This post is due by Tuesday, March 11 @ midnight for full credit.
Email late posts to rob.williamsATmadriver.com for partial credit.
Read our MEDIA@SOCIETY book, assigned chapter above.
In a SINGLE blog post below, provide for the chapter:
1. A single sentence, IYOW, that captures the chapter's THESIS (main argument).
2. THREE specific pieces of supporting documentation - ideas, concepts, stats, data - to bolster your thesis for the chapter. (Use 2 - 3 sentences for each.)
3. A single PERSONAL story of 3-4 sentences that connects the chapter directly with your own personal media experiences.
4. A SINGLE specific question you have after reading and blogging on the chapter.
Game on,
Dr. W
1. As the media industry has grown there has been many thoughts as to how journalism should be whether subjective or objective or based on the perspective of citizens or politicians of if fast and sometimes impartial news is favored over slower and more accurate news.
ReplyDelete2. • Some people believe that journalism should be subjective in order to increase the public interest and to help people choose what side to be on whether it involves politics or entertainment. However, others believe that objective journalism is better because it allows people to form their own opinions without any bias. For example, the decline of voters during one of the elections was blamed on objective journalism because citizens could not determine for themselves who to vote for (p.156).
• Because politics play such an important role in journalism and story-telling, the views of average citizens are sometimes neglected. While presidential elections and scandals such as the Watergate scandal received full coverage by many news sources, issues involving everyday people did not receive as much attention. “Media in Society” states that it has gotten to a point in which reporters do not know how to cover certain public issues and events so instead they focus on the individual as a representation of the whole society (p.152).
• Before the internet developed, people relied on print news. However, print news lacked updated information and people would have to wait until the next day or until the evening news to receive the full and accurate story. Now with websites like Wikipedia, search engines and online newspapers such as the New York Times, information is updated almost instantaneously and reporters and editors can add more information as it is available rather than fabricating stories just to make it complete.
3. While I watch the news and read newspaper from time to time, I am a big fan of blogs. I would much rather the raw details or hear the “other side” of an event or issue rather than read or listen to the filtered version. I think that it is so important as young people to seek out other perspectives and not just settle on a particular source simply because it is what our parent’s prefer or because it is authoritative.
4. Will the world of journalism eventually decline or lose recognition as amateurs and ordinary people are filling these roles and are offering their opinions of the major and minor issues that plague our society?
1. News stories and journalism serve as a narrative and topic of discussion that has altered over time, been subjective or objective and continues to fluctuate.
ReplyDelete2.
•Journalism in The United States was born during Colonial times. Newspapers during this era contained subjects regarding slavery, constitutional amendments and states’ rights. The readers of these newspapers were very limited due to the cost of the paper. “Because the annual price (roughly $10 t $12) represented more than a week’s salary for most skilled workers. (135).” This meant that those who read the majority of readers were affluent educated men who were powerful in politics.
•“Happy talk” is a technique used in the news, which diverts the audience from the news stories that are tragic and depressing to stories that paint a happy “go-lucky” picture of the world. However, the issue with “happy talk” is that it often seems scripted and forced, “creating story transitions” and ignoring the significant events that are occurring which we should be aware of as viewers and citizens (150).
•Though journalists may believe their story telling is non-biased, the basic “enduring values” of journalism construct the stories they tell, causing their stories to be somewhat subjective. For example, as one of the “enduring values”, individualism causes journalists to be in favor of certain stories that include “prominent or extraordinary individuals over narratives about social problems or institutional complexity” (152). Thus, no matter what, journalists’ personal opinions always hide behind the story they are sharing.
3. People seem to cling to the "big" corporations regarding news stations. I think it’s important to also be knowledgeable about your local surroundings and local networks. From my experience these stations have more of an accurate point of view rather than dramatic or subjective point of view.
4. Was there a similar set of standards in place before the idea of “enduring values” was established in the 1970’s?
1. The various forms of media that have been created due to today's twenty-first century progressive status f technology have led to the in-depth exploration and analysis of the use of journalism to provide information to the public, including whether or not it is possible to remain entirely objective when displaying a story and whether the types of news people hear are necessarily to create an eventually profit for the publishing company or are actually factual and well-rounded descriptions of the story being told.
