Tuesday night, my husband and I were glued to our new HDTV, channel surfing between MSNBC, CNN, and PBS. I cover science and technology and since April had been talking with computer science experts about voting systems. My sources were deeply concerned about potential electronic voting machine problems and Internet voting in particular. They said voters registered in Florida but living abroad would be using insecure kiosks to cast their votes. Every time Florida’s district map was shown, I flinched.
At 7 pm, we glimpsed the holographic likeness of Jessica Yellin, which had been electronically transmitted from her beat, Chicago’s Grant Park. It was fascinating and spooky. After Wolfe Blitzer interviewed her about the crowd assembled there, he asked: “How excited are you, Jessica, that…you’re the first one that we’ve beamed into the CNN Election Center?” Yellin replied, “I know. It’s like I follow in the tradition of Princess Leia.” She was really in a tent where engineers had spent three weeks setting up the equipment.
We baby-boomers turned to each other and wondered simultaneously whether Yellin is too young to associate the technology with Star Trek, the late 1960s TV show that fellow boomer Blitzer had just referenced. Instead, she cited a Star Wars character. Then she very ably explained how the technological feat was accomplished. “There are 35 high-definition cameras ringing me…I’m in the center. And they shoot my body at different angles, and I’m told that transmits what looks like an entire body image back there to New York. These cameras, I’m told, talk to the cameras in New York, so they move and they know when to move when the cameras in New York move.” We were riveted as I’m sure so many others were. Here’s the link in case you missed it.
A few hours later, CNN showcased the technology again, this time “beaming up,” rapper Will.I.Am., the artist who made a “Yes We Can” video in support of Obama. Anderson Cooper stated one motivation for the hologram was that it allowed them to converse without roaring crowds making it hard to hear. A friend who is in her 70s called moments later and raved about this amazing technological feat.
According to today’s The Washington Post, 13.3 million people were watching, which was not only the biggest audience in CNN’s 28-year history, but also marks the first time the cable network made a clean sweep of all the broadcast and cable networks on election night.
Yesterday, The Huffington Post featured the event but lots of people blogged that the hologram was gimmicky. Others extolled it. And it turns out that the flickering blue edges seen around Yellin and Will.I.Am were added to make them look a little more like sci fi characters. The Washington Post reported that CNN’s senior vice president and Washington bureau chief David Bohrman, who masterminded the “hologram moment” admitted this. He wanted Yellin to look a little less like Cokie Roberts in a trench coat over her evening dress pretending to be standing in front of the Capitol.
And even though the CNN executive said the hologram is useful when an anchor is conducting a more intimate conversation, the correspondent or source must be removed from the distracting crowd anyway and put in the tent studio.
I’m of two minds about this. On the one hand, I applaud CNN’s use of a holography. I’d known of the technology for decades because my physics professor at Hampshire College showed me examples of it. I remember seeing a shimmering red cannon in the center of a curved column of film. As he explained how the image was created, I tried to touch the apparition of the weapon.
In graduate school (Boston University’s Science Communication journalism program), I had to come up with a final project for my technology assessment class. I begged the curator of the now-defunct Museum of Holography here in New York to let me see back issues of his newsletter. This was in the 1980s and I think he knew then that the museum would close. He explained that the technology was expensive and there did not seem to be viable applications. The closest I came to an assessment of holography was supermarket scanners, which have lasers that read bar codes on products swiped by at any angle.
And yet, I object to CNN enhancing the edges of the hologram images. What’s wrong with looking like a reporter out in the field? Why should technology be used to glam them up? Isn’t the public unfamiliar enough with what reporters do to get their stories?
On the other hand, look at the discussion this TV-first has engendered. Now a huge lay audience of all ages knows holograms exist and the curious will want to know more. So this could be an opportunity to educate the public about how they are made––applied science.
What do you think? Was the hologram just a way to wow viewers––another blurring of the line between news and entertainment? Or was it a celebration of what American ingenuity can do? Or something in between? Send me your thoughts.
Tags: holograms
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