The News About the News Part 1

The book begins with an introduction to news, and its effects in history. The first half discusses its positive effects, such as finding truths in the Watergate scandal, and ultimately leading to Nixon’s resignation. News is able to provide information, facts, and images which give readers and viewers an explanation and something to hold onto. The authors also make the point that communities will be able to improve due to the exposure of incompetence and corruption that may be taking place. Although these are very beneficial to history and the progression of justice and stability, there are many cases of bad journalism which do the opposite. There is a discussion of journalism that fails to report news or reports news that is inaccurate, shallow, and unfair. This type of journalism has the ability to leave people “dangerously misinformed.” They strengthen their point when they talk about how the tobacco industry has repeatedly tried to cover up evidence about its products being cancer causing and addicting. They also discuss how the lack of coverage for government elections will allow citizens to be mislead by other political advertising.
Kaiser and Downie Jr. also brought to my awareness the fact that so many news media corporations have reduced their coverage of foreign affairs. What has taken its place is “lazy, superficial, mindless chat and debate.” Because newspapers have grown to be even more controlled by giant corporations, there has been a decrease in the belief that Americans need good journalism. Reporting staffs have shrunk and so has the time devoted to news, as a way of increasing profits. Most publishers have forced their editors to report on lesser important matters as a way to attract readers, and advertisers. As a result serious matters around the world are not being talked about. What is even more bothersome is the fact that TV reporters are shrinking as well for the same reasons. TV stations attract viewers with violence, entertainment, melodrama, and “happy talk.”

It is really unsettling to think about how much more typical bad news is to see, and how much less relevant, important news is seen. The corporations are not the only reason for this, however. Technology has played a major role in the decrease of newspaper sales. Because of multiplying cable channels and internet sites, the news is available all the time. This increases competition throughout and in turn news becomes more enticing, more fabricated, tasteless, and often unjust.

All of these factors undermine journalism in a monumental way. Kaiser and Downie Jr. focus on the downfall of newspapers, news on TV and the publics growing desire for lesser important matters. It is refreshing that these authors worked for the Washington Post and truly care about substantial, truthful and informative journalism. I only hope that more people will come to realize the importance of valid journalism and report stories which truly do matter.






Part 2

The chapter entitled “The Network News” begins with Dan Rather watching an old broadcast he did in 1981. Rather is shocked realizing how different the news is today. He watches an eighty second report on San Salvador, a four minute story about a power struggle in the Reagan administration, and then a story about Poland. Rather says that now there would never be so much foreign news, nor would they start with them. He goes on to say that “If he tried to do a similar newscast now, CBS executives would tell him, ‘Dan, you cannot lead with El Salvador and take the broadcast through an inside Washington struggle and go to a piece about Poland…There was a time when you could do that, 1981 was the time. But if you do it today, you die, and we die.’”
Kaiser and Downie Jr. tell us how between 1981 and 2001 Brokaw, Jennings, and Rather lost 40 percent of their audience. This is due to the increase of competition with cable and satellite services. Because of this increased competition there was pressure to report more “interesting,” attention grabbing bits of information. This information has generally been more superficial, unimportant, and irrelevant. News reports rarely last more than two minutes now, and are faster paced. Since 1981 the length of news dropped from 23:20 to 18:20, thus allowing more than 10 minutes of commercials and “teases,” which were previews of what was to come in between commercials. It is so sad that this is what has become of networks broadcasts. It is also kind of insulting that there has been a diminished confidence that the public can retain an attention span longer than two minutes.
With Tom Brokaw, we are shown the little information that he had to report during the time of this books production. He reported stories of wildfires, tornados which injured no one, and a patient undergoing open heart surgery who survived the procedure. These stories all had vivid imagery which was attention grabbing, however, there was really no news in any of these stories. What is most startling is that within this report, the only foreign news was the twenty-second read about Pope John Paul II turning eighty.
During the segment on Peter Jennings, he is asked how ABC New overseas has changed. He says, “Much slimmer, much slimmer. If I recall correctly, off the top of my head, we then had correspondents…in London, Paris , Rome, Frankfurt, Tel Aviv, Cairo, Moscow, Beijing, Tokyo, Hong Kong, Johannesburg….Today, London but no Frankfurt to speak of. No Rome. No Cairo. No Hong Kong.” It goes on to say that if there is interest in reporting in a different country the accounting department automatically wants to know in advance how much it is going to cost. “The networks attitude toward spending money had changed profoundly,” says Jennings.

