News, trust and “truthiness”

     It appears to me that after reading my fellow classmates blogs there is a general impression that satirical news reportage is equally reliable as traditional news reportage. My classmates have made many interesting points about the reliability of satirical news that I will attempt to explain to you.

     Although there has been some arguments stating that comedic news is not real news the general opinions of my classmates appear to be that not only is it real news but in some cases it is also the preferred news. As stated by Lynden Boston “I tend to like to watch the satirical programs more than the actual news because you not only get the base of what is going on but you also get a little chuckle out of the skits and the way they display the news”. I happen to agree with this statement. I also prefer to watch the more comedic programs because they are able to deliver the same information but in an entertaining way that makes you want to pay attention. Yes they may deliver less facts then the traditional news and in a much different way but it is still the same information being presented and therefore is equally as reliable as traditional news.

     Lynden was not the only classmate’s blog I read that had this opinion other classmate’s stated similar ideas. In Khalil Stemmler’s blog they stated “ satirical news reporting is a good addition to the public sphere solely if the viewer is in understanding that satirical news reporting is in fact satirical” and that it is important for the audience to understand that “whether or not you believe what is being conveyed to you is entirely your decision”. Meaning that these types of news sources our just as reliable as long as you are able to separate the comedic aspects from the facts. Sanjeet Mavi also agreed that it was a good addition to the public sphere stating “I would say that satirical news reportage is a useful addition to the public sphere because they do tend to grab the attention of the viewers and get them thinking critically about their political views or the products that they wish to buy”. The overall opinion seem to be that satirical news is just as reliable as traditional news as long as you understand the difference between the comedic aspects of the reporting the facts that they are trying to convey.

     The implications that this might have on the continued viability of our contemporary public sphere is that more people are going to be turning towards satirical news reporting and less towards the traditional factual news reporting which could lead to the elimination of traditional news altogether and the government and other important people having less control over what is being presented in the news since they can no longer censor it.

 Classmates Blogs:

http://boston94.blogspot.ca/ - Lynden Boston

http://mavisanjeet.wordpress.com/ - Sanjeet Mavi

http://khalilstemmler.wordpress.com/2013/11/20/is-the-fake-news-the-real-news/ - Khalil Stemmler

Is the fake news the real news?

     In my opinion I think that satirical reporting such as The Daily Show with Jon Stewart or the Rick Mercer report could be considered a mainstream form of culture jamming. Our textbook defines culture jamming as “a form of media activism that subverts and reworks the intended meaning of existing media texts or parodies major corporations, public figures and their media images” (O’shaughnessy, Stadler, Pg.213). Considering this definition it is extremely possible that these shows fall under the title of culture jamming. These shows are mostly considered to be parodies of the real news. They report the same or very similar stories as you would see on CBC news or any other legitimate news source but the difference is sources like the Daily Show and The Rick Mercer Report do it in a comedic way and usually with some sense of mockery of the other news sources or the actual story itself. As stated in the text “the objectives of culture jamming often include consciousness raising (raising awareness of social and political issues) as well as using the media to criticize the media and dominant culture”( O’shaughnessy, Stadler, pg.214). Both of these shows are well known for reporting on political matters but since they do so in a funny and entertaining way they attract a much wider variety of people as an audience and as such are able to raise consciousness of political issues to people that otherwise would not care. These shows report on important political news but do so in a way that usually involves mocking politicians and political motives which could be considered a “mode of resistance to the norms and conventions of mass culture that exposes and opposes the Medias underlying power structures and ideological messages” (O’shaughnessy, Stadler, pg.213).

     Although I think most people will disagree with me I believe that this type of reporting can actually be a useful addition to the public sphere because by adding a comedic aspect to the news being reported it is able to reach more people which allows a larger portion of the population to be informed and able to discuss the important topics. This allows for a more well-rounded discussion of things like political views which could later lead to possible improvements. Although they are receiving the news in a comedic way which is usually delivered with a lot of mockery, if the audience finds it entertaining and interesting enough it might encourage them to do further research on the topic and continue to follow it and form their own opinions on the matter. This will lead to a more informed and diverse population which I would consider to be a good thing.

Works Cited:

 O’shaughnessy, Michael and Jane Stadler. Media and Society. South Melbourne: Oxford University Press. 2011

Demonstrable demographics

      After reading several of my classmates’ blogs I have noticed a few similarities among hailing/interpellation strategies. A few of the blogs I read mentioned how the ads are aimed towards the stereotypical idea of what the demographic audience would be. As mentioned in Grace Burgoyne’s blog  “media is very tricky but when creating advertisements they are very knowledgeable and always have a certain demographic in mind such as race, gender, culture, lifestyle or occupation when creating it” the example she stated was how the Victoria’s Secret ad was aimed at young girls so it was meant to be cute and fun and flirty since that is what people believe girls in that age category to be. They do not advertise for the other types of teenage girls like the edgy or athletic type they only appeal to the girly girls.