ReplyDelete2. - Subjective versus objective journalism. There is a constant debate on whether journalism and magazines should contain the writing of articles that are subjective, which means that the author presents, even if it to a small extent, his or her own opinion on the matter being discussed. Some magazine and newspapers have argued that subjective news lures readers in, for it tends to be more interesting and often better-written because the author has the ability to feel a passion or personal connection to the story, and yet others argue that in order to fairly present information to the public, thus allowing them to make their own unbiased opinions, one must write in an objective fashion.
- Easier and faster access to the "paper." Due to new technologies such as the smart phone and tablet, information about the news has become more readily available and much easier to update in the case of a change or last-minute revelation about the situation. In colonial times, the public would have to wait around a week to read the newspaper for what had happened around the world and their own home environment, and although their are weekly newspapers still being produced, the ability to post online articles has greatly changed the entire media reporting world.
- What about the the average American?...Especially in America, many citizens are often neglected or unable to share their opinions because of the political implications their writing and publication could create. America has a highly politicized and cutting-edge news reporting system, and although it is true that in the constitution, every citizen has a write to their own voice, and therefore a right to print, this is not always taken advantage of to the scale that news stations and people of wealth and recognition do.
3. Growing up, I always knew I wanted to be a writer in some way or form. I enjoyed many books and even wrote a few of my own, although they were relatively average and nothing of significance (especially for a middle-schooler). While I was deciding on what college I wanted to go to, I most definitely checked out the journalism departments at each school. I think it's important to deliver objective news, but I also believe that in certain cases, people are most certain entitled to write about what they feel and their opinions. Everyone is different, and I think we should certainly acknowledge this, for it only human to differ from your friends, family, and other acquaintances. I think there is a passion in writing about something that personally connects to you and makes you inspired to share your opinions, so in that sense, I believe stories should be share. I fear that journalism may become very commercialized in the future and is to an extent today, meaning that the authors may not necessarily be writing about what they feel passionately about, but rather what they are being paid to present to the public. I hope that in some way, we can hold on to simple and pure desire to write without a corporation or a budget to uphold.
4. In the near future, will all publications be uploaded on digital devices and no longer be on paper, and if so, will blogging become just as closely followed to find information than the established 'newspapers'/news sites?
1. Changes in society and the advancement of technology have altered journalism in the world of today.
ReplyDelete2. -During colonial times, newspapers existed “generally argued one point of view or pushed the plan of the political party that typically subsidized the paper” (134), but since the First Amendment had not yet been established, “there were limits to how much early U.S. newspapers could criticize and attack government policies before getting shut down by the British government” (135). A social change occurred during the 1700s, prompting the creation of the Bill of Rights. After this change, journalists could freely discuss political issues.
-Journalism is now viewed as a business due to the corporate era. “In journalism’s contemporary corporate phase, the balance [of its role as public servant to democracy and its role as profit-making business enterprise] seems out of whack” (140). Journalism is a money-maker rather than something that informs the public.
-The public is now considered relevant to journalists. “In an effort to draw the public into discussions about community priorities, journalists began sponsoring reader and citizen forums where readers would have a voice in shaping aspects of the news that directly affected them” (154). Readers are able to insert their input into the news that they receive.
3. In my Media Revolutions class, one assignment was to compare a newspaper that was published both on paper and on the Internet. I found that the Internet newspaper was much more organized and detailed than the paper version. The Internet allows more information to be published, along with hyperlinks for sources and outside information. Print versions just cannot offer the same efficiency that an online newspaper can.
4. With a rise in public journalism, blogs, and YouTube videos, will the definition of a “journalist” change?
1. Journalism is moving away from objective, two -sided stories toward personal and participatory reporting.
ReplyDelete2.
• Public opinion polls administered in the 1990s up through 2000 showed that those who had "a great deal of confidence in newspapers" dropped from more than 50 percent of respondents to 25 percent (152). As a result, some print journalists are attempting to find their own voices amid detached objectivity. Though Columbian Journalism Review editor Neil Hickey asserts that such practices do not benefit the public, print journalists sometimes appear on television aside pundits and take a more emotional, opinionated and speculative approaches to reporting (155). However, while this uncloaks the journalists' feelings and knowledge toward a subject, punditry does little to alleviate the two-sided mentality that often hides the complexity of an issue (156).
