The Internet as a form of media can be described in terms of the media dependency theory, as described by a number of researchers. This theory posits that “the more dependent an individual is on the media for having his or her needs fulfilled, the more important the media will be to that person” (Wikibooks). This is connected to Sunstein’s observation that the proliferation of media on the Internet allows individual users to choose and filter the news they read to a strong extent, filtering out information that does not meet their current views. Sunstein posits that the individual design of information access inhibits the use of the Internet as a public forum because it does not provide an opportunity for views to come into conflict. With a development of high Internet media dependency the reduction of public discourse could take place.
I believe that it is to some extent true that individual users can filter the information that they view on “their” internet. However, an individual with high media dependency will have links into a number of different viewpoints, due to the nature of the Web. Because individuals link things in such a way that it does not regard how others see the connections, it is likely that users will be exposed to different points of view regardless of their personal preferences. In effect, this is no different than choosing what newspaper to read depending on how much you like its views.
A media example of intersecting opinions that are not filtered on the Internet is Jon Stewart’s interview with Jim Kramer that occurred a few weeks ago. This video provided two different viewpoints of the financial crisis from individuals that represent starkly different points of view, and represents a dialectic discussion that led to formaiton of public attitudes across a range of public opinions.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xt-fb7IQ4Ko
Works Cited
Sunstein, Cass R. The Daily We: Is the Internet Really a Blessing for Democracy? 2001.
24 March 2009 http://www.bostonreview.net/BR26.3/sunstein.html.
The Daily Show. YouTube- Stewart and Cramer Face Off. 13 March 2009. 24 March
2009 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xt-fb7IQ4Ko.
Wikibooks. Communication Theory: Uses and Gratifications. 28 January 2009. 24 March 2009
http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Communication_Theory/Uses_and_Gratifications
Monday, March 30, 2009
Monday, March 23, 2009
The Web as The New Public Sphere?
The public sphere is a concept defined by Jürgen Habermas as “a virtual or imaginary community which does not necessarily exist in any identifiable space” (Soules), where private people use dialogue and assembly to create opinions and attitudes. The public sphere, which does not exist as a tangible concept, still pressures the formation and direction of democracy. The Internet provides an avenue for realization of the public sphere, according to Poor, by creating virtual spaces and communities in which public opinion and attitude can be formed using the same mechanism described by Habermas.
I believe that there is evidence that the Web provides a means of creation of a public sphere as described by Poor. Habermas’ definition of the public sphere includes universal access, autonomy, rejection of hierarchy, the rule of law, and quality of participation (Soules). These characteristics can be identified within Internet communities that are focused on public opinion and formation of dialogue and attitudes. For example, the access to the Web is nearly universal now (although older and very poor users may still be excluded), there is no clear means of enforcing hierarchy, and there is a high degree of autonomy.
One way the Web serves as a public sphere is providing a voice for political protest and formation of public opinion. One way this can be done is through the use of YouTube to distribute information and viewpoints. An example of this is the MoveOn.org YouTube video playlist, which brings together videos that support anti-war policies and drive public opinion about the political and military operations in Iraq as well as in other areas. For example, the “Betrayal of trust” series describes ways in which politicians have failed to protect the public interest,
http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=F830FD92F13887B3&playnext=1&playnext_from=PL&v=bwoORln51NI
a clear indication of the creation of a public sphere within the Internet.
Works Cited
Moveon.org. Moveon.org video playlist. 23 March 2009. 23 March 2009
http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=F830FD92F13887B3&playnext=1&playnext_from=PL&v=bwoORln51NI.
Poor, Nathaniel. "Mechanisms of an online public sphere: The website Slashdot." Journal of
Computer-Mediated Communication 10.2 (2005): Article 4. <>
Soules, Marshall. Jürgen Habermas and the Public Sphere. 2007. 23 March 2009.
I believe that there is evidence that the Web provides a means of creation of a public sphere as described by Poor. Habermas’ definition of the public sphere includes universal access, autonomy, rejection of hierarchy, the rule of law, and quality of participation (Soules). These characteristics can be identified within Internet communities that are focused on public opinion and formation of dialogue and attitudes. For example, the access to the Web is nearly universal now (although older and very poor users may still be excluded), there is no clear means of enforcing hierarchy, and there is a high degree of autonomy.
