Because of tools such as twitter and Facebook, we can receive an almost live stream of information about current events, whether it be the riots of Ukraine, or the process of your mum cooking dinner. Twitter is a tool that allows for citizen journalism, but, it can have positive and negative impacts towards the modern day journalism. Can it be considered as a primary source of information? Is everything we see on twitter actually true? Things need to be questioned. Question Citizen Journalism with the hashtag #BloodyCourseMaterial
As i’m sure you’re all aware, Justice Beaver is a crime fighting beaver from Canada, and has managed to stop most crime in his country. In all seriousness, Justin Bieber is a 20 year old from Canada, and almost every week has an exclusive news piece about him. He’s a popular media figure to talk about, because of all the childish things he does, and how immature he still acts. He has millions of followers called ‘beliebers’ who treat him like some sort of gospel, so he’s constantly looked up to as a role model.
You can argue that having a popular figure in the media is both positive and negative. Popular figures can make good role models for young and impressionable kids, but it depends on the celebrities lifestyle. If they have a particular negative lifestyle, involving negative aspects such as drugs and violence, they’ll have an impact on the people that look up to them. And this can be seen as part of the reason of ‘What’s wrong with kids these days?’.
For my topic, i’ve chosen to talk about Justin Bieber, and the impacts he has in the media. We see every week how much mischief he’s been up to, whether it be spitting on fans, or getting arrested. One of the most famous examples of how Bieber has impacted people from the media is the ‘Cut For Bieber’ that a lot of teenagers participated in. While Bieber had no act in the trend, because of his popularity and drug smoking habits, it was thought that this was a protest towards his marijuana smoking. It needs to be said, self-harm shouldn’t be joked about, even Miley Cyrus tweeted in saying “#cut4bieber? Cutting is NOT something to joke about. There are people who are actually suffering from self-harm, this is so disrespectful“. But I think it’s important to highlight the stupidity of these people.
This of course was started by some internet trolls from 4chan, and became very big, very quickly. People were uploading photos of themselves self-harming for their ‘idol’, thinking it will actually make in impact. I think this illustrates how much influence Justin Bieber has over his fans, even when he’s not making the influence personally. Things that happen to him in the media and online involving him can impact his fans in positive and negative ways. But I think this also illustrates how easily young people can be influenced by media itself. Even if it’s not real. Because of the relationship they have developed with this figure, they have automatically decided to do whatever is asked of them. It reminds me of the famous question, “Would you jump off a bridge if they told you to?”. And as we’ve seen from the #Cutting4Bieber trend, I think some people would. People are so influenced by what they see in the media, and how they’re represented that it’s almost tragic. People need to take more control over their own values, but it’s easier said then done.
And now’s the time where we reflect on the past 6 weeks, and we talk about how awesome the course is, and how much we’re loving uni and blogging. And that’s the truth, I love blogging. So to blog for my assessment is just amazing. Over the past 6 weeks, researching for the various topics we have covered have helped me question the validity of everything, and to view everything from outside the box. To take a step back and think “How is this changing society?”. And that’s something I’ve never really done before. I didn’t look too much into what was happening into the media, and how it’s shaping our future morals and values. I’ve found everything we’ve covered very interesting so far, so i’ve enjoyed learning about it, while some things covered I’ve previously known, it’s interesting to learn more about. Blogging makes learning much more interesting, and makes it easier to show your learning. And as I pointed out in my introduction post, having an academic/profesisonal blog and an online presence always looks good on a resume and for potential employers.
Millions of Australians will remember The Chasers, and their hilarious stunts and pranks they pulled. While it was on air as ‘The Chasers War On Everything’, they were a very popular show, averaging between 600,000 and 800,000 viewers each episode at it’s peak. They used comedy satire to relate the news to the public, which most notably was evident in their ‘What Have We Learnt From Current Affairs This Week?’. And personally, that was one of my favorite segments on the show.
“The Chaser is a satirical media empire which rivals Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation in all fields except power, influence, popularity and profitability.” (The Chasers)
They’ve had to re-brand their show several times for various reasons, more recently their show was called ‘The Hamster Wheel’ which was more focused on the media, but it was announced that in late 2014, they would be airing a show called “We’ll have to leave it there”.