• The advent of blogging has provided a new way to report news. Some journalists are using blogs for first-person storytelling which allows them to offer behind-the-scenes information. While this more subjective format might not be acceptable in a print format, it can offer effective storytelling that has the freedom to explore more facets of a story (157).
• The average person can also play a greater role in news consumption. They can discuss the news by commenting or by blogging themselves. Because they do not have the financial concerns of a newspaper or network, they can continue to discuss a topic after professional journalists have needed to move onto a new story. In 2007, bloggers who continued to discuss federal attorneys who were fired under the Bush administration encouraged the mainstream press to revisit the story which ultimately led to the resignation of the US attorney general (158).
3. In my junior year of high school, my school experienced a budget freeze and I covered it for the school paper. I had just watched All the President's Men. I was ready to expose the inevitable corruption that had caused this dilemma and robbed innocent teachers of projector bulbs, copier staples and graph paper. I interviewed my principal, the business manager of the supervisory union and the mathematics department chair. I learned that the budget freeze occurred because the number of tuition paying students attending the school was below the number that was projected and that teachers were getting by graph paper. In the end, I was proud of my article, but I was dissatisfied that the truth hadn't been more explosive and exciting. I think that it is a problem when journalists are in an adversary role because it creates an unreasonable expectation that people in positions of power are always "bad guys." In retrospect, I wish I had realized during that time that my job was to be a storyteller rather than a whistleblower.
4. Will the expansion of internet journalism revive investigative reporting?
1. Through the changes in society and forms of journalism, one thing has remained, journalism is a form of storytelling.
ReplyDelete2. a) There are two models of news, information news and experience news. The United States uses and tells mostly information news. Europe focuses more on experience news.
b) A form of journalism is yellow journalism. There are two major characteristics when it comes to yellow journalism. There is dramatic, sensationalized stories about crimes, disasters, scandals and intrigue. There are also news reporters that expose corruption, usually in business and government. Yellow journalism is what we today view as scandal news.
c) Young viewers today look to late night comedy as their form of information. Journalism has changed in that it has found better ways to convey the information to the public. They say that young people look to late night comedy because the world has become more complex and as a society we look for a more complex form of entertainment.
3) As a college student, I find myself constantly turning on the TV at night to watch the news spill into late night TV. I never watched late night before college but I find it a very helpful way to deal with the "ridiculous" celebrity news along with the terribly sad world news. Jimmy Kimmel and newly Seth Myers always find a way to make light of a very serious situation.
4) I would hate to see the day but, will there be a time that not one news paper exists?
1.With the rapid technological and social changes in the US, the landscape of journalism has changed, but the core of it remains in the same place: somewhere between storytelling and fact-gathering.
ReplyDelete2.In the beginning of organized journalism, there were two significant models: The U.S. model, which strived to describe issues from a neutral point of view, and the European model, which analyzed experiences from an acknowledged editorial viewpoint. Each overlapping era, though, brought new changes to the journalism models.
In the 1890’s, the two distinct types of journalism were the story model (which dramatized important events), and the information model (which was more factual and straightforward). During the Industrial Revolution, facts and news became marketable products that could be sold to the masses; so, the more neutral the writing was, the more readers it could appeal to. Later, journalism became so central to American democracy, and corporate influence changed the popular modes of journalism once again.
Nowadays, journalists are often viewed as untrustworthy. Their jobs often involve exploiting people for profit—who would embrace that? There seems to be a widespread cynicism of journalism, and just recently certain media outlets have begun to try to change that.
3.A girl in my hometown was the victim of a criminal sexual conduct case two years ago. As the victim, her name was never printed, but nevertheless her phones rang off the hook with reporters and people trying to get the story. The whole ordeal gave her (and myself, as well) a disgust for journalists and reporters. Previously, I had thought about going to school for journalism, but after this damaging event, I in no way want to be a journalist whose job is to dig up dirt on people and make peoples lives into “stories” for others to digest.
4.In the opinion of current journalists and other scholars, is journalism a dying profession?
