MOd 5 vIDeo's

Rich Media Poor Democracy;

• 3 tiers of corporate media
• 1.Huge-Viacom-aol.time warner
• 2.medium-comcast-general electric-new york times
• 3.small-
• Journalism, healthy is the cornerstone of democracy, a rigourous acounting of people in power and those that wish to be in power, a way to get the truth the come out, need a wide range of opinions.
• today the small number of corporate owners goes after profit not democracy-cut spending-increase entertainment
• we get weaker journalism, easy journalism, covering the queen of england, 
• political stories will interview a republican and democrat but never try to find out who is telling the truth
• This leads to problems when we get into war-war coverage journalism was horrible-
• our journalist seem to be late to most meaningful stories.

What Happened to the news (2)

I follow a lot of current events/news media, especially the internet, because what is on tv is garbage. The ideas and framing of ideas has less to do with informing and initiating and intilectual adult debate based on facts,and more to do with pulling at people heart strings and fear, and belief strings, with hot button  words. I posted this fact on facebook this week about new media, "Well, for one, to our major newspapers, what’s “torture” overseas isn’t always that closer to home. A Harvard study found The New York Times called waterboarding torture 82 percent of the time from 1930 to 2004. After that, when the U.S. became the most famous waterboarder, the Times called it torture 1 percent of the time." 

This goes back to my world view, that the powers that dominate our nation, which own the media, do not benefit by having a smart, thinking, educated public, and media plays a large role in that idea. 

The Myth of Liberal Media

Noam Chomsky makes a great point, the power brokers that run the system do not want any challengers, they conrol the massive from challenging them with propoganda. There is a great book out that I have not read called Whats the Matter with Kansas. The central theme of the book, as I understand it, is to show how political leaders in Kansas were able to get the population of Kansas to vote against their own interest. 

Its like the idea of the estate tax. This was a tax on mega wealth, not on the average man. The goal was to prevent royal dynasty from Europe being built here. As we know royal European dynasties were very powerful and controlled the nation and the people of Europe for many hundreds of years, using many oppressive actions agains the common man. Our country did not want to see these power structures build up and passed on from generation to generation. So we taxed them at death. Today the debate has shifted, and it is framed by the media spin doctors as a death tax, arguing if you die you will be taxed, and we are all equally taxed, but that is not true. This tax effects only a very small percentage of our nation, yet this powerful group was able to sell the idea to the people of this country that it was the worst thing in the world, and that everyone would be effected. So the majority of people voted to end this tax, even though it was not in their interest.

Mickey Mouse, Monopoly

• What kind of stories are being told
• how is disney shaping our children
• disney owns tv, movie production, theme parks, magazines, they wield a powerful place in shaping popular culture
• How does it impact Democracy?
• Some of the messages are dangerous, beauty and the beast, where the girl is abused and yelled at but she still loves the beast. 

Reviving Ophelia

• Teens and girls today are pushing away their parents to find out how to be a women from tv and magazine, and image that shows women being very skinny and sexual
• As the girsl in the media get skinnier, the women in real life get fatter, why?
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