     Something similar to this was said in Charles Austria’s blog. Charles talks about a Grand Theft Auto ad that shows a girl in revealing clothing being arrested. Charles states “the highly sexual nature of the ad targets a male audience” This game is advertised towards a teenage/young adult male demographic not female so by showing a young girl in revealing clothing it is going to attract the attention of the young males since the stereotypical idea of a young male is a sexually charged boy who only thinks about women and video games. Both of these advertisements used the same interpellation strategies of aiming their ads at the stereotypical idea of their targeted demographic.

     Another strategy for hailing was mentioned in Efe Osazuwa’s blog. She talks about how advertisements try to target the demographic and make them want to feel a certain way and get them to believe that if they buy/use their product they will feel this way. Efe states “these ads stand out in a way that makes the buyers want to have that same feeling, they make it in a way that almost says “if you wear this certain brand of clothing you can feel this certain way”. This is a different strategy then the above examples as instead of targeting the already existing demographic that they know will want their product they are trying to pull all possible buyers in by promising them a positive change in their life and that if they used/bought their product it will make them be like the people in the advertisements.

     In terms of how our demographic is represented it means that generally our demographic is represented as the stereotypes of young male and females and does not include the wide variety of different types of people that are that age. It also represents our demographic as easily coerced as mentioned in Efe’s blog. These ads are able to draw people in and make them buy their products by convincing them that it will change their life when in reality it most likely will not. To be honest as sad as it is to admit I do believe that the second representation is accurate. Young people are very easily coerced into buying things that they do not truly need just because they think it will benefit their life in some way whether it’s making them more attractive or making them feel powerful.

Classmates Blogs:

http://dcharles10.wordpress.com/ - Charles Austria

http://souspression.weebly.com/blog.html - Grace Burgoyne

http://eo09tm.wordpress.com/ - Efe Osazuwa

What the Hail?

     The ad that I am going to talk about in this blog is a television commercial that was released by the beer company Heineken. In this ad a woman is shown taking her friends on a tour of what is assumed to be either a new house or a newly remodeled house. She shows them the living room, then the bedroom and finally she shows them her extremely large walk in closet full of expensive looking clothes, shoes, and handbags. The women are shown screaming and jumping up and down with excitement about the closet when all of a sudden they hear men’s voices screaming as well. The ad then switches to showing a similar group of men standing inside what appears to be a walk in refrigerator full of Heineken beer.

     As stated in the textbook “all media text, all forms of language and representation, carry ideological meanings” (pg.182). This ad shows the stereotypical idea that women only care about clothing, shoes and other materialistic things and that men care about manly things like beer and football etc. This is an example of women simply accepting the ideologies that were placed upon them. As stated in the textbook “if we accept values…then we carry those ideologies as part of who we are” in other words “our personality, our individual identity and our subjectivity have been produced by a number of external factors” (pg.184). In the advertisement I listed as an example both the groups (men and women) have accepted the ideologies that have been presented to them; that women are meant to like clothing and men are meant to like beer. They interpolate these ideologies and they are then expressed in this example.

     

     This ad is aimed at both the men and women by presenting what they believe is important to both genders. It draws the women in by showing the well dressed woman at the beginning taking her friends around her nice new home and by the beautiful closet but then it switches to the men’s same idea of the perfect closet theirs however containing beer instead of expensive clothing.

     

     This ad was extremely successful in representing the norms and values to attract the attention of the buyer. It was able to draw in the attention of both men and women by representing both their believed values (fashion and beer). The women paid attention to the ad because of the beginning and the men paid attention because of the end but either way both men and women’s attention was drawn into this advertisement.

Works Cited:

O’shaughnessy, Michael and Jane Stadler. Media and Society. South Melbourne: Oxford University Press. 2011

Wanted: the media that we need

     In my opinion the media we want is the same as the media we get. I think this was best explained in my classmate Korinna Charette’s blog where she stated that “we want the media we get, but the media makes us think that we get the media we want.” To further explain there is no clear way to know for sure that we are not being influenced by the media to want what they give us or if they are simply giving us what they know we want. As I stated in my last blog this compares to the chicken and the egg scenario, we will never really know which one came first. What is the big difference between these two things anyway? Either way we get what we want (which I think everyone always loves to do!). Whether we know we influenced the media or if they influenced us does not really matter very much to us because we feel that we have been satisfied by the media either way.

     As for whether our media choices better inform us about social, political, cultural and economic matters I think the answer to this is also hard to explain since the media does without a doubt inform us about these topics but is it really for the better? I agree with Allen Edgington when he said “what [he] wants from media is precise reporting which is unbiased and without conjecture” which I believe is what we all want but seems to be in scarce supply through the media in today’s society. The majority of news stories and reports have some type of bias buried in there somewhere, some are just much more subtle then others. So to be honest the media does “inform” us about these topics but not necessarily in the honest and unbiased way that we desire.