1. The history, the prospect of development, the issue, and the change of the journalism.
ReplyDelete2.
1) The earlier journalism included two forms: the informational or modern U.S. model and the more partisan and European model. The first model of U.S focuses on express news neutrally. And their main task is describing the phenomena. This model continues to be going on now. The second form preferred to use their knowledge and experience to analyze phenomena and express the editors or reporters views.
2) In fact, journalism is a storytelling business (P140). Some news media, particularly on cable televising and the Internet, earn money by telling and selling stories that auditions and readers like. Although the news markets are controlled by the economy and the politics, many reporters also want to tell the fact or tell the story by the two sides.
3) “During values” of news are ethnocentrism, responsible capitalism, small-town pastoralism, and individualism. Ethnocentrism is that American reporters judge the news of other countries use own culture and basis. Responsible capitalism is that almost all reporters work in monopoly media outlets for oligopoly companies. Small-town pastoralism is that most American reporters and editors like the news that have more conflicts. Individualism focus that one person was blamed for the failure of whole things.
3.
Some reporters always said that Chinese are lack of human rights. I do not think so. With the development of society, government gives more choice to Chinese citizens. They can express their views in their Weibo or other places. I have searched some documents for some sensitive events in China and in the U.S. When I compare, analyze, and judge，I find that there are many misinterpretation about China in other country including the U.S.
4. Why some reporters did not give a right view to guide people to know other countries accurately? Actually, to know a lot of other countries to have more chances to develop self.
1. Regardless of the effort put into journalism, it is extremely difficult to report a story with an objective view when the experience is being reported from only one perception.
ReplyDelete2. Journalism has always had the capability to be both subjective and objective. “Two distinct types of journalism were competing for readers: a story model, advanced by the penny and the yellow presses, which emphasized dramatizing important events, and an information model, advocated by papers that emphasized an approach that appeared more factual and straightforward” (page 137).
Journalism includes storytelling, which is a primarily subjective process. “One of the greatest paradoxes of modern U.S. journalism is its claim for detachment- a main ingredient in objectivity- as a fundamental virtue, even though journalism is primarily practiced as selective storytelling, a traditionally subjective mode of communication” (page 139).
In the words of Don Hewitt, “There’s a very simple formula if you’re in Hollywood, opera, publishing, broadcasting, newspapering. It’s four very simple words: tell me a story” (page 143). All stories are told from one point of view, and are therefore subjective experiences only showing the perception of one of the viewers of the event.
3. In high school there was an article on the front page of the sports section written about my experiences when I was younger and how it affected my place as a captain on the golf team. The article was accurate. However, the reporter interpreted a few of the lines much differently then the way I meant them to come across. His view of the situation was much different then mine, which lead to the slight twist in his article.
4. Will there be a time when newspapers lose their credibility and not be as reliable as a source for accurate information?
1. Journalism, altered and advanced by new technologies and new influences, still remain an act of storytelling
ReplyDelete2. Supporting Documentation
• A major paradox of 21st century U.S. journalism is detachment even though journalism is mostly practiced as selective storytelling which is a subjective way of communication. Objectivity is a fundamental virtue that we’ve attached to journalism but it ultimately participates in subjectivity when journalism becomes selective in choosing its news.
• “Many journalists- and most journalist educators- have come to define the newsworthiness of information by a conventional set of criteria: timelessness, proximity, conflict, impact (or consequence), prominence, human interest, novelty, and deviance”(139)
• In a new era of transparency Jeff Jarvis supports personal and participatory journalism in a 21st century U.S. recommending that journalists reveal their own backgrounds, prejudices, financial ties, political leanings, and other relevant beliefs. “Why not reveal your religion if you’re covering the abortion debate? Or come clean if you’re covering the auto industry and gave money to the National Audubon Society?” (pg157).
3. In researching for my media project on blogs, I began to broaden my definition of journalism. In a world dominated by social media journalism has morphed into different forms. When we here the word journalism, we automatically think of the New York Times or our local newspaper, but in the 21st century U.S., journalism is much more than just factual news stories. Journalism is ultimately storytelling. Its not a straight line of fact based, objective writing. It is activist journalism, blogging, public journalism and much more.