One way the Web serves as a public sphere is providing a voice for political protest and formation of public opinion. One way this can be done is through the use of YouTube to distribute information and viewpoints. An example of this is the MoveOn.org YouTube video playlist, which brings together videos that support anti-war policies and drive public opinion about the political and military operations in Iraq as well as in other areas. For example, the “Betrayal of trust” series describes ways in which politicians have failed to protect the public interest,
http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=F830FD92F13887B3&playnext=1&playnext_from=PL&v=bwoORln51NI
a clear indication of the creation of a public sphere within the Internet.
Works Cited
Moveon.org. Moveon.org video playlist. 23 March 2009. 23 March 2009
http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=F830FD92F13887B3&playnext=1&playnext_from=PL&v=bwoORln51NI.
Poor, Nathaniel. "Mechanisms of an online public sphere: The website Slashdot." Journal of
Computer-Mediated Communication 10.2 (2005): Article 4. <>
Soules, Marshall. Jürgen Habermas and the Public Sphere. 2007. 23 March 2009
Monday, March 16, 2009
Agenda Setting Theory and Narrow Perspectives of News Media
With the proliferation of the twenty-four hour cable news channels and the rise of the Internet, the news media is faster and more comprehensive than ever before. While this does not necessarily give the news media more influence now than when the masses got their news solely from newspapers or magazines, it does provide them with a greater platform and reach into the lives of their audience. While most news organizations currently operate under the auspice of objectivity, the fact remains that they are the ones deciding what is news and what is not. The agenda-setting theory explains the large influence news media outlets have on audiences by simply choosing what to report and how much attention to give to a story (“Agenda-setting theory”). This immense influence over its audience has become the subject of scrutiny by those that feel the objectivity of the news media is nothing more than an illusion fostered by the media itself.
Sociologist Herbert J. Gans, author of the 1979 book, Deciding What’s News, believes that journalists should be less concerned with the almost sanctified issue of “objectivity” and more concerned giving audiences a myriad of different perspectives in an attempt to improve society as a whole: “journalism has to be more than about the issues and problems that concern the white middle class mainstream. But multiperspectivism goes further; it also means reporting all ideas that could resolve issues and help problems, even if the ideas come from ideologically small groups” (Rosen). Gans’ hope is that journalism can encourage greater democracy in coverage, better educate the masses on political and economic issues, and facilitate more truth in reporting by emphasizing perspective over “objectivity,” which is often not objective at all.
The ideas of Gans are perhaps the best on how the news media can finally achieve the objectivity that it claims to seek, but continuously fails. Most Americans have become accustomed to getting news from organizations that make no apologies for reporting news from a decidedly narrow perspective, while claimed to be objective, fair, and balanced. The example of Fox News is perhaps the most dramatic in the past decade, with its decidedly right-wing take on the news, while proclaiming its position necessary as a counter to what it sees as an overly liberal news media. Fox News made a habit of claiming its objectivity, yet continuously failed to live up to its own ideals. Through its success, the rise of commentary shows, pundits, and other talking heads with specific agendas helped only to contribute to the great divisiveness that gripped the nation. If done under the blanket of multiperspectivism, this type of reporting would have been fine in presenting the conservative slant on the news. But, Fox News portrayed itself as an objective news outlet, misrepresenting itself and creating news stories strictly out of its own political agenda. This type of journalism is by no means objective, and helps show that objectivity is perhaps too much to ask from a news media so highly dependent upon ratings, advertising, and the politics of the corporations that own each respective outlet.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eexy-51sIao
There are few stories from the recent news that display the agenda-setting theory, as well as Gans’ ideas on subjective reporting, as the story concerning the “feud” between CNBC’s financial analyst, Jim Kramer, and The Daily Show’s Jon Stewart. Stewart criticized financial analysts on cable networks, including Kramer, for creating a circus-like atmosphere in the financial news world, which helped contribute to the easy money attitude that helped lead to the current financial crisis. Many news outlets picked up on the debate, including CNN, the origin of the clip; CNN’s Rick Sanchez shows each side of the story, with clips of Kramer defending his actions on numerous other news and entertainment shows, and clips of Stewart showing clips of Kramer and the many mistakes he made, as well as the ridiculous manner in which he made his predictions. While Stewart is a comedian and his show a satire of the news, Kramer is portrayed by himself and his station as serious financial analyst. The debate between the two became a widely reported news story illustrating the responsibility of the news media to report and represent itself honestly and accurately to its audience. It also helps illustrate Gans’ idea that openly subjective perspectives such as Stewart’s are just as valuable in creating honest discourse in the media as those that claim to strive for objectivity such as Kramer; while covertly subjective perspectives masquerading as objective are detrimental not only to the credibility of the news media, but also the political, economic, and social health of its audience.
