In Fiction
Broadcast signal intrusion is used as a plot device in many genres of fiction. Common fictional usages of the act include the depictions of technologically advanced space aliens or countercultural figures hijacking broadcast media in order to easily spread their messages to the general population, notably in the 2006 film V for Vendetta, where it served as a major plot device. The opening sequence to the science-fiction series The Outer Limits claimed to be another example, with its famous line, "Do not attempt to adjust your television set...We are controlling the transmission." Outer Limits was also featured in the movie "Hackers (film)", which told the story of a team of fictional teenage hackers fighting a criminal mastermind. In parody (such as the 1980 theatrical films Used Cars and Simon, and "Weird Al" Yankovic's 1989 film UHF), broadcast interception may be used to comic effect as a tool to discredit on-air broadcast personalities by interrupting them with rebuttal or simply as a means to broadcast nonsense in place of mainstream programming.
In the 2011 Doctor Who episode "Day of the Moon", The Doctor helps humanity defeat an alien occupation by The Silence. Humans cannot retain any memories of The Silence, except for post-hypnotic suggestions being used to control human history. The Doctor hijacks the live feed from Apollo 11. A video clip of an injured Silent claiming "You should kill us all on sight" appeared during Neil Armstrong's first steps on the Moon, between the lines "One small step for man" and "One giant leap for mankind".
Broadcast intrusion is also one of plotdevices in Dark Angel TV Series, where one of characters, under pseudonym of Eyes Only hijacks TV broadcasts to deliver real news to the people instead of usual propaganda.
Read more about this topic: Broadcast Signal Intrusion
Famous quotes containing the word fiction:
“A reader who quarrels with postulates, who dislikes Hamlet because he does not believe that there are ghosts or that people speak in pentameters, clearly has no business in literature. He cannot distinguish fiction from fact, and belongs in the same category as the people who send cheques to radio stations for the relief of suffering heroines in soap operas.”
—Northrop Frye (b. 1912)
“Given that external reality is a fiction, the writer’s role is almost superfluous. He does not need to invent the fiction because it is already there.”
—J.G. (James Graham)