4. With online journalism increasing and newspaper businesses decreasing, how will the job market within journalism businesses be altered?
1.) Thesis
ReplyDeleteThe news, where one should be able to go for reliable, factual, unbiased information, has become a dramatized, biased media platform.
2.) 3 Supporting Pieces of Documentation
- "The Partisan Era": These "colonial newspapers" (134) that discussed "constitutional amendments, slavery, and states' rights" (134), often leaned to one side of the argument or favored a particular political party.
- "Penny Papers and the Market Era": With more advanced technology that allowed for faster and more frequent printing, these papers began to focus on "exciting" stories that would attract wider audiences, such as "scandals, police reports, serialized legends of frontiersmen like Daniel Boone, and fake stories about life on the moon" (135).
- "Contemporary Journalism in the Corporate Era": This represents the time in which journalism had truly evolved into a torn business- they were between "trying to balance its role as public servant to democracy" and "its role as profit-making business enterprise" (140).
3.) Personal Story
I was in a Political Science class my senior year of high school, and a recurring topic of conversation was which news source we could rely on for unbiased information. That is because our news media have evolved into truly unbalanced sources. You know it's gotten out of hand when you have to ask your teacher where to go to steer away from the dramatization and biases of news and journalism.
4.) Question
Will this issue continue to evolve to a place where we can no longer rely on any source for balanced, factual information?
Thesis: Throughout time, with advancements that are taking place, journalism has change and shifted based on the new platforms.
ReplyDelete1. Activist Journalism has become more present in today's media. The main thing that this shows is the interaction and involvement with what they are writing about, being in the action. "David Broder, writing in 1992, argued that national journalists--through rising salaries, prestige, and formal education--had distanced themselves 'from the people that we are writing for and have become much, much closer to people we are writing about.'" (153-154). These new technologies allow for more reposting and activist roles in journalism.
2. Younger generations are looking towards these new forms of media and reporting to get their information and news. "It is no wonder young people are looking to The Daily Show, The Colbert Report, blog sites, citizen journalism, and social network venues for news and information. Perhaps they want something to match the more complicated storytelling around them, in everything from TV dramas to interactive video games to their own conversations." (160) The needs have changed with the times, so journalism and reporting has to change with it in order to give the people what they want to know and how they want to get it.
3. News has become more crime-driven, but to balance that they also use happy talk, which tries to balance the content. Starting with the Watergate scandal in the mid-1970's, the public has begun to crave the news that reports on these types of stories. "In an effort to retain high ratings, stations began hiring consultants, or so-called news doctors, who advised new directions to invest in one of the national packaged formats, such as 'Action News' or 'Eyewitness News' (sometimes satirized as Eyewitless News)" (149). To balance, the news anchors, reporters, meteorologists, and spots reporters will do ad-libbed or scripted dialogue to lighten the mood.
Personal Story: Well, when thinking about the different techniques, I always think to Anchorman and how they make fun of how the newscasters act on camera. It makes me think of the different small talk that my local newscasters will do before or mostly after a story is told. I don't have a specific example of a memory, but these are the things that stick out in my mind, happy talk especially.
Question: With all the changes in media and how we get our news, will newscasters become obsolete and instead we will have short segment news that covers only highlights?
Chapter 6
ReplyDeleteThesis: Although 20th and 21st century journalism has become less about stories and more about facts, the news is meant to be a storytelling medium.
Support:
1. After the New York Times became the standard for fact-based journalism, Reuven Frank still emphasizes that storytelling is the “actual heart of news practices” and that “every news story should… display the attributes of fiction, of drama. It should have structure and conflict, problem and denouement, rising and falling action, and a beginning, a middle and an end” (133).
2. Stories with conflict and drama have always been a part of journalism, they can inform the public as much as they can appeal to readers.“In order to increase circulation, [Pulitzer] ran a continuous stream of sex, sin, and even cannibalism stories” (135).
3. Yellow Journalism’s purpose is to tell stories; if we learn from how they build their stories and apply it to real stories journalism would be much more interesting.
Story: I want to become a journalist to be able to tell the stories of the world. New media is helping journalism get back to the roots of telling a story because more and more often the people are the ones sharing the news. My project focuses on how Twitter is shaping journalism, and the power is now in the hands of the people who can tell their own stories through their personal social media outlets.
