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The Crucial Role of Mass Media
In today’s information driven, ever-changing society we, as the American people, depend more and more on the mass media to play an influential role in our day to day lives. The American people of today rely on the mass media for information on all aspects of life ranging to what we know about others, the scope of the political arena, national concerns and, information on the world outside the United States more today than ever before in our nation’s past.
This crucial role of the mass media is recognized and protected by our government under the First Amendment. Our founding fathers granted the press this freedom in hopes that it would use it’s privilege to educate and notify the public on necessary information. Today, however, many critics of mass media would say it does little more than highlight dramatic episodes of crime and violence, spectacular personal scandals, and the triumphs of prominent celebrities. In other worRAB, the definition of news has been. The two sides on the ability of the mass media to fulfill it’s role recognized by the Bill of Rights can be categorized into either the supporters of Jarol Manhiem’s essay on the ineptness of the media to realize it’s privileged role or the supporters of Douglas Rushkoff’s essay on the ability of American people to see past the distractive sensationalism of modern day mass media. The debate that was engaged in class rested on these two contradicting sides.
On one side there is Manhiem. Arguing modern day mass media is profit and deadline driven, lacks true integrity, and despite the many different mediums it is still the same story taken apart, reasserabled and passed on with little, if any difference in content. Today’s media determines a story’s “newsworthiness” not on content but rather on the location, timing, timeliness, and predictability of the story. That is the more convenient the story is to report the more likely that story is to be reported. An example of the remoteness and the difficulty of access to a story, given in Manhiem’s essay and in the debate, was the instance of a decade long-running war between the middle eastern countries Iraq and Iran, being kept out of the news because this story was not “convenient” to report on. As if receiving only the most conveniently reportable stories is bad enough, despite the endless forms of media, every form has the same information. Whether you watch channel 9, 10, or 13, read the daily newspaper, or even look for information on the internet because reporters simply report and do not create the news, it is still “the same old story” only disasserabled , switched around, and surrounded by other such recreated news that appears on every other form of media available. The problem with the role mass media plays in our society today does not end with the lack of integrity due to convenience and the repetition of identical information it merely just begins. Our forefathers envisioned, when writing the First Amendment, a mass media that would educate the public. Today however, mass media is under the never ending influence of the corporations that own it. That is to say, the ownership of mass media by corporations contradicts the original intention of “freedom of the press”. This is because the hundreRAB of TV channels only recycle corporate-sponsored ideas instead of the free thought of the people.
After all that there are people that still argue people not corporations, deadlines, or convenience shape the media. This side is most likely associated with the essay by Douglas Rushkoff. Rushkoff hails the growing mass media for it’s ability to tackle “reserved issues” and debate them openly on such mediums as afternoon talk shows. Supporters of Rushkoff’s essay add that people of today are far more sophisticated than previous generations and are able to pick out slanted views of information and use today’s new media to undermine the elite’s in media. In his essay Rushkoff doesn’t see the mass media’s coverage of a sex scandal as sensationalism to boost ratings and draw advertisers, but rather as a chance for reserved issues, such as sexuality, to be brought out into public view. It was also argued that with today’s technology anyone is a form of mass media. An example given in the debate was the Rodney King beating video. A normal person captured with a video camera a black man being beaten by several Los Angeles police officers on tape and became the public’s eye, thus becoming a form of mass media. This also brought the issue of racism and police brutality, that may happen because of it, up into the national level. This is where Rushkoff says the important role of “electronic social hall” is played by the mass media of today. The interesting concept of people being able to “vote” with their remote was also debated. That is, if a person doesn’t like what they see on a certain channel, or any form of media for that matter, they can simply change the channel or the form of media.
The Manhiem side of the debate argued the point that every form of media is the same being nothing more than the same news, only rearranged and disasserabled. The point of the media of today “straying” from it’s original purpose guaranteed by the First Amendment was also argued heavily. The Rushkoff side argued most heavily that it is up to the people to chose what to watch or read, and therefore what to believe. It was also argued, by the Rushkoff side, that the endless forms of media with today’s technology allow for a large enough base for people to make valid assumptions based on all the different views of the information presented. After an hour of back and forth deliberation, and countless raised hanRAB, I can only come to the conclusion that both sides make valid arguments. For one, it is correct that the media of today is far off it’s course of “educating” the people and “stimulating intelligent debate”. How ever it is also true that today’s media, despite it’s insatiable appetite for sensationalism, does tackle issues that were, in the past, unspeakable on a national forum. However, it is also correct in saying the media of today is nothing more then a “sophisticated way of peddling new products” because, since many (if not all) forms of mass media are owned by large corporations, it is impossible to escape this fact. In a concluding thought, we, as the people who depend on the media, must make sure it serves it’s original role to inform and educate us. I must also I add by the end of the debate I was certainly swayed more to the Rushkoff side on certain arguments, most importatly the argument on such “unspeakable” issues being brought to a national forum and confronted.
