module 5

I voted for Katlyn Fahl’s final project Women in Society. While I believe this voting process was supposed to be private I wanted to reveal my vote for many reasons. I am a transfer student from SDSU and had taken a few women study courses from that University. I have always felt as though I was cheated out of the credits I deserved since CSUCI did not have the equivalent classes to match. Secondly after taking Politics in Film this summer session I am horrified by all of the films that were shown. They all showed women in a demeaning light. Every time I brought this up to the professor he glossed over this topic saying “this is just how it was back then”. All of the other students went along with the Professor, he is the teacher. Some students wanted to open a conversation but were shut down and pushed toward other topics that the Professor leaned on. I did not want to sound like a loud feminist bringing up women’s issues every time we talked about a new movie. Katlyn brought up a good point in her final project, women are still struggling to earn equal pay and other equalities today. Only 24% of the people in the news are female. Shouldn’t taking one course in women’s studies be mandatory in higher education? How is it possible that CSUCI does not offer women’s studies at all, not a single class?

As we march through the centuries of time it is hard not to notice that the media has turned information into entertainment. In the eighteenth century people understood that journalism was to be politically neutral and even objective. It is our first amendment right in the Constitution to have a free press. This protects dissident political viewpoints. During the nineteenth century the press grew financially solid but still remained politically neutral. During the early twentieth century commercials were taking affect on people’s lives. First Amendment rights of a “free press” were essentially being changed around to protect media corporate investors and managers in noncompetitive markets. “The problems with our journalism are not because the people who run our newsrooms and media corporations are bad people. That is mostly irrelevant. They do what they do because they are rationally following the cues they are given”. (McChesney, 2002) I believe we would be better served if we had more PBS news stations. How about more independent media stations? They could give us their opinions without having corporate sponsor backlash. Edward Murrow was the type of journalist that believed in telling the real story. He paved a path for journalism that is still blazing today through courage. Murrow had many shows throughout his career but none as personally touching as See It Now where he would sign off the show with good night and good luck. “The only thing that counts is the right to know, to speak, to think — that, and the sanctity of the courts. Otherwise it’s not America”. (Edward Murrow Democracy and the News)

The media has honed in on ways to get our attention “The media profits from fear mongering through sensationalized headlines.” (Radford, 2003) The scarier the headline the more viewers they will get. Views see a scary headline and want to watch in hopes of saving their family from the same problem. The media has learned this scare tactic and is relentless. Ratings are the goal and they will stop at nothing to obtain them, ratings equal money. “Television news has abandoned its responsibility to do serious journalism in favor of sensational video.” (Redford, 2003) Television considers crime reporting as news worthy, instead of chasing the story and having to do follow ups. John Ruscio, a social psychologist, has a view on the media paradox. He says, the more we rely on the popular media to inform us, the more apt we are to misplace our fears. The paradox is the combined result of two biases, one inherent in the news-gathering process, the other inherent in the way our minds organize and recall information. (Radford, 2003)

After evaluating the news in module five and reading Who Gets to Speak on the News, it is more than evident that broadcasting on the news is not diverse. “Eighty-four percent of guests were white (848). The most and least diverse shows in terms of ethnicity were both on MSNBC: People of color were 27 percent of guests on All In and only 6 percent on Maddow. Just three of Maddow’s guests were people of color; none of these were women”. (Hart, 2014, http://fair.org/extra/who-gets-to-speak-on-cable-news/) I watched Megyn Kelly on Fox news during my own evaluation of the news in module five. Being a media consumer I noticed that white males have a large audience and platform to speak. When you branch out to other jobs in front and behind the camera, reaching trillions of viewers white males are predominantly producers, actors, camera “men”, etc.

While on the same topic of stereotypes I wanted to talk about a small part of our reading that I found to be unfavorable. “Do stereotypes skew coverage? Does coverage of the drug crisis focus almost exclusively on African Americans, despite the fact that the vast majority of drug users are white?” (How to detect bias in the news, http://fair.org/take-action-now/media-activism-kit/how-to-detect-bias-in-news-media/) This part of the article is highlighting and raising one race by putting down another. This is sad and unfavorable in my opinion. We should be stating the truth, yes, but not by putting others down. The definition of one love is universal love and respect expressed by all people for all people, regardless of race, creed, or color. I want to be the change I want to see in the world. It starts with you and me.

Last week’s read had to do with recycling and where it all goes is the perfect introduction to materialism. Children and adults on average want more. According to Sternheimer (2013), “Kidfluence: the power children have to influence their parents’ purchasing decisions”. Media focuses a large portion of their advertisements on getting children’s attention. They know the power children have over their parents. Children and teens are believed to be easily influenced. Parents do not know how to say no to their children. On the complete opposite end of this belief some parents believe their children are being affected by affluenza. However there are more households under the poverty line than past polls have shown.

Popular culture is not to blame for the many let downs in our society. According to Sternheimer (2013), “young viewers will imitate what they see, popular culture is not the central cause of changes in childhood, bullying, suicide, educational failure, violence, sexual behavior, teen pregnancy, single parenthood, eating problems, substance abuse, or materialism”. I agree with everything she listed except for materialism. We have parents who shape who we are, TV does not raise us. How can we blame popular culture for one of the biggest let downs in our society, poverty. According to Sternheimer (2013), “48 percent of children under three live in low-income families”.

Student News Daily is part of our reading this week and what a great read! One of the most interesting liberal versus conservative talks was over private property, in my opinion. Liberal opinion is that the government should be allowed to seize private property to accomplish a public end. What does this public end mean? I’m assuming this mean, for the public’s use. The conservative opinion is that seizure of private property is wrong and should not be used for private development. This can be a tricky situation but I do not think that the government should be able to set an amount that your private property is worth forcing you into a sale.