Liveness

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Revision as of 16:58, 25 April 2010 by Aletheajoy (Talk | contribs) (Background)

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The quality or condition (of an event, performance, etc.) of being heard, watched, or broadcast at the time of occurrence.

There are two aspects of liveness: temporal and spatial, i.e. experiencing while it happens vs. being where it happens. Liveness can thus apply to the concept of being seated in the same theater as a production of a play, or watching a sporting event taking place on the other side of the country. The definition above, offered by the Oxford English Dictionary, focuses more on the temporal, however the two are in many ways intertwined. The idea of being in the same place at the same time as the production of a communication message is growing increasingly antiquated. While it could be argued that day-to-day interactions are also losing their liveness (consider self check-out lines and the ease of ordering things on the internet), it is constructed, performance-oriented activities that are most affected.

Background

Death of the Live

Television: A Case Study in the Death of Liveness

Reappropriating Liveness