Maxim vs. Cosmo

Cosmo

Being that I have not read a Cosmo magazine in years, I had forgotten how poorly women were portrayed. The cover really says it all. There is a picture of a voluptuous celebrity in a trendy, revealing dress with attention grabbing titles surrounding her. What caught my attention was the placement of certain titles, like “Mind Tricks That Melt Pounds,” place conveniently on her waist. All of the stories and “articles” revolved around how to know what men really like, or what they really think about during sex. A majority of the content was information on how to better cater to men, and the dos and don’ts of relationships. Firstly, why should anyone listen to a magazine for advice on his or her relationship? What made my mouth drop was a side column entitled “Sentences He’d Be Psyched to Hear.” Some of these included, “Boy, nothing helps me wind down after a long day at work like giving you a blow job.” Really?? The column also listed sentences like, “Mind if my girls’ volleyball team showers at your place?” Or, “It feels like you’ve put on a lot of weight… in your penis, I mean.” Maybe I am biased because I have a semi-feminist viewpoint, but why should a woman go out of her way to excite her man with such hyperbolic phrases especially if she doesn’t feel that way? What disturbed me was how women were made to be these figures who should focus on better sex, melting pounds, beauty tips, and what to say and do to please their man. It made very clear that these were issues that every woman needed to know in order to be more desirable. It is magazines like this that many women begin to feel insecure and thus more driven to look and act more like the airbrushed women they see on the pages.
The advertisements strengthen this concept. Images of beautiful women promoting make-up, trendy clothes, jewelry, acne cleanser, perfume, hair products, deodorant, low calorie food and so much more flood the pages. The last few pages reserved solely for advertisements also promote breast implants, cosmetic contacts, psychic readings (in order to reveal “true romance”) and weight lose plans. These ads may not seem harmful at first, however once we realize their relationship to the ideas throughout the rest of the magazine we can see how dangerous this is can be to a woman’s self image. These advertisements are so powerful and dangerous because they are able to subconsciously make you think you need these products to make you look better.
Aside from maybe one article on the dangers of alcohol, there were really no pages with substance. That is unless you consider “Sexy vs. Skanky” imagery and pointers substantial.



Maxim

While looking through Maxim, I noticed a few things right off the bat. Women are more objectified throughout the magazine. The imagery and text is much more vulgar. On the cover the woman is more of a sex object than in Cosmo, wearing only a bikini. Although a majority of the titles on the cover are not even about women (“13 Most Unintentionally Scary Movies, The Next Great Super Car, and Brewing Our Own Beer”) the titles that are sex driven are pretty forward and crude. Surrounding the nearly nude woman are other titles saying “Queen of the Hills (The Empress Has No Clothes),” “Sexiest Beach Hotties of 2009- It’s a Treat-o For Your Speedo,” and “Waitress Sex.” On the contents page there is a half naked women with revealing underwear and a hose between her legs spewing water. Following this I turned to a page of jokes where I was kind of baffled and amused at the stupidity. One joke read, “What do you call a lesbian with fat fingers? A: Well-Hung.” Another read, “What sexual position guarantees the ugliest baby? A: Go ask your mother.”
The vulgarity did not stop here. On the opposite page there was an advertisement for Maxim Celebrity Beach Watch showing only the body of a woman in a bikini straddling the ground. It’s not surprising that they would just cut off half of her head, but it’s kind of unsettling realizing that this is apparently only what men really want to see. The most exposing imagery was that of “Audrina’s Dirty Deeds.” These shots involved her posing in skimpy outfits eating strawberries, sitting topless on a washing machine, and straddling a bed. Other advertisements included tapes of “Girls Gone Wild,” steroids, Viagra, party lines, beer, cigars, cologne, television shows, and my favorite, an axe ad with a woman mounting the male she can’t get seem to get enough of. As you can see women here are looked at merely as sex symbols. The images show how these women fuel male desire. Their personalities, faces, and intelligence are not required here and are often left out purposely.
Cosmo and Maxim are similar in that they both aim to make the man or woman feel like they need certain material things to embody their sex even more and be more desirable to the opposite sex. This is seen when we look at the advertisements in both magazines. Cosmo also promotes beauty and physical perfection in order to gain male acceptance, and Maxim fuels this by showing such high interest in these airbrushed women.

