week 9

Lecture notes week 9

Poster session and paper- goal to look at media bias from different angles – from different countries, comparing mainstream from alternative press, being a critical consumer, language and slant

Note the place we are in the semester – gone from Media Literacy (media as text subject to interpretation), Media Bias (how media is formed and how it is interpretive in its presentation), to Media Issues (effects of media, private interests vs. public interests, individual and society, democracy), to Media Ethics (conflicts of interest for media practitioners)

Effects – questions from textbook, circle map, micro (direct) vs. macro (hidden) levels, administrative (immediate, observable) vs critical (larger, cultural) research, transmissional (what is sent and its effect) vs. ritual (maintenance of societal attitudes) perspective

First amendment = expression, religion, congregation, press; limits against government for the individual (individual rights of enlightenment), founding fathers assumed engaged citizens, marketplace of ideas (favored quantity of quality, allows for societal change without armed conflict), range of interpretations including literal which is currently become rather influential

history of press – print = anyone who had a printing press, partisan papers (multiple papers in a region), yellow journalism and muckraking (helped sales) and turned into investigative journalism (Watergate and Vietnam war) and tabloids, objectivity (not universally admired), facts vs. opinion (readers make up their own mind), objectivity allowed to reach out to more readers and appeal to more advertisers, eyewitness skepticism, now present more undigested representations of people in power,

serving the public interest = letters to the editor

Serving the public interest = Fairness doctrine, children’s programming, Public Service Announcements

Tragedy of Commons- competition over shared space, limited resources, systems thinking approach,

history- mathematical formula, not about sadness but about ordained fate, overpopulation, traffic intersections, examples from today are parking meters, national parks, pollution, parking at landmark – logical action to maximize personal advantage in times of shortages and stress, leads to disputes, fences, private property and rules

Adam Smith- free market action, the invisible hand (individual gain promotes social interest), what if this individual is a corporation with legal rights of an individual

Competition - Win As Much As You Can

Societal appeals to an individual exploiting a commons to restrain himself for the general good by means of conscience sets up a selective system toward the elimination of that conscience

o Education - counteract but each succession of generations require that this knowledge be refreshed

o Morality – depends of the state of the system at the time performed

o Laws - mutual coercion - mutually agreed upon by the majority of the people affected

o Prohibition – no bank robbing, infringe on the freedom of would-be robbers

o Temperance – how do we legislate temperance?

o Taxation, making behaviors increasingly expensive

o When we pass laws against robbery are we more free or less free?

o We have set up restrictions on food gathering (enclosing farm land, hunting and fishing regulations)

o We have set up restrictions on waste disposal

o What of matters of pleasure – what restrictions are necessary?

o Noise (loud music in public places)

o Smoking in public locations

o Motorcycle helmets, seatbelts

o Advertising (commercials, billboards, telemarketers, spam)

o Every new enclosure of the commons involves the infringement of somebody’s personal liberty.

Apply to media – finite system, individual’s attention span, cultural forum, room for dialogue (marketplace of ideas, are those with the most money or with the glitziest ads have more power), raises the public interest vs. private interest conflict for media