting and careless, however, just like other users, they go through a process of selecting their finest moments to share. Lup, Trub, and Rosenthal agree with this view as they claim that the “image-driven nature of Instagram encourages

presentation of only the most positive and polished characterization of one’s life” (248). This could then end in the person being negatively affected, because they assume “that these photos are indicative of how the people in them actually live” (248). This negative affect is described to come from “the nonreciprocal and public nature of sharing enhanced photos on Instagram [that] may represent a combination of features likely to trigger negative feelings about the self, particularly for users that follow large numbers of strangers” (248).

In conclusion, this can then be tied to the previously discussed self-image, for

comparing one’s own life to a successful Instagram user can create insecure feelings about the self. Popularity also seems to be a recurring issue on social media technologies. Jolene

Zywica and James Danowski distinct some differences within this online popularity for they utter that “some interpret popularity to mean ‘widely liked,’ or accepted by one’s peer group members [while] others see it as being ‘socially dominant’” (2). They connect the idea of popularity to the fear of rejection and accessory self-confidence by showing how social networking sites become media of enhancing one’s status in order to become (more) self-confident and popular (5). This becomes an even bigger issue for, as Marwick adds, “social media allows ‘average people’ to reach the broad audiences once available only to those with access to broadcast media” (157). Successfully reaching that audience, public number of followers, likes, comments, and friends means that they successfully augmented their personal

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image and became more popular. Through this they may therefore even gain certain advantages from companies that use their popularity as an advertising strategy.

Though people who highly value their online image and popularity may be less happy, this generation is accustomed to these new technologies. Their ever-presence and the concept of online status may seem like an effective way to combat the fear of rejection by peers or the fear of being a ‘nobody’. In addition to the fear of rejection some may also create social media accounts out of the fear of missing out; another peer-related issue. This may be the same fear that causes people to be affected negatively when they see pictures of an event they were not invited to. Thus, it can be said that social media technologies give more reasons for people to fear being insignificant or rejected by peers, which is why the sheer number of friends, followers, likes, and comments can help someone feel more confident about that. The public nature of these statistics allows for people to compare themselves to others in detail, which is why popularity becomes a sign of success, significance, and rank. The same technologies even allow for people with a large following to benefit from the opportunities their high social media status has enabled. This, in turn, pushes people to strive for the same popularity as well as being negatively affected by comparing more popular people to

themselves. They may, however, not notice the artificiality of these peoples’ online ‘lives’ and how social media make people search for validation through social media and therefore becoming focused on the self and self-presentation rather than the social aspects of the technologies.

2.3 “NOSEDIVE” PREMEDIATING FEAR

This particular episode of Black Mirror mocks modern day society’s obsession with social media status. Since people have become very accustomed to social media and its usage, they may not realize the inner workings and previously discussed issues with the

technologies. Criticizing through mocking makes more room for comedic elements in contrast to episodes like “Arkangel” that are inherently dark. Satire may, in this case, be a smart decision to create an underlying layer of eeriness through which the problems with social media surface.

As discussed before, social media allows for people to construct their own self-image in a way that makes them more self-confident. They are called social media, yet the self seems to have become more important than the social part of the technologies. That is one of

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the things “Nosedive” is trying to get at. Everyone in the episode is shown looking down at their devices instead of looking at each other. Interactions also become more about the self than about the other, which premediated through scenes of insincere encounters. An example of this is how Lacie practices her laugh in front of the mirror, so her self-image is more likable in meetings with others. When she meets an acquaintance in the elevator to work, it becomes clear how self-centered social media makes people. Both Lacie and the acquaintance are excessively polite and nice to each other in order to maintain a high social score and likeability (Figure 4).

Figure 4 Lacie and Bethany having a friendly conversation from "Nosedive"

https://www.netflix.com/title/70264888

After the encounter, however, their faces immediately revert to a soberer and almost unhappy state (Figure 5). This can be related to how, for example, Instagram personalities are artificial in that they only tend to show pictures of positive moments, as those are the more lucrative than reality.

Figure 5 Lacie's face after being friendly from "Nosedive"

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This is what they go through to make sure the other person gives them a five-star rating. This is exactly what Valkenburg, Peter, and Schouten meant when they claimed that, in today’s society, social media users are highly capable to augment their self-image (589). Instead of the number of positive reactions on a social media profile, “Nosedive” shows a similar rating system that enables anyone to access these statistics as well. Having a low score in

“Nosedive” would mean that one would be rejected from society, which is shown by Lacie ending up in jail after getting to a score of zero. As Holder and Coleman’s proved, the

rejection of peers in modern day society is surely related to a person’s happiness (297). Black Mirror premediates this fear of rejection to focus the audience’s attention on the unnerving similarity of “Nosedive” to current society. Through the dark satirical message, the audience may realize how much people already are obsessed with likes, followers, and their online self-presentation. For this reason, the episode’s fictive dystopian future has close ties to current technologies and the way they are used. Gilbert, who reviewed this episode of Black Mirror as well as “Arkangel”, states that “Nosedive” “aims squarely at the anxiety stoked by a

modern obsession with quantification” (Gilbert). Lacie does not want to be rejected by society and her peers, so she obsesses over her score and putting out a perfect self-image to increase it.

To do this Lacie, and the other characters who value their ranking, overstress their compliments and positive attitude towards others hoping they will do the same. Not only does this show the peer-pressure issue in which everyone pushes each other into being that way online it also shows how social media can be a façade. Façade meaning that people create a digital image of themselves that may not specifically be how they behave in the real world. “Nosedive” then exaggerates this to a level where technology and social media have taken over peoples’ daily lives even more than they currently already have. This causes the people in the episode to show this crafted image of themselves constantly, for they have almost become these exaggeratedly positive versions of themselves or at least act that way. The episode therefore takes the existing idea of ‘liking’ and transforms it into a dystopia where these ratings become a real-time experience instead of being more distant to real life. Even though the importance and the merging of social media and real life is exaggerated, the viewer may still realize how social media already have an enormous influence on many people’s lives. It premediates the fear that social media may become so important to people and their social status that it takes over their life.

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