“This is a leaner and meaner Chaser, basing its attack less around public stunts and ambushes and more on substantial exposure of the absurdities and idiocies of the media.” (Ben Pobjie 2012)
But how did ‘The Chasers War On Everything’ actually contribute to debate in a mediated public sphere? Well, they brought the issues up, and weren’t afraid to embarrass themselves and get into trouble if it meant they got their message across. The Chasers aren’t what you call ‘Journalists’, they rather use the media’s and politicians own words against them in a hypocritical manner, but more importantly, in a humorous way. This allows the public viewers to understand and learn about what’s in the media, but more importantly, what seems like bullshit. The Chasers are great at nitpicking speeches and media reports, and finding inconsistencies.
They do of course, go ‘over the line’ often, whether it be a stunt, or a comment about an individual. This can cause controversy, and again cause people to question the validity of content in their show. It’s because of this, The Chasers War On Everything was pulled off the air. Their most famous ‘over the line’ stunt was when Australia hosted the APEC summit in 2007, where one of the Chasers dressed up as Osama Bin Laden, and managed to get inside APEC. The full video can be found here on Youtube.
The show had/has a large social side to it as well, it brings together the people who watch the show to talk about the content online, and discuss what was over the line, and reach even more people to educate them about what’s happening. And of course, there is the direct conversation, “Hey did you watch The Chasers last night”, and without even knowing it, their actively participating in a public sphere. To finish, here’s a two hour collaboration of every segment of ‘What Have We Learnt From Current Affairs This Week?’ aired, but I suggest only watching it when you have no homework to be done, because once you start, you wont be able to stop.
It’s common knowledge in Australia that one of the reasons Tony Abbot’s political campaign was so effective was because of the media. The powerful headlines such as “IT’S A RUDDY MESS” influenced much of Australia, and gave Tony Abbot and the Liberal party an almost too easy victory. And there’s two people to thank for that.
What the headlines SHOULD say
The more obvious person, Rupert Murdoch. Having an impressive resume including being the CEO of News Corporation, an Executive Chairman at News Corp, and more recently, the CEO of 21st Century Fox. He owns almost TOO many media outlets including ‘The Australian’, ‘The Daily Telegraph’, ‘Courier-Mail’, ‘The Herald Sun’ and FOX to name a few, all of which adds to 17.3 million newspapers in Australia a week. That’s a ridiculous amount of influence he has.
The second person responsible, is Col Allan, the editor-in-chief of the ‘New York Post’. This man, who arrived in Australia just a week before the date for the federal election was announced, is responsible for all the blatant headlines towards Kevin Rudd.
“His most famous expertise is bare-knuckled political combat and character assassination. His most famous talent is for the brazen front-page banner headline.” (Robert Manne 2013)
But why does it matter who controls the media? Well, you’re living it. Because of the media, Tony Abbot is in office, and arguably destroying Australia’s international reputation with his poor public speaking skills, and lack of general knowledge. The public are bombarded by personal opinions as headlines, and are given a one-sided story depending on the CEO’s political opinion. And it’s because of this, Politics and the campaigns are almost no longer about the policies, but about the punchline in articles.
“…The public are fed rehearsed lines, and know it. Debate is reduced to moronic slogans. Tough decisions are dodged and deferred. Marketing techniques not only sell policies, but craft them.” (The Age, 2011)
Rupert Murdoch has Tony Abbott as his political puppet
NPR recently made a hilarious, and very informative april fools joke on their website. The concept was simple, the title read “Why Doesn’t America Read Anymore?”, but in the body of the text, all it said was, “We sometimes get the sense that some people are commenting on NPR stories that they haven’t actually read. If you are reading this, please like this post and do not comment on it. Then let’s see what people have to say about this ‘story.’ ” (NPR 2014). There were glorious amounts of people sharing and commenting on the post pretending to have read ‘the article’ and commenting on it. This highlights how effective a media headline can be, and the influence it can have on so many people, especially those that don’t even read the contents.
I think it’s very important who ‘owns’ the media, and Rupert Murdoch has made it painfully obvious how much it’s capable of. So for god sakes, tighten the media laws! I’ll leave you with a funny video by ‘friendlyjordies‘, highlighting the 2013 political campaign, and how Murdoch has misrepresented, or painfully missed, some of the Labours policies.
North Korea has been in the media a lot over the past few years, especially with Kim Jong-Un, becoming the new ‘Supreme Leader’. The country is infamous for lying to their public and threatening every nation in the world that isn’t North Korea with their nuclear weapons arsenal and war. I chose the picture below because I think this photo tells us so much about the views of the public in North Korea, as well as the government towards each other.
