Friday, February 08, 2008

Are Moldovan VIPs Really Very Important?

Today I came across an article about something I, too, have been pondering lately, namely a relatively recent fashion of identifying and ranking Moldovan VIPs, practiced by local mass media outlets. In this article, Vadim Tataru of the Civic Action wonders whether such ratings, instead of acknowledging real achievements and performance, in fact manipulate public opinion by creating the illusion that the shortlisted individuals are indeed very important and influential people in the Moldovan society.

Vadim Tataru's article describes the methodology which must be employed if the intended result is a credible and reliable VIP rating. Instead of using a sociologically-sound methodology, Moldovan media outlets tend to use rummors, cliches and unverified information as basis for their ratings. As a result, VIP ratings feature individuals of questionable influence such as singers Cleopatra and Pavel Stratan, but fail to include truly influential people such as the trainer of the national football team, Igor Dobrovolski.

Although a number of media try out such ratings, the most assertive is the local VIP Magazin with a flattering motto: "The magazine of famous people". Every Sunday afternoon there is a VIP Magazin program on ProTV featuring various people from politics, business, media, culture, etc. I actually don't mind reading and watching these people talk about their lives and careers as most of them are interesting. What I do mind, however, is their random labeling as a VIP, which in my understanding should be a person of outstanding achievement and significant positive influence on the development of the society. Unless a mass-media outlet can afford to use a scientifically-sound methodology properly, any half-way attempt is bound to result in a dishonorable exercise of public manipulation.

P.S. After having posted this, I found another ongoing online rating. This time the online magazine LadyClub.md wishes to identify the degree of sexiness of 18 Moldovan politicians. By the way, many of these people are among Moldovan VIPs.

Comments:

Tom , February 08, 2008  

Welcome to celebrity gossip culture. The next step is the Paris Hilton phenomena, people who don't actually do anything and are famous just for being famous.

I do think there is something in human nature that this fulfills. Chimpanzees meticulously observe and keep track of the social hierarchy of their group. The #1 male had a baby with the #2 female but is spending a lot of time grooming the #3 female which makes the #4 male upset. The ability to do this is considered one of the driving forces in the evolution of larger brains. Human primates live in much larger groups and can no longer directly observe everyone, but still instinctually want to do something like this.

isha , November 24, 2008  

Hi,
You are right but I think it's not a proper way to be famous.

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simon
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bathmate mateus , December 18, 2009  

Moderate posting....Need to be more informative.....
I hope this blog will do better in next time.

Bathmate