What is the media doing to us?

What is the media doing to us? In Bartow’s article, “Behind TV Analysis, Pentagon’s Hidden Hand,” we hear about another instance where the American people are being “brainwashed” by our government. George Carlin, an American stand-up comedian, speaks about our government in one of his acts and says, “The government doesn’t want critical thinking, that doesn’t help them. They own the biggest media companies; they control all the media and information; they spend billions of dollars lobbying. They want people who are just smart enough to work machines and file paper work but dumb enough to passively accept shitty jobs. IT’S A BIG CLUB AND YOU AIN’T IN IT,” (Youtube). While watching this clip and others that I researched, I feel that the government does not care even a little bit about the people.

According to the reading, the government has been controlling analysts’ (retired military officers) words and ideas through media so that Americans are only receiving information controlled by government.. To get a further understanding of the Pentagon military analyst program that ran from 2002-2008, Wikipedia explains that, “the goal of the operation is to spread the administration’s talking point on Iraq by briefing retired commanders for network and cable television appearance,” (Wikepedia). The biggest media corporations such as Fox News, NBC, and CNN broadcasted many analysts who spoke about the war in Iraq and how we, as Americans, should support the war.  Bartow writes, “Members of Ms. Clarke’s staff marveled at the way the analysts seamlessly incorporated material from talking points and briefings as if it was their own.” And a quote from staff member, Mr. Krueger, says, “You could see they were talking verbatim what the secretary was saying or what the technical specialists were saying. And they were saying it over and over and over,” (Barstow, 2008).

I found a cartoon that represents the government’s control over analysts, media, and us. Barstow writes in a later article, “Another military analyst, the report said, told investigators that the outreach program’s intent ‘was to move everyone’s mouth on TV as a sock puppet,’” (Barstow, 2011).

http://www.cipe.org/cartoon/images/winners/democracy2.jpg

In Barstow’s 2011 article, “Pentagon Finds No Fault in Ties to TV Analysts,” he explains that an inquiry was done on the Pentagon in order to detect any wrongdoing with the program, but the inquiry showed that there was none (Barstow, 2011).

The more I read and understand the concept of these analysts and the government’s motives, the more I feel that they do not care for us one bit. In my eyes, (with support of multiple sources) they see us as puppets, and think they can easily pull our strings to agree with any information they give us. I am not into politics and do not read much into it, but I do feel that this is truly what the government is like, they do not care only for themselves and they are gaining more control of us little by little.

While reading the articles about the analysts, I wondered what must have been going through their heads about being told exactly what to say. It’s a shame that they submitted themselves to what seems like a “wrongdoing” and I wonder if they felt that they had an obligation to do so being that they were working for the Department of Defense.

Citations

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/20/us/20generals.html?pagewanted=all

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pentagon_military_analyst_program

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/25/us/pentagon-finds-no-fault-in-its-ties-to-tv-analysts.html?pagewanted=all

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hYIC0eZYEtI

http://www.cipe.org/cartoon/images/winners/democracy2.jpg

BROADCASTING/GOVERNMENT IN MEDIA

“A Face in the Crowd”: a very interesting movie. I was able to see the growing success of one man and his ability to influence large communities of people into following his interests and beliefs. Seeing this happen from an outsider’s point of view, I looked at all the people who were literally obsessed with this guy and I even laughed at some of the crazy things people would do just to be like him. The funny thing is that Lonesome was a hopeless prisoner in a small southern town. Although he did time in prison, he ran into someone who was able to change his life around through broadcasting.  This young lady found Lonesome a name and a career that boosted him to fame. Of course, Lonesome would not have been as popular without his ecstatic personality and humor. But he was also an attractive man and charmed many women into following him. The more popular Lonesome became, the more corporations wanted to work with him. Many tried to get him to sell their products, which was a smart idea being that everyone was tuning in specifically to watch Lonesome. It was exciting to see how one small local broadcasting station and a mass group of people were able to change a useless prisoner’s life into a luxurious one.

“Our Democracy is in Danger of Being Paralyzed”: Bill Moyers brings up many appealing points about media in our world today. Moyer is arguing that our media is basically a monopoly and the government is working with media as one to regulate what information is being exposed to the people and what information is remaining behind the scenes. This is a very unprofessional way of running a democracy because, “democracy can’t exist without an informed public” (Moyers). And if we are not given “truth” then how can we call ourselves a democracy? Moyers is right, not very many young people care much about voting, and “only % 13 of young people cast ballots in the last presidential election.” For me, voting isn’t important because I do not feel like I can make a difference in our society, and I believe that is how many of us young people feel. I would like to go back to the earlier times when journalism was more independent and not manipulated or corrupted by the mighty-media-government boss. Moyers makes it seem like there is not as much truth in writing as there used to be and the government is controlling every little thing about media and what comes out of it. I am a little convinced by this reading that government’s hands are too much in the media and journalism should be how Moyers said it used to be.

Understanding Mass Media

In our previous class, we discussed the different ways people receive messages and the different stages of the mass media: elitist stage, popular stage, and specialized stage. In these stages, I could see the evolution in each. The Elite stage was for the wealthier upper class people and focused mainly on communication towards them. The popular stage addressed a broader group of people and less inclusive. The specialized stage focused on more specifics of the popular group. Examples of this transformation could be a television. During the Elite stage, TV was found only in wealthy homes. As the popular stage began to occur, more and more people owned televisions. Now, we are in the specialized stage where TV’s are becoming more detailed and technical, like the 3-D TV or LCD. In class, we also discussed selective retention and selective perception and the difference between both. An example of selective retention is if I look up to Lebron James because he is a famous basketball player and I find out that he is taking drugs and setting a bad example for kids, I would avoid the bad things because I am only interested in the good things about him.  A good example of selective perception is going into the subway and not listening to a homeless man who has something important to say because I believe he never has anything important to say.

The reading, Mass Media in Modern Society, focused on social media during the 18^th-20^th centuries. The four theories of the press shapes how we see media in our world today. We first used media to strictly further government policy. Then we began using it to check on government and also meeting needs of others including entertainment. From this reading, I understood that the media had a lot of controversies. Whether it was publicly or privately posted, media chose to address only the things that they chose to expose. Along with that, they also chose to address the wealthier crowds.

I also understood the different functions of the media; that the media focuses on addressing surveillance, Correlation, and transmission. Some conflicts that the media had to be aware of is the amount of information exposed to the people. For example, if media was addressing a serious hurricane watch and the news was showing a dangerous hurricane, people would react frightened and fearful. Therefore, media has to make sure that the people receive information in a way that they do not over react to, if it is possible. 

I thought it was really interesting how examples were given about reporters leaving out words or descriptions that would jeopardize their community, country, family, etc. The true story changes when it is about something that the reporters/editors are familiar with.