New media is definitely influencing politics and contributing to democracy in America.
This is evident this year, in 2008, because it is a presidential election year. Every newscast and talk show from CBS to Tyra, Tyra Bank’s talk show, has done a special on politics or a political candidate.
In the Web Publishing book it devotes a whole chapter to electronic democracy and the role the media plays in politics. The articles praise technology, the Internet especially, for allowing more voices to be heard through the use of blogs, chat rooms, and response links.
However, the articles warn of the dangers of personal selectivity. Personal selectivity refers to the natural tendency people have to pick one side in politics and disregard or downplay the other side. This is dangerous because Republicans use the Internet to seek information that enforce their views, will Democrats use it to seek information that enforce theirs also. If this is the case, how will the two sides ever find a common ground on prudent issues?
One prudent issue the book discussed was Welfare. Most Republicans feel that Welfare needs to be abolished because it helps and in their eyes “rewards” certain people for having lots of kids and not being able to provide for themselves. While Democrats feel that it is our obligation as a civilized society to provide aid for people with dependents who clearly need the helping hand. Their argument is that the wealthy get tax breaks and advantages that the disadvantaged don’t get so welfare kind of balances the situation.
I found an article today from the Newsweek website titled, The Myth of Objectivity, that relates to the ideas discussed in the textbook. The article talks about how the press is suppose to be objective and provide the public with hard facts so that they can make an informed decision.
However, the press is increasingly putting a spin on their stories that favor a certain side or frame the story in a specific way. For example, the article citied a 1987 Newsweek story about the Vice President at the time, George H.W. Bush. The article showed a picture of him driving his speedboat and the headline said, “fighting the wimp factor,” clearly calling him a wimp!
The article also utilizes current examples relating to the sketch comedy shows like SNL and the Colbert Report that often use political humor to make fun of political candidates.
These shows are often accused of being left winged or right winged and they have significant impact especially on young voters.
While these shows often address the other side of the issue, they do so to poke fun and belittle the ideology. So what good is that?
Without a doubt, new media is changing the shape of democracy in America for better and for worse!
Sunday, March 23, 2008
Monday, March 3, 2008
Blog Post # 3
Chapter six in the media textbook talks about media saturation and how every facet of our daily lives is filled with media.
Well, I found an article on the Lexis Nexis database entitled, Entertainment Overload; Tivo, Dvds, Ipods, Blogs, Xbox 360: It’s a world of endless possibilities. But is that really good for us, that fit this topic of media saturation perfectly.
The article used three individuals to emphasize how much of an effect media has on everyone. The three people chosen were either innovators or early adopters who stayed up to date with the latest technology. Specifically, one of them had a “34-inch-screen HDTV with surround sound and digital recording capability, an iPod Nano, two Apple computers, and an Xbox 360, the latest in video game technology.”
After establishing that media is all around us as individuals, the article went on to question if this saturation is a good thing or a bad thing. The textbook does the same thing. It opens up with an article about media saturation which basically states that it is impossible to avoid media, wheter it is on TV, radio, ipod, phone, magazine, newspaper, or billboard! The book talks about media overload and how people are bombared with messages, specifically spam email messages.
The articled discussed the same media overload, stating that by having so many media outlets and options from which to choose from, people are cluttering their day and creating more distractions to overcome in 24 hours. For example, if a college student has to write a paper they may have the TV on in the background or the radio on or the may be trying to talk on the phone at the same time. By constantly having a rush of media, individuals have less concrete time and more distractions to ignore.
Personally, I feel that this is true. I mean I always feel like I never have enough hours in the day to complete everything I need to. I wonder how many hours I spend a month listening to my new ipod shuffle and watching shows on BET.
Both the book and the article discussed the abundance of information and how this pertains to society. The article highlighted the fact that this abundance is making individuals have a very short attention span. For example, commercials have roughly five seconds to catch our attention and hold it. If they don’t we will most likely flip the channel or tune out. This is proving to be a major problem for networks and companies like Nielson, that try to capture data on TV viewership.
Another issue for indivduals is that they can never hear about everything no matter how many media outlets are accessible to them. Therefore, a person could read all the articles on a news website and still miss a newsworth event that happened the same day.
So what does all this mean for the future of the media? Well since Moore’s law states that chips double in ablity every year and half, technologies are only going to improve and add to the saturation problem. However, there are spyware services for spam messages and not all media is bad. For example, online dating has helped to create many successfully marriages and video games have helped to prepare troops for war.
All in all, media saturation is time consuming and unexcapable. But nowadays you have to take the good with the bad.
Well, I found an article on the Lexis Nexis database entitled, Entertainment Overload; Tivo, Dvds, Ipods, Blogs, Xbox 360: It’s a world of endless possibilities. But is that really good for us, that fit this topic of media saturation perfectly.
The article used three individuals to emphasize how much of an effect media has on everyone. The three people chosen were either innovators or early adopters who stayed up to date with the latest technology. Specifically, one of them had a “34-inch-screen HDTV with surround sound and digital recording capability, an iPod Nano, two Apple computers, and an Xbox 360, the latest in video game technology.”
After establishing that media is all around us as individuals, the article went on to question if this saturation is a good thing or a bad thing. The textbook does the same thing. It opens up with an article about media saturation which basically states that it is impossible to avoid media, wheter it is on TV, radio, ipod, phone, magazine, newspaper, or billboard! The book talks about media overload and how people are bombared with messages, specifically spam email messages.
The articled discussed the same media overload, stating that by having so many media outlets and options from which to choose from, people are cluttering their day and creating more distractions to overcome in 24 hours. For example, if a college student has to write a paper they may have the TV on in the background or the radio on or the may be trying to talk on the phone at the same time. By constantly having a rush of media, individuals have less concrete time and more distractions to ignore.
Personally, I feel that this is true. I mean I always feel like I never have enough hours in the day to complete everything I need to. I wonder how many hours I spend a month listening to my new ipod shuffle and watching shows on BET.
Both the book and the article discussed the abundance of information and how this pertains to society. The article highlighted the fact that this abundance is making individuals have a very short attention span. For example, commercials have roughly five seconds to catch our attention and hold it. If they don’t we will most likely flip the channel or tune out. This is proving to be a major problem for networks and companies like Nielson, that try to capture data on TV viewership.
Another issue for indivduals is that they can never hear about everything no matter how many media outlets are accessible to them. Therefore, a person could read all the articles on a news website and still miss a newsworth event that happened the same day.
So what does all this mean for the future of the media? Well since Moore’s law states that chips double in ablity every year and half, technologies are only going to improve and add to the saturation problem. However, there are spyware services for spam messages and not all media is bad. For example, online dating has helped to create many successfully marriages and video games have helped to prepare troops for war.
All in all, media saturation is time consuming and unexcapable. But nowadays you have to take the good with the bad.
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