Class Notes 2/10/21 and Video Notes

- What is Mass Media

- amount of people int the audience doesn't matter

ex: podcasts

- reproducible technology// predicated on technology

- needs a medium

-media tech.- goes through stages to reach the masses

- Gutenberg's print and press--> EPS Power Shift

- hands for few to hands of many demonstrates EPS

- how does folk culture differ from pop culture?

-not all folk culture becomes pop culture, due to close off practices and boundaries

-some do though

- elite culture is not widely participated in, but folk culture can be enjoyed by elites

Video Notes:

• Why do Americans not listen to the experts?

  • Tom Nichols- "The Death of Expertise"

    • Nichols teaches about National Security Affairs

    • Americans trend of being an "expert" or know-it-all when really we know nothing at all.

    • Smarter than experienced professionals

    • " they have decided attending the university of Google," is one anti-vaccine activist put it, "is the same as going to medical school." (Nichols 1:34)

    • Technology, Education, News/Media } Parts of the "all experts" problem

    • "ego-driven wilderness"

    • "unless we start accepting the limitations of our knowledge, then each of us is failing in our obligation to participate in a democracy as involved but informed citizens." (2:52)

Law Professor: Virus reveals we all need a class in evidence--Len Niehoff

• Experts are saying coronavirus is way more contagious due to the R-0 (r-"not") factor

• R-0 factor --> EVERYONE is susceptible to infection

• Scientists originally thought the virus had R-0 = 2 BUT studies in Wuhan, China--> 5.7

• To b/w 5-6 other people as the pandemic wears on, numbers change

• People spread the virus without knowing

• Protests go against experts

• Isolation--> doesn't find virus host

Media Institution- Crash Course

• Main function of media is to provide information so people can make decisions and get involved in politics

• Rather than going out/ research--> media tells us what we think is useful

• TYPES OF MEDIA:

  • Print: newspaper and magazines

  • Other news media organizations rely on newspaper for news

  • Offer more detail and comprehensive news stories

  • Still main source for educated elites and these people's opinions tend to matter a lot in making policy (1:53)

  • Broadcast media:

    • Television reaches more Americans than any form of media, remains as an important source of political info

    • Has significant draw back in sharing public opinion:

      • Television stories are very short in turn less informative

  • The Internet:

    • Changing rapidly

    • Primary advantage it can update so quickly--great for breaking news

    • Argument that it pushes news stories create more stories and hot takes rather than deep report

    • Evolved into websites dedicated to left or right wing sites (polarized political stances)

    • The growth of social media created new avenues for politicians campaigns and parties to get info to the masses-every candidate has at least 1 Twitter profile/ Facebook page

    • Hardly unbiased news-- so not getting full story

    • Makes non-commercially supported information becoming available

  • "a serious complaint about broadcast and photojournalism is that because they are primarily financed by advertising, news organization have an incentive to not report on stories that are critical of their parent organizations or advertisers" (4:18).

  • Issue of how much we can trust the news comes down largely to issues of bias--pretty rare that news organizations lie outright

  • The public trust is crucial to keep readers

  • Media most biased towards conflict, not a lot of stories centered around compromise

• 3 MAIN FACTORS THAT EFFECT NEWS COVERAGE IN THE THOUGHT BUBBLE (5:!7)

  • The journalists who make it

    • They have the discretion to report and interpret the news

  • Source of political news/politicians

    • A lot of effort goes into creating a positive image/ relationship with media with politicians

    • Cultivate relationships with reporters and sometimes "give them" stories-- press releases

    • Press releases lower the cost of producing information so they are well liked

  • Consumers

    • "We matter because producers of news want us to read and watch it, so they make news that we will want to read and watch. In practice, this means that news will be tailored to the groups of people most likely to consume it" (6:54).

    • Certain segments of the population, and their concerns, are under reported

    • Working class particularly union workers, religious groups, veterans, and various minority groups

  • Media doesn't change or create the structures of government

  • If you believe media is key to understand why and how American politicians act, then we start to see media in a new light

  • Most important thing about media is what it doesn't cover

  • "hard for voters and other citizens to formulate opinions and try to influence their elected representative if they. Don't know that something is even an issue (7:52)

Noam Chomsky- The 5 Filters of the Mass Media Machine

• "propaganda" -often put under countries dubbed as authoritarian by western media (0:24)

• Versus press freedom/ freedom of though: democracies

• 1988: Noam Chomsky co-authored a book called Manufacturing Consent

  • Destroyed idea/ "notion that media acts as a check on political power" (0:54)

  • Destroyed idea that media informed, served the public for better political engagement/ in the process

  • They are those in power's messengers so we can fall in line

  • Democracy is staged with the help of media that work as propaganda machines (1:20)

5 Filters of Media

1. Media Ownership

   1. Mass media firms are part of big corps

   2. Endgame is profit

   3. Deep report is second

2. Advertisers

   1. Selling audiences- selling information to audiences and literally selling audiences (us)

3. The Media Elite (2:40)

   1. Journalism cannot be a check on power be cause the very system encourages complicity (2:49)

   2. Government, corps, big institutions know how to play the media game

   3. Know how to feed the news narrative

   4. Those who are in power lay in bed with journalist crucial to the process

4. Flack

   1. Discredits stories, trashing stories as a way to gate-keep what is sent out into the world

5. The Common Enemy

• Consent is being manufactured all around you.

Pop Culture- What's wrong with media?

• Mainstream media: our friends?

  1. Media excites us unnecessarily

     1. "in order to gain money from advertisers or government the media has to hook us in and it knows our minds are helpless in the face of such headlines" (0:35)

     2. We look to media for what matter not what excites us

     3. The media does everything to exploit our desires

  2. The media doesn't care about improving society (1:16)

     1. " It's meant to direct a mass audience to engage with the greatest problems in society so as to push politician to make necessary changes" (1:22)

     2. Media loves scandal

  3. Media has the attention span of a gnat (1:53)

     1. Nothing remains priority for long

  4. The media makes us anxious and scared rather than effective or sane (2:03)

  5. The media is sanctimonious and prurient hypocritically satisfies both our fantasies and our need to think ourselves normal and respectable (2:46)

  6. The media makes us forget history (2:50)

  7. The media lacks the skill to make the boring things exciting (3:12)

     1. Journalist can't just present a story they have to make exciting

  8. The media debases the idea of celebrity (3:38)

  9. We need a media that is free but also good (4:12)--able to direct a mass audience to what truly counts= justice, truth, wisdom