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Old Media versus New Media

Page history last edited by Sarah Tillery 14 years, 2 months ago

Previous Page: Political Culture                                                                                                                   Next Page: Media in Elections and Campaigns

 

 

Old Media vs. New Media

 

ACTIVITY: Talk to your parents or grandparents about how they remember getting their news, and think about how you get your news now. Look at these videos of Walter Cronkite and other news broadcasts from back in the day to help you get a better picture too. Does it seem less or more biased than today’s media? Is it a force for change? Or is it fear mongering and argumentative? Does it focus on the news or non-issues and entertainment? Now what do you think about today’s news media? Has it changed? Think about these things as you read through this chapter, and this section.

 

Creating Bias

 

 

These days, people can get their news from any source possible. Newspapers, magazines, radio, television, internet, all different sources can be used to learn of the recent events going on in the world. In the days when television and radio, even weekly to daily newspapers, were on the rise, broadcast news 3 developed, and changed the way the people of America got their news. They were given a broad, descriptive view of the government and its policies and actions, and this, being one of the only forms of entertainment at the time, made sure many Americans were informed about politics. In that era, journalists were not allowed to focus in on scandal and the private lives of the politicians, and had to report simply the facts, not just unsupported rumor. 

Today, a new culture of quick information has arisen in its place. As technology has advanced, the public now has more options than before in their television viewing and now can browse the internet for rapid updates to the events of the world. This culture involves the 24 hour news channels, the sound-bite 4 culture that has arisen, blogs, and even the rise of satirical news shows to counteract the nonsensical nature of today’s media. It even has invented it’s own new term--- narrowcast news 5. But because of the rise of cable television and the internet, information has become more selective and people now may choose what they wish to view, rather than having to sit down and watch or read up on the news.

 

As a result, journalism seems to have become a very different animal, which in a way it has. Journalism used to be a source of mostly unbiased, factual material based on the issues and not sensational gossip, scandals, or other non-issues. But that was what the people wanted back at the start of this century. The media is a business and it must provide the people with what they want in order to be successful.

 

It just so happens that the public today has more options to view, and as a result, needs something to keep the ADD minds fixed on their networks, and factual information and analyses of the government are going to bore them to tears. And in the television business, one needs ratings to gain profit, and so, the media must be entertaining, somehow. It just so happens, that journalists and news reporters today find that debating over non-issues, catering to specific party groups and mindsets, and talking more about the strategies of politicians and why they are rotton than what they stand for. It just makes for better television.

 

 

 

 

Which is Better: Privately Owned Media or Government Run Media?

 

All media gets it information and sources from the government. In America, journalists main source for information is from Congress and the White House itself, which in media terms are called beats 6. Sometimes Congress and the White House even reveal potential scandals ahead of time, in an effort to find out what sort of public damages they would do to them. These are called trial balloons. 7

 

 

 

From beats and trial balloons journalists gather the information that they can publish in their work. In most other countries, it’s the government that solely supplies the news, such as the BBC in England, which runs most of the major channels and provides most of the entertainment, as well as the news. The United States even gets BBC World News, and it is considered by many to be much more informative and less biased than most American news networks. This does not create a government bias though because the governments for most of these countries give the journalists the freedom to write whatever they want to.

 

In America, however, most media is publicly or privately owned. Many of the news channels in today’s society are owned by private corporations rather than the network themselves or publicly funded. This could result in the bias that surrounds today’s media. Why? Well, think of it this way.

 

If you owned your own network you would want only the shows you care about and things you like on it, right? So of course, those who own their own networks only put their interests, ideals, and favorites on the channel.

Networks like Fox News and MSNBC are perfect examples of privately owned networks with a strong bias. Fox News, a strongly conservative (sometimes questionably biased) network is owned by Rupert Murdoch, an Australian media tycoon, who for most of his life built up his business, News Corporation, to own newspapers and others news outlets throughout the world. Quoted as saying, “I'm a catalyst for change … You can't be an outsider and be successful over 30 years without leaving a certain amount of scar tissue around the place.”1

 

 

His ideologies fit perfectly within the Republican ideals of the self-made man, which is why it’s logical that his news networks would promote such ideals, and tend to be biased towards them. On the other hand, as a business man, Murdoch also must make sure his news media is wanted by the public, will sell and get more ratings. To do so, he must make Fox News more entertaining and sensationalist than necessarily factual. Why? Well, it gets more ratings and that makes him more money. It’s only logical.