You can clearly see the concerning faces of the adults who can understand the authority and power that Kim Jong-Un possess, and how reckless and cruel he can be, while the kids who do not understand the political controversy and state of their nation seem calm. Kim Jong-Un and his General, are standing straight and look seemingly happy to be there. The two completely different reactions can be contrasted to visually see the opinions of the North Korean government of both sides.
This image is very powerful, and can be interpreted by us in many ways. Personally, the obvious meaning (the Denotation) is that the people of North Korea hate Kim Jong-Un. And perhaps by looking further into it (the Connotation) is that North Korea are trying to advertise themselves as a happy country, where everyone loves their ‘fearless leader’.
All signs point to Kim Jong Un trying to present a cuddlier, more family-friendly image to the world. (Huffington Post 2012)
If there’s one thing to take away from this photo, I think it’s the fact that even though the North Korean government and media are trying to shape the world perspective of themselves (unsuccessfully I might add), this photo can illustrate a governments, an individuals or organisations influence in the media, and what they can do with it. It shows the dangers of how easily we can fall for a false message (If it’s done right), and how much it can influence people’s ideologies.
We have to give him some credit though, after all he did stop the production of nuclear weapons to prioritise their major hunger crisis. So I guess that’s good in some way.
It’s human nature to find someone, or something to blame. Always. A simple “Because” doesn’t suffice in our society, especially when talking to your parents. And whenever there’s a violent crime or event, the media will always try to give the public what they want. Something to blame. And that’s usually Video Games.
There have been numerous events where a seemingly innocent and harmless kid has shocked everyone into committing such violent acts. There are usually a whole lot of reasons involved that the media tends to ignore, such as bullying, depression and poor family situations. One example is a “Polite, well-respected graduate student” named Steven Kazmierczak. He killed 5 of his fellow University students in the United States before committing suicide with the same gun.
Now, the first thing I think of after hearing this is, ‘HOW did he get a gun?’. The fact that a UNIVERSITY STUDENT managed to obtain a gun highlights how lenient the US are with gun laws, and also how oblivious his parents must have been to the potential dangers. The video below is a skit by The Daily Show, and highlights just how stupid gun control is over in the US compared to Australia.
The link between this crime and video games was made by a man names Jack Thompson. He said to a reporter, “We find from brain scan studies out of Harvard that if you get started playing, for example, violent video games you are more likely to copycat the behaviours in the games.” During the same news interview, Mr Thompson continued onto a self-promotional parade about his books. Now, this makes me think that he only said what he did about Video Games, to get the attention he wanted. Because whenever you hear on the news that “Video games cause kid to murder”, the news makes it out to seem factual, and everyone panics.
Now, i’m supposed to base this post around what the media being blamed for today and is it justified. And it’s quite simple. The news is being blamed for representing false accusations as the truth. And this is true, to an extent, and there are the obvious exceptions of course. It might surprise most of you, but Fox New’s is not actually technically news. It’s entertainment. They won a court case in 2003 which gave them a legal precedent to no longer show the news. Everyone just ASSUMES that it’s news because it’s called “Fox News”, and it covers current events. Some people even confuse “The Onion” as a news source at times, and I find that personally hilarious.
So in conclusion, the media are accused of providing false facts as true, especially in the case of Video Games, and this impression from those educated enough to question the media, is totally justified.
For my BCM110 and BCM112 classes at Uni, we’re required to use wordpress to blog about everything we do. So I’ve decided to just use my current blog, and just add my uni posts to it as well. That’s why I have a lot more posts than most people would at this stage 😛
To any new readers, all my BCM posts can be found through the headers up the top. This main feed shows everything I post, and I tend to post about a range of subjects and topics, as you can probably tell by the headers. If you’re interested to know a little more about me, you can read my ABOUT page, but I’ll mention some of the highlights.
So my names Jake Pascoe. I live in Gymea, Sydney, Australia. I love Football (or soccer, whatever you prefer to call it), I love taking photos and videos, and I hope to become a director one day. Im a big fan on indie music, but I like a whole range of music really. My current music obsession is Keaton Henson, and you can expect a blog post about him soon when I have some free time. Im a huge Manchester United Supporter, and I’ve seen every home Australia game since 2010.
I love to laugh and make friends, I make bad jokes, and i’m looking forward to meeting a lot of new people. If anyone has any questions about wordpress, i’ve had this domain for 2 years, so feel free to shoot me any questions in the comments, my twitter or even my email jake.pascoe@hotmail.com
Anyway, great start to #UniLyf, I hope you enjoy reading my blog
jakepascoe.com 