Archive for date: June 13th, 2016

Module 3 has deepened my understanding of how media is a representation of society, how senders and receivers of information use attention, and how attention, power, and visibility are all connected. Media is a representation, not a reflection, of society because, it sets agendas and chooses content to focus on. Agenda setting theory proposes that because media chooses what stories to share, and repeatedly share, that it sets societies agenda on what is viewed as important or newsworthy (Sternheimer, 2013). With this theory in mind, this weeks readings really hit home. Media is a representation of what is popular, gets good reviews, and keeps people’s attention. An example of how media is not a reflection of society is the lack of news coverage on America’s poverty issue. Huge television networks like ABC and NBC rarely ever do segments on the poor and if they do only show elderly or those in the armed forces (deMause and Randall, 2007). News stories on the poor categorize these people as “deserving poor” and do not focus on the structural issues in society that are causing this issue (deMause and Randall, 2007). Media across the board do not report factual or inciteful information on the poor and I ask my classmates why is that? Some reasons may be contributed by the fact that media owners want content that drive consumerism or portray their beliefs, values, and lifestyles (Kuper, 2013). I believe that stories on the poverty issue just do not sell to people seeking information. I wonder if, since society is socially constructed through life experiences, that we ourselves do not want to hear about these stories thus making them unpopular and unsuccessful in media. For stories on poverty to be successful then diverse and accurate stories are needed (Ridgway, 2013). The readings in this module made me realize how blind I am to the poverty issue as well. I argue that stories on poverty should shed light on structural issues that contribute to poverty, the real numbers of children and adults in poverty, and ways to reform these issues. Not only are stories of poverty are far and inbetween but the national poverty line is half of what a family in poverty actually needs to make just to get by (Jiang, Ekono, and Skinner, 2015). This shows that media is a representation and not a reflection because media creates mediated realities that do not capture the full picture of society.

In a world where access to information is literally at our fingertips, attention is becoming a finite resource. Attention, unlike information and data, is a scarce resource that media is fighting for (Lankshear and Knobel, 2001). I applied this critically in two ways first, being that as receivers of information we can only pay so much attention in a day. Youth pay most of their attention to school and leisurely activities like television (Lankshear and Knobel, 2001). In this aspect producers of media are fighting for consumers attention and the economy is switching from goods to information, intended to capture attention (Lankshear and Knobel, 2001). With so many products and media sources I see this as being true because when we pay attention to those sources they make money in various ways. Secondly, I now view attention similarly to the way I view visibility. I think that what media makers choose to pay attention to relates to agenda setting and power. An example of this is how media content focus on some stories while ignoring others. How do some terrorist ISIS attacks like those in Belgium get national news coverage but some in Turkey or Pakistan do not? Media content places values on stories and therefore consumers get mediated realities. In what other circumstances have media heavily focused on certain stories to maybe cast our attention? This idea closely connects with the readings on poverty and how media does not reflect society. With 31.8 million people living in low-income families and 15.8 million living in very poor families (Jiang et.al, 2015), how does this issue still get ignored on major news sources?

Media also tends to pay attention to details that may not have causality in topics like poverty and violence. In poverty segments media focus on people as statistics, as making poor life choices, or as people who are just unlucky for the moment (Ridgway, 2013). None of these segments focus on the real threats to society that are causing such mass numbers of poverty. As stated by Marian Wright, the largest threats to American society are not external but internal structural issues that are plaguing society (Delman, 2015). Another example of how society and media frame issues and pay attention to the wrong details is when the connection between youth violence and violent media are made. Countless news reports and studies have created links between actual-real-life violence and media violence however these connections focus primarily on individuals behaviors and experiences rather than questioning social forces (Sternheimer, 2013). Studies and research are easily manipulated and bias meaning many studies can create desired results and with little question from consumers. The amount of research and news stories done on this topic has made people believe that it is common sense that violent media is connected to violence in the youth while ignoring all the raw data out there about actual crime numbers and average ages that violent crimes are conducted (Sternheimer, 2013). The research even contradicts itself stating that those with more access to violent media are more likely to be violent however the data shows that those in poverty are more likely to commit violent crimes (Sternheimer, 2013). I think an important question is why is so much research being done to create a link between violence and media and not more research done on what forces in society are making those in poverty have higher crime rates? And how do we shed light, or visibility, on those issues and fix them?
Module 3 has allowed me to make many connections between attention, visibility, and power in media. It makes me ask a lot of questions about the intentions media makers have, their influence on societal values, and how we can change the our realities are mediated. In one of the voice threads Dr. Kaia asked us if and when children should be taught to denaturalize normality. This reminded me of a previous question in a module stating that teaching media literacy at young ages may cause cynicism and skepticism. It has become more apparent that media education at young ages is necessary in not only deneutralizing normality, but changing media standards. I am curious to know what my group members think about this idea and hope to have some more in depth conversations about attention, visibility, and power and how it relates to media standards.