In today’s information driven, ever-changing society we, as the American people, depend more and more on the mass media to play an influential role in our day to day lives. The American people of today rely on the mass media for information on all aspects of life ranging to what we know about others, the scope of the political arena, national concerns and, information on the world outside the United States more today than ever before in our nation’s past.
This crucial role of the mass media is recognized and protected by our government under the First Amendment. Our founding fathers granted the press this freedom in hopes that it would use it’s privilege to educate and notify the public on necessary information. Today, however, many critics of mass media would say it does little more than highlight dramatic episodes of crime and violence, spectacular personal scandals, and the triumphs of prominent celebrities. In other worRAB, the definition of news has been. The two sides on the ability of the mass media to fulfill it’s role recognized by the Bill of Rights can be categorized into either the supporters of Jarol Manhiem’s essay on the ineptness of the media to realize it’s privileged role or the supporters of Douglas Rushkoff’s essay on the ability of American people to see past the distractive sensationalism of modern day mass media. The debate that was engaged in class rested on these two contradicting sides.
On one side there is Manhiem. Arguing modern day mass media is profit and deadline driven, lacks true integrity, and despite the many different mediums it is still the same story taken apart, reasserabled and passed on with little, if any difference in content. Today’s media determines a story’s “newsworthiness” not on content but rather on the location, timing, timeliness, and predictability of the story. That is the more convenient the story is to report the more likely that story is to be reported. An example of the remoteness and the difficulty of access to a story, given in Manhiem’s essay and in the debate, was the instance of a decade long-running war between the middle eastern countries Iraq and Iran, being kept out of the news because this story was not “convenient” to report on. As if receiving only the most conveniently reportable stories is bad enough, despite the endless forms of media, every form has the same information. Whether you watch channel 9, 10, or 13, read the daily newspaper, or even look for information on the internet because reporters simply report and do not create the news, it is still “the same old story” only disasserabled , switched around, and surrounded by other such recreated news that appears on every other form of media available. The problem with the role mass media plays in our society today does not end with the lack of integrity due to convenience and the repetition of identical information it merely just begins. Our forefathers envisioned, when writing the First Amendment, a mass media that would educate the public. Today however, mass media is under the never ending influence of the corporations that own it. That is to say, the ownership of mass media by corporations contradicts the original intention of “freedom of the press”. This is because the hundreRAB of TV channels only recycle corporate-sponsored ideas instead of the free thought of the people.
After all that there are people that still argue people not corporations, deadlines, or convenience shape the media. This side is most likely associated with the essay by Douglas Rushkoff. Rushkoff hails the growing mass media for it’s ability to tackle “reserved issues” and debate them openly on such mediums as afternoon talk shows. Supporters of Rushkoff’s essay add that people of today are far more sophisticated than previous generations and are able to pick out slanted views of information and use today’s new media to undermine the elite’s in media. In his essay Rushkoff doesn’t see the mass media’s coverage of a sex scandal as sensationalism to boost ratings and draw advertisers, but rather as a chance for reserved issues, such as sexuality, to be brought out into public view. It was also argued that with today’s technology anyone is a form of mass media. An example given in the debate was the Rodney King beating video. A normal person captured with a video camera a black man being beaten by several Los Angeles police officers on tape and became the public’s eye, thus becoming a form of mass media. This also brought the issue of racism and police brutality, that may happen because of it, up into the national level. This is where Rushkoff says the important role of “electronic social hall” is played by the mass media of today. The interesting concept of people being able to “vote” with their remote was also debated. That is, if a person doesn’t like what they see on a certain channel, or any form of media for that matter, they can simply change the channel or the form of media.
The Manhiem side of the debate argued the point that every form of media is the same being nothing more than the same news, only rearranged and disasserabled. The point of the media of today “straying” from it’s original purpose guaranteed by the First Amendment was also argued heavily. The Rushkoff side argued most heavily that it is up to the people to chose what to watch or read, and therefore what to believe. It was also argued, by the Rushkoff side, that the endless forms of media with today’s technology allow for a large enough base for people to make valid assumptions based on all the different views of the information presented. After an hour of back and forth deliberation, and countless raised hanRAB, I can only come to the conclusion that both sides make valid arguments. For one, it is correct that the media of today is far off it’s course of “educating” the people and “stimulating intelligent debate”. How ever it is also true that today’s media, despite it’s insatiable appetite for sensationalism, does tackle issues that were, in the past, unspeakable on a national forum. However, it is also correct in saying the media of today is nothing more then a “sophisticated way of peddling new products” because, since many (if not all) forms of mass media are owned by large corporations, it is impossible to escape this fact. In a concluding thought, we, as the people who depend on the media, must make sure it serves it’s original role to inform and educate us. I must also I add by the end of the debate I was certainly swayed more to the Rushkoff side on certain arguments, most importatly the argument on such “unspeakable” issues being brought to a national forum and confronted.