Works Cited:
“Agenda-setting theory.” Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. 9 Mar 2009. 16 Mar 2009.
.
Rosen, Jay. “Special to PressThink: Interview With Herbert Gans, America's Senior Sociologist of News.” PressThink. 13 Jan 2004. 16 Mar 2009..
Sociologist Herbert J. Gans, author of the 1979 book, Deciding What’s News, believes that journalists should be less concerned with the almost sanctified issue of “objectivity” and more concerned giving audiences a myriad of different perspectives in an attempt to improve society as a whole: “journalism has to be more than about the issues and problems that concern the white middle class mainstream. But multiperspectivism goes further; it also means reporting all ideas that could resolve issues and help problems, even if the ideas come from ideologically small groups” (Rosen). Gans’ hope is that journalism can encourage greater democracy in coverage, better educate the masses on political and economic issues, and facilitate more truth in reporting by emphasizing perspective over “objectivity,” which is often not objective at all.
The ideas of Gans are perhaps the best on how the news media can finally achieve the objectivity that it claims to seek, but continuously fails. Most Americans have become accustomed to getting news from organizations that make no apologies for reporting news from a decidedly narrow perspective, while claimed to be objective, fair, and balanced. The example of Fox News is perhaps the most dramatic in the past decade, with its decidedly right-wing take on the news, while proclaiming its position necessary as a counter to what it sees as an overly liberal news media. Fox News made a habit of claiming its objectivity, yet continuously failed to live up to its own ideals. Through its success, the rise of commentary shows, pundits, and other talking heads with specific agendas helped only to contribute to the great divisiveness that gripped the nation. If done under the blanket of multiperspectivism, this type of reporting would have been fine in presenting the conservative slant on the news. But, Fox News portrayed itself as an objective news outlet, misrepresenting itself and creating news stories strictly out of its own political agenda. This type of journalism is by no means objective, and helps show that objectivity is perhaps too much to ask from a news media so highly dependent upon ratings, advertising, and the politics of the corporations that own each respective outlet.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eexy-51sIao
There are few stories from the recent news that display the agenda-setting theory, as well as Gans’ ideas on subjective reporting, as the story concerning the “feud” between CNBC’s financial analyst, Jim Kramer, and The Daily Show’s Jon Stewart. Stewart criticized financial analysts on cable networks, including Kramer, for creating a circus-like atmosphere in the financial news world, which helped contribute to the easy money attitude that helped lead to the current financial crisis. Many news outlets picked up on the debate, including CNN, the origin of the clip; CNN’s Rick Sanchez shows each side of the story, with clips of Kramer defending his actions on numerous other news and entertainment shows, and clips of Stewart showing clips of Kramer and the many mistakes he made, as well as the ridiculous manner in which he made his predictions. While Stewart is a comedian and his show a satire of the news, Kramer is portrayed by himself and his station as serious financial analyst. The debate between the two became a widely reported news story illustrating the responsibility of the news media to report and represent itself honestly and accurately to its audience. It also helps illustrate Gans’ idea that openly subjective perspectives such as Stewart’s are just as valuable in creating honest discourse in the media as those that claim to strive for objectivity such as Kramer; while covertly subjective perspectives masquerading as objective are detrimental not only to the credibility of the news media, but also the political, economic, and social health of its audience.
Works Cited:
“Agenda-setting theory.” Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. 9 Mar 2009. 16 Mar 2009.
Rosen, Jay. “Special to PressThink: Interview With Herbert Gans, America's Senior Sociologist of News.” PressThink. 13 Jan 2004. 16 Mar 2009.
Monday, March 9, 2009
When Everything is a Commercial.....
In Frontline’s “The MTV Machine,” a critic claims, “Everything on MTV is a commercial. That’s all MTV is. Sometimes it is an explicit advertisement paid for by a company to sell a product; sometimes it’s going to be a video for a music company, there to sell music; sometimes it’s going to be the set that’s filled with trendy clothes and stuff, there to sell a look that will include products on that set; sometimes it will be a show about an upcoming movie, paid for by the studio, though you don’t know it, to hype a movie that’s coming out from Hollywood, but everything is an infomercial. There is no noncommercial part of MTV.” This critic essentially argues that MTV’s programming content does not represent, as they claim, what kids want to see, but instead tells them what to see, buy, wear, and even how to act, making MTV the titular “merchants of cool.” The assertion is that the media machine of MTV generates, as the excerpt from the Ewen article states, not just advertising but propaganda which manipulates youth into purchasing decisions and conforming their opinions and behavior as well (Soules).
