The Goodness of Banality – Sonnevend on How Global Iconic Events Are Born
Why do certain events become globally iconic happenings in history, while others fade into oblivion? How does the fall of the Berlin wall serve as an example of the complex process of storytelling and mythmaking? These themes are in the focus of non-resident CMDS fellow, Julia Sonnevend’s new book, Stories Without Borders: The Berlin Wall and the Making of a Global Iconic Event. The Center hosted a lecture by Julia on the occasion of the launch of the book with the participation of Oksana Sarkisova, who introduced Julia and her book, and Katalin Orban, who offered a brief response after Julia’s talk.
As Sarkisova highlighted in her introduction, the research into the increased impact of media events and how complex social happenings are translated into media events are more relevant than ever, as it can be seen from two very recent happenings: the US election and the refugee crisis. Julia Sonnevend began her talk by telling the audience how she got interested in her research topic, which was surprisingly prompted by a visit to Legoland in Berlin, where a mini replica of the wall is exhibited and just by pushing a button, visitors can destroy and rebuild it in a matter of seconds. It made Sonnevend wonder what comes to be known and seen as a global iconic event, and she decided to build her book around the five stages of the storytelling and mythmaking process of such events: foundation, mythologization, condensation, counter-narration and remediation.
“There was no Berlin wall and it never fell” – argues Sonnevend in her book and during her lecture, she demonstrated almost minute by minute how the reality of the “fall of the Berlin wall” differed from the myth that was eventually born on its foundations and the social storytelling needs it had to fulfil. She presented how a series of misunderstandings, “unapproved” or improvised individual decisions, lack of clarity and communication led to the essentially accidental announcement of the fall of the Berlin wall, and how the international media then created what’s come to be seen as a global iconic event, through the process of condensation, starting with a simple phrase (the fall of the Berlin wall) and combining it with a short narrative (end of division, freedom) and a recognizable visual scene (the Brandenburg gate that in fact did not open straight away, only weeks later).
Sonnevend also analysed the recent re-enactments of the fall of the Berlin wall and its significance or relevance in today’s digitally dominated media landscape, where for example a hashtag on Twitter had to be blocked within days in China as more than 40 percent of the tweets wished for the destruction of the “great firewall of China”. As for the limitations of the power global iconic events can exert as historical symbols of ideologies, Sonnevend did not fail to draw attention to the fact that there are in fact more separation walls in the world now than there were in 1989, and the theme of building walls served as a key element in the recent US presidential campaign as well.
In her response, Katalin Orban praised the book’s clear, accessible style, suggesting that it may be one of those rare cases when an academic book could reach larger audiences being a kind of crossover book. She emphasized that Sonnevend’s book is remarkably optimistic in spite of recent global events and trends that would call for pessimism, it offers adaptable dimensions for identifying and describing global events, and a digestible descriptive anatomy of the creation and endurance of global social myths.
The Center also interviewed Julia Sonnevend prior to her lecture for the CMDS Media & Change podcast series, which you can listen to here.