FIAT/IFTA World Conference 2024

It is by now widely acknowledged among scholars that television as a medium played a pivotal role in the unfolding of the Romanian Revolution of 1989. This assertion is commonly understood to highlight the significance of the Romanian Revolution as a historical event that was broadcast in real-time, thus marking the inauguration of a new era in the history of media. It also implies the gradual change of status of the Romanian Television as an institution during those days, from catalyst of popular discontent to agent of large-scale manipulation.

This paper will thus be developed around two axis. The first one will posit that the symbolic supremacy of the Revolution among neighbouring countries and its endurance over time predominantly rely on the creation of the creation of what Cahiers du cinéma film critics Serge Daney and Serge Toubiana referred to as “trademark images” – convenient clichés which “prevent any other image from being seen” (no. 268-269), while helping to create an easily recognisable, sellable image of the event. By examining theoretical frameworks proposed by Traverso or Siani-Davies, this first axis will uncover those sequences that conform to a sensationalist revolutionary imagery.

The second axis will provide a corrective to this reading. It will highlight precisely those images which do not conform to preconceived schemes. It will aim to show both the occurrences in which the newly liberated television attempted to incorporate the democratic regime into its audiovisual treatment (a more egalitarian distribution of speeches, panoramic movements showing the personnel behind cameras, etc.) and those that depict the revolution as a site of hesitancy, confusion, and mistakes – in short, as an authentic bearer of contradictory possibilities for the future. The complexity of the event will emerge according to the capabilities of live broadcasting within a nascent free television, providing a valuable lesson of reportage for generations to come.