 

On the other hand, there are public news networks that are non-profit organizations funded by the donations from viewers. Generally, these stations, one example being C-SPAN, are unbiased sources that, opposite the more prominent networks, provide supported, factual information rather than hearsay for entertainment’s sake. These networks are more focused on getting the news to the public, and do not, like the other networks, focus on the non-issues that get much too much airtime on other networks. However, these networks do not get the same ratings as privately owned networks, and are pretty dreadfully boring to watch. They go more in depth with their coverage, but focus in on more specific issues rather than all the headlines. C-SPAN, for instance, covers mostly issues dealing with Congressional debates and other purely political issues. They are not 24-hour news networks, and not meant for the express purpose of entertaining the masses--- only those few who watch and donate to the network, so they do not have to go over every single headline.

 

So which is better? It would appear to be that a non-24 hour news network funded by donations rather than privately owned network is the best option, however how many people would honestly watch a half hour of analysis on a Senate hearing? Informed people, who seek to be further informed might very well enjoy such a station, but would the masses of busy, every day people feel the same way? Let’s see:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

ACTIVITY: As an experiment, have you and/or your family watch an hour of PBS News or C-SPAN every day for a week. Observe how much you and your family pay attention to it and how much they retain, with little pop quizzes throughout the day, bringing up topics you learned about on the station and if they remember. Do the same with a more sensationalist entertaining news channel such as CNN, MSNBC, or FoxNews. Which stories did you and your family remember better? Sensationalist stories from the entertainment news or the factual analysis of the public news?

 

The Internet

 

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It’s not all so bad though. Even though the television media has become a big source of entertainment now rather than information, the Internet is a wide and varied source for both. Not only can it give unbiased, factual information regarding the media (if you know where to look), but it also gives the public a way to participate as well.

 

For example, before the story ever broke on the news, Matt Drudge posted the rumors of the Monica Lewinsky scandal on his website, which broke the story to the world. His story is a little less admirable if only for the fact that he had no verification of whether or not the story was true, and did no research prior to his revealing it to the world as fact. In this day and age people have learned to be a bit more cynical of what’s on the Internet, but back then it was a legitimate story and as history proves it hurt President Clinton’s presidency a great deal.

 

Today, the Internet is a wide source of knowledge, with each website focusing on broad or narrow topics. There are websites like Gallup, which conduct polls to find unbiased information about how the world is working and how people feel about them. There are more biased websites focusing solely on democratic or republican ideals, such as mediamatters.org, a left leaning website that corrects misinformation presented by the conservative right media, and without a doubt, there are probably many websites that do the same, but correcting misinformation presented by the liberal left. In short, the Internet has a variety of websites to choose from, all of which must be viewed with a grain of salt, but also can be legitimate sources of information.

 

Also, the Internet provides a way for the public to get their opinions heard, rather than just the media or the politicians. The Internet is the public's way of forming their own media, their own news, even their own facts. With websites like wikipedia, an encyclopedia where anyone can add whatever information they deem important, people can make whatever they find important important, and those who are likeminded will find it and be able to share. This same principle is behind weblogs, more commonly referred to as blogs, which started out as online diaries with which family and friends could keep up to date with one another's lives. However, today, many people use blogs to get their opinions heard, and share information with one another, much like opinion articles in newspapers used to do. There are even professional bloggers out there, doing the exact same job as investigative journalists, but the level of research or truth put into these blogs vary, and most of it is hearsay, opinion, and gossip. Examples of these kinds of blogs are Matt Drudge and Perez Hilton, although they cover very different topics. Blogs have become so important in today's society that news networks actually have teams that check the Blogosphere every morning to see what's the buzz.

 

 

 

 

In this day and age, the media is all around us, influencing our opinions and decisions. Let's see how it works in the election season...

 

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