Module 5 (last one)
This final module has been interesting for me because I generally tend to enjoy learning about marketing. However, this part of marketing is bothersome to me. I don’t like the idea of being manipulated or manipulating people and I think that’s a big part of what we learned this week. I have never been a big fan of the news because I feel like I don’t learn anything new when I watch it. The questions I have are not answered by the media and now I don’t think they even care what the full story is. All the network cares about are ratings and people don’t like hearing about the same story over and over again so after they report on it, you rarely hear an update unless it’s some kind of terrorist activity or mass killing.
According to Radford (2003), the news bias distorts reporting and changes how we understand and react to the world around us. Unfortunately, we trust the news and rely on the media to tell us what we need to know. However, what we need to know and what they want us to know are rarely the same thing. After reading the Radford article, I realized how local news isn’t very helpful unless the story directly relates to your life and that the market drives the news and the ratings tell the networks that if they want the ratings, they need to report on things such as sex and violence. I believe the phrase was “If it bleeds, it leads”. In the words of Joseph Stalin, “A single death is a tragedy, a million deaths is a statistic”.
I don’t know about you guys but that quote is upsetting because I think it’s true. When a small number of people die, we rally around the family to help but when it’s a massacre, I think we go into information overload and all we think about is how many people, not who they were. One other thing I took issue with in the Radford article was that it mentioned that 90% of kids feel safe in their schools. I want to know why there’s a new story every week in the news telling us how unsafe our schools are. Why do we have to live in fear that every teacher is a rapist? Another of the ruined fairy tale myths is that of Lindsay Lohan. The poor girl was put on a pedestal just so we could tear her apart. All in all, I learned that there is no way you can make an informed decision solely based on what the media reports (Radford, B. 2003)
After reading the conservative/liberal article on StudentNewsDaily.com, I realized a few things about myself. First, I am fairly far right 90% of the time. The few things that put me on the liberal side of the spectrum include my belief that global warming is real and we need to prepare ourselves by finding clean energy sources and also that same-sex marriage shouldn’t be legal. Although I am very conservative, I don’t believe on infringing upon people’s private rights as long as they are not hurting me or my family. According to McChesney (2002), there are two functions of journalism in a self-governing society. These two functions include the watchdog and the informative roles. The three biases deal with how the journalists decide what news to produce. Basically, if it deals with a government official, it has a hook and it shows the values conducive to the commercial aims of the owners, advertisers and political aims of the owning class, then it is good news and should be produced.
In Sternheimer (2013), chapter 9 talks about how consumers are stimulating the economy and hurting the environment at the same time. This can be related back to the videos on ‘The Story of Stuff’ where she talks about the cycle of electronics and the average life cycle of 18 months. This chapter reminded me that although advertising is everywhere and is geared towards children, the media does not pay for and deliver the toys to my home. I buy my child the newest Shopkins or My Little Pony toys because I don’t want her to think we can’t afford the things she likes or that her friends have. However, I see that she probably looks at me and my buying habits and self-control and imitates me. It makes me feel like I need to be more aware and that I too need to limit my spending because what’s ‘cool’ only lasts a short while and then it’s discarded and taken to the dump and all the toxins that went in to making it were for nothing.
The Sternheimer text was a great book for this class and I feel wiser and hungry for more information after reading it. Thank you!
