Spin reveals how U.S. television is used to silence public debate, further intolerance of people outside the frame of mainstream media, and create political capital out of citizen's struggles for rights. Spin moves through the L.A. rebellion and the floating TV talk show called the 1992 U.S. presidential election with important lessons for 1996.
Spin exposes the illusions of television through the use of satellite TV feed. These feeds are unscrambled and accessible to over 3 1/2 million home satellite dish owners across North America. Often these feeds show TV personalities in front of cameras with open microphones as they wait to appear on network TV and again during commercial breaks. Sometimes the feeds reveal a politician chatting with a spin doctor or a TV personality candidly discussing an issue without the lustre of on-camera control.
Spin is an experiment by Brian Springer, who spent 1992 watching satellite feeds. Springer recorded over 600 hours of on and off air material, examining the presidential election year and the events which framed it. Springer, who narrates Spin, shares the results of this experiment, one TV viewer to another.