Question: Why do people consider the best journalism to be non-biased, can’t both sides of the story be told?
Journalism is an essential component of our 21st Century media landscape, and we can use it for countless purposes and in countless ways.
ReplyDelete-Journalism has been used to freely express ideas, radical or not, to people throughout a civilization.
-The Partisan and Market eras of American journalism shaped our modern objective view of reporting and providing information.
-Today, journalism is key in the corporate world, as well as an invaluable part of our internet landscape.
I utilize modern journalism every single day when I scroll through Twitter and Facebook. I learn everything I need to know for a particular day from the vast landscape of social media, newspapers, and other multimedia that we are surrounded by in 2014. This is the evolution of hundreds of years of journalistic development that began with our colonial ancestors in the Eighteenth century.
What are the implications of our current world of journalism? How will the ways and styles in which we view and interpret news be further evolved in the coming decades and centuries?
1) Though social and technological changes have had important effects on the practice of journalism during its lifetime, the industry’s role as a storyteller has not changed.
ReplyDelete2) -The ideal of reporters being objective in what they wrote developed in the 1800’s as a way for papers to appeal to more readers: if a paper wasn’t biased on an issue, more readers would hopefully become regular readers to get the facts. However, a primary job of a journalist is to be subjective by choosing which happenings and events to cover as well as which events may not need coverage. “If journalism was truly an objective practice, it should report on everything that happens on any given day,” which would be an impossible task (140).
-While journalists try to be objective by getting two opposing sides in a story, they often neglect the stories of “people whose views do not fall at either end of the spectrum,” a large percentage of Americans in regards to many issues (146). Though attempting to maintain credibility, by sticking to a middle-ground position, newspaper journalists can feel distant to readers, who don’t feel these reporters are recognizable characters in the news story. Viewers of TV news, though still trying to be objective, are visible characters in the news narrative, which viewers can identify with more readily.
-There are many stories that journalists don’t tell. Because “corporate control is strong” in both newspapers and television, investigative reports that conflict with corporate values or are critical of the corporations themselves may not be produced (140). This is problematic because it conflicts with the journalistic ideal of serving democracy and the people as “a watchdog on power and corruption” (140).
3) With local news outlets like the Burlington Free Press and WCAX News creating Facebook pages and Twitter accounts and developing broad online content, I’ve found that by the time I sit down to read the day’s newspaper or watch the news, I’ve already been made aware of most of the big stories. While I enjoy watching the news sometimes to see familiar anchors, I like that changes in technology have made it possible to get frequent updates on what is going on rather than waiting until a set time to watch a news broadcast or to get the paper in the morning. I also like that with this new technology, you can get more than one perspective on an issue: while one publication’s story may be written from one point of view, a few clicks can give you access to another publication, which may have other relevant information from a different view point.
4) It seems that print newspapers are eventually going to disappear due to the development of online papers and social media sites; is this likely to happen to traditional morning and evening news broadcasts?
1. As the media industry has developed it has demonstrated both media that is objective and media that is subjective. It continues to fluctuate as to what is most popular at a given time.
ReplyDelete2. Journalism’s history within the United States has a long history and continues to grow through today. It began in “colonial times with the partisan press era and continues through the emergence of a commercial era of the 1800s, objective journalism in the 1900s, and the corporate period and the new partisan era in recent times.”(134) Some people have the belief that journalism should be subjective to increase the public interest. On the other hand others carry the belief that object journalism is more beneficial because then audiences can develop their own opinions on varying topics. I found it extremely interesting that “in various opinion polls measuring people’s confidence in journalism commissioned in the 1990s and into the new millennium respondents who said there had ‘a great deal of confidence in newspapers’ dropped from more than 50 percent to less than 25 percent.”(152)
3. I found the information about what a small percentage of people trust newspapers interesting, because whenever I read a story I think is interesting, I automatically read the same story from like 5 different sources, because I never trust what I am reading,
4. Will people’s trust in journalists continue to decrease or will the industry be able to earn their good name back?
Fantastic meditations on journalism, my young colleagues.
ReplyDeleteLet's explore in class -
Dr. Rob