Chapters 3-7

What I found to be particularly interesting within these chapters was the discussion about the power that music had on culture and identities. I can’t even imagine what life and culture would be like if music did not exist. Music shapes our identities and, as the text says, it comforts us through transitions. I find it amazing how sound and music developed and began the rise of popular music and many other genres to follow. The spread of popular music developed much like newspapers, and books. What sparked its growth was the ability to mass-produce the sheet music. This allowed for music to change from being a rarity to something common and easily accessed. With this came the Jazz movement, which was significant because of its integration of many different musical styles such as African beats, blues and gospel. This enabled the development of even more styles of music such as rock and roll, which also combined various elements of music. With this increased interest of music different cultures started integrating with one another and became exposed to different lifestyles and voices. Music also served as a way for people to cope with the stress of current events, such as the atomic bomb, the Cold War, and the red scare. What is amazing is how music had the ability to blur boundaries between races. It also blurred the distinction between “high and low” culture, masculinity, femininity, the country and city, and the north and south. Music was and is a way to voice oneself and respond to emotions, events, politics, and so much more. During the rise of popular music, groups did just that. Today such vast majorities of people own an Ipod or music player of some sort. Many people use these devices to drown out other noises in city streets or just to zone out and enter a different world. Thinking about where we came from to how we developed now is incredible and kind of scary when you think about how much of a hold it has on us. It has almost become a necessity to obtain and listen to music. It is also incredible to think about how much music there is and how much noise we’ve made and continue to make daily. All of this would not be possible without the efforts of modern technology.
Throughout the chapter on television, I could not help but feel annoyed. I am not a supporter of T.V. for many reasons. I feel that the representation of “reality” is extremely out of touch and detrimental. I cannot stand how the required attention span for any given program is really not very long, due to the fact that there are constant interruptions with advertisements. I feel that if you are going to watch something and get involved in the story there cannot be these interruptions. To be actively thinking about what you are watching and getting absorbed into a film there cannot be advertisements about tampons, or cleaning solutions for the kitchen. Also, I feel that it is completely impossible to compare a book with watching T.V. So few children read these days that it is depressing. I fear that there will be such a small amount of imagination left in the youth because visual information is just handed out to not only them, but everyone for that matter. It is as if we are too lazy to create these places in our minds, which I believe is where the true images lay. When we create images in our head we tend to make it exist with what we know (or don’t know) and what we’ve experienced in our lives. This makes the story more real and personal to me because no one else can access what world you create. The textbook argues that even though it has its down sides, it has provided a great deal of information to us. I’m not sure if one can even say that information has been truly valid though because of the different opinions of those reporting it and choosing to have others report. News is often biased in some form, and is often dramatized. I find it so hard to trust anything anyone says anymore.