     It is fairly easy to find information in general social, political and cultural topics through the media since as Jessie Dowdall stated “now a days we can access these sites through our smartphones anywhere and at any time” but to find in-depth unbiased and informative information on these topics is much harder and may not be done as quickly and easily as reading the news on your Iphone while you’re waiting for the bus. To find real informative information through the media that is not bias might require some real research on the topic and time spent forming your own thoughts and opinions on the matter. So as easy as it is to find general information on these topics finding the REAL information is a lot harder and maybe this is why so few of us actually take the time to do it.

http://edgington1812.wordpress.com/- Allan Edgington

http://jessdowdall19.wordpress.com/- Jessie Dowdall

http://lookingformargo.wordpress.com/- Korinna Charette

The media we want?

     When it comes to the question of do we get the media we want or want the media we get, I believe it’s an extremely hard question to answer for the simple fact that we only truly have experience with the media we get so that is what we want. If we had any idea of other possible variations of media then we might not want the media we currently have. So I guess I would have to say that we want the media we get.

     Our basic idea of what we want in the media is based off of what we have already got out of it. As stated in the textbook “the media construct our values for us and have a direct effect on our actions” (O’shaughnessy, Stadler 43). The media is what is telling us what we want from simple advertisements about products or clothing to what we should want out of our news sources and other types of media. The textbook compares it to the chicken or the egg scenario, which one truly came first? It is further explained as “the media are one of the social forces that produce popular common sense, the general social beliefs and feelings of a society. In turn these social beliefs and values influence the media who reflect them” (O’shaughnessy, Stadler 59). So in this scenario just like the chicken and the egg, we will never truly know which one came first. If the media tells us what we want then they are obviously going to tell us to want what they are presenting meaning that we will want the media we get. This makes it much more difficult to want anything else.

     If the media was not telling us what to want then we might decide that we no longer want it the way it is currently being presented. In this case we would change our opinions of what we want and the media would have to adapt to give the people what they want. However currently we our being told by the media to want the media so we are therefore not getting the media we want but instead simply wanting the media that we get.

Works Cited:

O’shaughnessy, Michael and Jane Stadler. Media and Society. South Melbourne: Oxford University Press. 2011

Blog Response #1

After reading over the blog posts of a few of my classmates it seems to be that we all feel the same way about the impact mass media has had on our lives. We all stated different examples of the impact but the end result was the same. The mass media impacts our lives in a very strong way, sometimes more then we even realize. No one stated that they had no impact whatsoever by the media and therefore my opinion on the topic has not changed. I strongly feel that the media is an important part of our lives and some of my classmates blogs reflected this feeling with similar/different examples.

In Chloe Lemay's blog(http://chloejocelyn.blogspot.ca/2013/09/blog-entry-1-effects-of-mass-media-on-me.html) she mentioned how movies and tumblr were "skewing [her] views on people and the rest of the world". This is something that i can strongly relate to and actually talked about in a similar example in my original blog. We all watch movies and TV shows and the majority of us wish we lived a life like those shows. However the idea of what life should be like based on TV is completely unrealistic and it creates a large disconnect between our idea of real life and what real life truly is.

In Emma Stubbs blog (http://unbeatable2.blogspot.ca/2013/09/1f25-post-1-media-impact.html) she talked about two things that i can also relate to. She mentioned how " media expands to advertising and it is everywhere you go" and how "we as a whole have allowed the world to persuade us as the consumer to buy almost anything" an example of this in my own life is the fact that i own an Iphone. The reason i bought an Iphone last year was because it was advertised to be the best and was constantly talked about and shown on TV. This made me as the consumer want it so bad that even though my old phone worked perfectly fine i was willing to pay around $600 for the Iphone just because its the "best". ( in my opinion not true!)

In Carla Alfaro's blog(http://cacpcf.blogspot.ca/2013/09/blog-entry-1.html) she talks about the extreme differences between what is presented and what is the truth. Her examples both talk about how a place( LA, Africa) are presented one way; LA being glamorous and Africa being poor and in need of help. But the truth is there are two sides to every story. Not all of LA is glamorous and full of celebrities and not all of Africa is poor and in need of saving but the media only presents one side of each story instead of giving a well rounded view of the country/ city. She then admits that it made her become "really skeptical of a lot of things" and from then on she "always asked questions". It made me realize that we should always ask questions and do our own research on any topics presented my the media because the media is not always right.

Overall the common opinion among my classmates seems to be the same as me. We all admit that the media has a large impact on our view of the world. Reading over the other blogs has made me think harder about how much i let it impact my life and has made me decide to try to make more of an effort to not let it impact every aspect of my life in such a strong way.