I agree that this assertion has truth in it, but it’s only true to an extent. MTV and other music channels do bombard their viewers with a highly slick, commercial format. There is no arguing the critic’s point that MTV programming is like a long infomercial. Every aspect of it is, indeed, intended to sell something, whatever that something may be. However, it all comes down to the individual. We may receive signs and symbols and urges and promises from a commercial, as we have studied, which can sway our decision-making process as consumers. But at a certain point, a person must be willing to be manipulated, particularly in the case of MTV. MTV’s programming is narrow in focus, very precisely positioned on a certain “type” of teenager, tween, and young adult. Their recognition and continued creation of this type means that the type hangs on their every programming turn, every word that their veejays and guest star event announcers utter. But a large segment of the population in that same age group does not allow MTV to sway their decision-making process, or creation of identity (myself included). While the 24-hour-a-day airing of a channel that deliberately has, as the critic says, “no noncommercial part,” seems sleazy and insidious, it is not as all-pervasive or far-reaching as the critic makes it seem.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ica0S13BTh4
In this opening clip from the 2001 film Josie and the Pussycats, a typical segment of MTV programming is parodied. A boy band emerges on the runway of their private jet and gives a performance to hordes of screaming fans. Each member of the band has an expertly crafted image designed to sell a look to several different types of consumer/fans. When they return to their jet, it is literally filled with the products they hawk for their record label as MTV stars. Their handler, Wyatt, is shown to be a domineering music advertising executive. The clip is humorous, but it also foreshadows that, through the music of the bands they promote, MTV allows a shadowy cabal to hide subliminal advertisements in the music kids are listening to. The film is an entertaining example of the opinion of the critic in the Frontline video taken to the extreme. While it is a funny satirical parody of the way modern music and videos influence young people, there is a grain of truth in it, the same grain that is true in the critic’s original complaint: MTV is one long commercial. The difference is only in what the target of the ads can do about it.
Works Cited
Soules, Marshall. “Excerpts from PR! A Social History of Spin, by Stuart Ewen.” 2007. Malaspina University-College Media Studies Department. 7 March 2009.
“The MTV Machine.” Chapter Three, “The Merchants of Cool.” Frontline. 27 February 2001. 7 March 2009.
I agree that this assertion has truth in it, but it’s only true to an extent. MTV and other music channels do bombard their viewers with a highly slick, commercial format. There is no arguing the critic’s point that MTV programming is like a long infomercial. Every aspect of it is, indeed, intended to sell something, whatever that something may be. However, it all comes down to the individual. We may receive signs and symbols and urges and promises from a commercial, as we have studied, which can sway our decision-making process as consumers. But at a certain point, a person must be willing to be manipulated, particularly in the case of MTV. MTV’s programming is narrow in focus, very precisely positioned on a certain “type” of teenager, tween, and young adult. Their recognition and continued creation of this type means that the type hangs on their every programming turn, every word that their veejays and guest star event announcers utter. But a large segment of the population in that same age group does not allow MTV to sway their decision-making process, or creation of identity (myself included). While the 24-hour-a-day airing of a channel that deliberately has, as the critic says, “no noncommercial part,” seems sleazy and insidious, it is not as all-pervasive or far-reaching as the critic makes it seem.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ica0S13BTh4
In this opening clip from the 2001 film Josie and the Pussycats, a typical segment of MTV programming is parodied. A boy band emerges on the runway of their private jet and gives a performance to hordes of screaming fans. Each member of the band has an expertly crafted image designed to sell a look to several different types of consumer/fans. When they return to their jet, it is literally filled with the products they hawk for their record label as MTV stars. Their handler, Wyatt, is shown to be a domineering music advertising executive. The clip is humorous, but it also foreshadows that, through the music of the bands they promote, MTV allows a shadowy cabal to hide subliminal advertisements in the music kids are listening to. The film is an entertaining example of the opinion of the critic in the Frontline video taken to the extreme. While it is a funny satirical parody of the way modern music and videos influence young people, there is a grain of truth in it, the same grain that is true in the critic’s original complaint: MTV is one long commercial. The difference is only in what the target of the ads can do about it.
Works Cited
Soules, Marshall. “Excerpts from PR! A Social History of Spin, by Stuart Ewen.” 2007. Malaspina University-College Media Studies Department. 7 March 2009.
“The MTV Machine.” Chapter Three, “The Merchants of Cool.” Frontline. 27 February 2001. 7 March 2009.
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