Chapters 1, 8, 9, 10

While reading chapter 1 in Media and Culture, I became aware of the true definition of “medium.” It was defined in this book as “an intervening material or substance through which something else is conveyed or transmitted. It is capable of producing worthy products or pandering to society’s worst prejudices and stereotypes.”
I believe this summation is on point. While the media has its up sides, it can be very damaging and has the ability to lead society down a road of discrimination and into turmoil. It holds such a great deal of power because so many fall victim to believing what they hear and see. The combination of visual and audio information is extremely powerful. Also, how the news is represented and the slant that the reporter/writer/newscaster has makes an impact on ones opinion. It is nearly impossible today to escape the media. Even if you do not take part in watching the news, or reality T.V. shows, there are still advertisements and images, not to mention all the people talking about these shows, stories, and events all around us.
Throughout the reading, I was reminded of how drawn human beings are to narratives. In a sense, it is almost as if we exist to tell and hear stories. This has been with us since the beginning of our existence. We are constantly relating situations of our own to someone else’s and vice versa. People have become so dependent on hearing these stories that they have become addicted to mass-produced media. In turn, many have become less in touch with reality and their ability to distinguish and challenge social inequities has diminished. This all seemed to be an issue with the rise of newspapers. While the newspapers have significant advantages, there were times that the public could not decipher the truth. During the ages of yellow journalism, newspapers were made with a sensationalistic, dramatic style. Corruption, conflicts, and other news was dramatized. The public tended to believe that the printed text was true in totality, which was often not always the case. The sensationalistic stories of today are still in existence, but through the form of T.V. shows like Access Hollywood, magazines, and other tabloid papers.
Pop culture has also been the cause of the diminishment of higher forms of culture. The lines between information and entertainment have been blurred. This is very unsettling in my eyes because it shows how much power all of this “information” has over people. So many of us are consumed by stories in the news, and T.V. shows and cannot tell the difference between a show and reality. The text talks about how high culture is exploited today. It is almost as if we are trying to reinvent different ways of grabbing ones attention, and money, by dramatizing it and making it more exciting. This is seen with the reproductions of Frankenstein by Mary Shelly. The original novel talked about serious themes like abusing science, and judging physical appearances. However, with the recycling of the story into forms like the T.V. show The Munsters, and Young Frankenstein(the movie and the Broadway version), the themes seem to get lost and the story is simplified and turned into more of a comedy.

Media Unlimited

While reading Media Unlimited, my eyes were opened to the amount of power audio and visual information has on our culture. I was not as aware as I thought I was about how much the media affects our daily lives. What is scarier is the fact that so many of us do not even realize how we are sucked into the Internet, television, technological devices, music, movies, and advertisements. Gitlin shows how over years of civilization we have gotten to this point. He starts off discussing a Vermeer painting in a Dutch house and tells us that many people during this era only had paintings as their visual medium. He says that many people would collect and display these paintings and place them in the front rooms of their houses. Gitlin shows how over time that small amount of imagery and general media grew and expanded as a result of the growing art market, the production of books, religion/religious imagery, newspapers, film production and more. All of this would not have been possible without the development of technology and the desire to escape from the reality of our world.

What is the most eye opening are the results of the surveys taken to decipher how much television the average person watches on a daily basis. I had been aware that the number of hours was between 5 and 6per day. But what Gitlin rought to my attention was the fact that these statistics do not account for how much time the television is on in the background, nor does it account for televisions on airplanes, buses, building fronts in times square, etc. He also brought to my attention the amount of T.V.s per household. He says that "of American children 8-18, 65% have a TV in their bedrooms, 86% a radio. 42% of all American households with children have the TV on "most of the time" according to survey responses." We as a society have become completely absorbed by the media and technology to the point where, as Gitlin says, it has become part of nature.

Gitlin makes many interesting points when he is discussing what it is that we watch on television. He says that all the characters become real to us. We are disillusioned by what we see on T.V. and are able to be brought into an alternate world without any awareness of the hold that it has on us. He talks about how so many people forget that the characters on these shows do not really exist. He proves this by telling of a woman who wrote to a certain actress and asked her why she broke up with her boyfriend on the show. This shows how the media has created such a false reality that so many people fall victim to. Gitlin says that we become so involved in these characters and scenarios for a number of reasons. He says that we feed on drama and desire distraction from our own lives. He also says that we are interested in knowing what it is like to be in certain situations other than our own, such as working in the ER. Gitlin proves his point with many statistics. Another fact that I found shocking was when he discussed the ratio of television use to the lack of voting. He says, "According to surveys from 1994 and 1995, the more television people said they watched, the less likely they were to be registered to vote. ... The additional hour a day Americans on average spent in front of the TV in 1995 as compared to 1965 might account, by itself, for "perhaps one-quarter of the entire drop in civil engagement.'"

Gitlin has caused me to be even more aware of the amount of visual/audio media that envelops our society today and the grasp it has on us. I believe that because of the inability to decipher between the real and the self-generated will put us in more danger over time.