After reading the pdf written by Lanshear and Knobel, Michael Goldhaber on the ‘Attention Economy‘. I would like to agree that our economy is focusing more on the attention aspect rather than the information. When I think of this idea, I think about all the companies and all their advertisements. The authors mentioned how information gets moved around the internet but so does attention. “Goldhaber identifies cyberspace as the being where the attention economy will come into its own”. I think of companies because when I go on the internet and go to google to search something up there is always some type of advertisement on whatever page I may be on. I may have read this article wrong and if so someone can explain it to me better! It was interesting to see how Goldhaber relates media like television and education as taking on the same role of gaining attention. ” Everyone who is seen on television models one common role, as do all teachers in schools, and that role is to be the object of a good deal of attention. Thus, without planning or intention, there has been a kind of revoultion, tellings us that getting attention is a fine thing. And for many of us, having the attention of other turns out to feel very good, soemthing we often want more of” (Goldhaber, 1998, p.3). A great example that was also mentioned was how we have celebrities known as “stars” and then we have the fans who pay attention to the celebrities. Since paying attention takes effort, the fans who give the attention to the stars are supplying most of the attention for the economy.

Looking at the the two videos in this module I think they both had different qualities, but both try to raise awareness on the topic of child property that it out there in our world. The video called Child Poverty: In their own Words  grabbed my attention from the start because the child starts singing about his experience and then as we go into the video we listen to him and other children talking about their life experiences with poverty. I think when the information comes from someone who has actually lived through something like poverty it grabs peoples attention and you can connect with them on an emotional level. They all mentioned the necessities needed in life that they lacked like food, water, shelter, and something to call their own. In the other video Marian Wright Edelman: 2015 Poverty Report gave more the facts about 2015 child poverty that is an ongoing problem. This grabs your attention in a different way bay giving you the facst and what we need to do as a country to make a change. The report given by Marian Wright will give solutions on how to adjust different policies, which could lead to a shrink of child poverty by 60%. Mariam Wright stated in her speech that, “ Our greatest threat to national security doe snot come from an external enemy, it comes from the internal failure to build a strong citizenry” (Wright, 2015, video). No one is causing us to have these problems but ourselves the more people that are aware this is a problem, will maybe be the same people who can make a difference to help children in poverty. Looking at the reading,  The Poor Will Always Be With Us: Just not on the TV news it gave some good data about groups of people who are being affect by poverty in our country. “According to the most recent U.S. Census Bureau data, 37 million Americans—one in eight—lived below the federal poverty line in 2005” (Neil, Rendall, 2007, p.1). I decided to go find more recent data but I only found data for 2014. According to the U.S census Bureau, “ In 2014, the official poverty rate was 14.8 percent. There were 46.7 million people in poverty. Neither the poverty rate nor the number of people in poverty were statistically different from the 2013 estimates”. The numbers have definitely jumped to a higher number since 2005 and I’m interested to know what it is now. I am guessing it is worse because I still do not think our main focus is to decrease child poverty but we are focused on other topics. Looking at media we never really hear anything about it too. Also looking at the other fact sheet, Basic Facts about Low-Income Children was also shocking, because a big chunk of the victims of poverty are children under the age of 18. There was even a graph that showed the line between near poor and poor and it is a lot! Different aspects play a role like, health insurance, home ownership, family structure, parents employment, parents education, and it’s interesting how the difference in poverty does vary depending on race. This relates back to parents employment and education. White was the least but still a big number, while black and hispanic were both around the same numbers along with American Indian. I think it is staying a problem and growing even more in numbers because our media does not bring awareness to what is going on in our backyard. This brings me to the article called, 4 Problems with the Way the Media Depicts Poor People by Shannon Ridgway.

Four of the problems she stated talked about invisibility, statistics, life choices, and luck. Since we are learning about media literacy I though the invisibility was the most important problem. “ We’d much rather watch a show about the rich, superficial housewives squabbling over trivial issues, or New Yorkers living in huge apartments that they somehow magically can afford, despite have jobs that pay moderate wage, or no jobs at all” (Ridgway, 2013). Like the author I’m the same way I like to watch these type of shows because as much as they are not educational, the drama grabs my attention. If we want to make a change we do need to try to have media raise awareness on things that are important so that more people can be informed on the problems we have like poverty. She also made a good point about not just showing statistics because then we just group poor people as statistics rather than human beings which I did not think about before this article. Media can play a big role with this because they can help give a stronger voice to the people. “Without the social context to understand why the poor live the way they do, we assume that they live that way because they choose to” (Ridgway, 2013). Like the video we watched with the children speaking about their experiences it gave a stronger connection and context behind the words of just children poverty. In the end all the readings and videos touched on the subject of poverty in America and we need to bring awareness to this problem with media, but as Ridgway mentioned we keep these things invisible because we do not want to hear about them.