Week 8: Blog Post #11 When do we choose to be sympathetic?

It has been a very disappointing year to be on the Planet Earth. With all these terrorist attacks that have occurred in late 2015 to present day, you have to question humanity. Not only is it disgusting that these horrible attacks happen on a regular occurrence, it is a shame that we as civilization are selective when to be sympathetic to those who have suffered. Attention was worldwide when the Paris Attacks happened in 2015 however earlier that year Kenya suffered an equally horrifying attack which gained less coverage. If I am being perfectly honest that is unacceptable, it asks the question to the media outlets what makes one attack different from the other? Both events had tragic lives lost but yet the Paris attack is more attentive. This may be due to the fact that there is conventionally more attention to the so called ‘Western’ nations hence why there is less consideration for the smaller nations. Facebook allowed users to have the France flag as their profile picture to show their support and sympathy towards the broken nation. However this was not to be seen during the Kenyan attacks. In fact it was one user rather than hundreds of French mourners who posted about Kenya. Agenda Setting, where mass media dictates what the audience believes in, is the reason. I felt as if I was obliged to share my sympathy towards the French although I had no relation to them. That isn’t to say that they don’t deserve sympathy because everyone who is suffering deserves attention such as today’s issues in Pakistan and Yemen. 

This could lead to consequences because we let the media dictate whom we show sympathy towards. Everyone should be treated equally regardless of where they’re from. People will be ignorant to the attacks which don’t gain attention because it doesn’t gain media coverage when it should be. It is sad that an attack could be more brutal than the other but yet depends on the nation that has suffered. That said, every country deserves equal converge. BUT it would be great that we don’t talk about it as a whole, humanity needs to be repaired.   

Week 7: Blog Post #10: Good Night & Good Luck

If America needed an eye-opener about their use of the media they certainly got it 58 years ago to this day. In 1958, American broadcast journalist, Ed Murrow, read a speech which intended to leave Americans to reconsider their approach to media. Television in particular can be a positive such as ‘inspiring’ the audience to fulfil ones potential. However Murrow explains how the ‘mass media reflects’ the audience which is a worry as they can depict what the audience believes in. 

As a result of the advertising revenue, CBS practice in self-regulation and censorship that Murrow mentions. The fact that censorship occurs limits to what the audience can see and media are picking and choosing what they air. Whilst they decide what they air this is what the audience sees as the denotation. Murrow wants the audience to look beyond this, as the co-dependence of news and TV as a whole link to provide viewings which could be seen as entertainment rather than informative. 

In today’s day and age these constraints are still here as they were in the past. Viewers are like customers to these news outlets, they only show what makes them run. The demand and what earns them views and of course finance is what new corporations look upon. An example is this year’s elections. Of course the news should show everything about the Elections however I believe they are focusing more on Donald Trump than any of the other candidates running for President. During the Primaries it was either Trump vs Rubio or Trump vs Cruz etc. and now that they have ended they are now focusing upon Trump and Hillary Clinton. Trump makes controversial comments but it earns views for the news outlets which is financially motivational. As disappointing as it is, that is how the media works.

Week 6: Blog Post #9: Media & the Perception of Food

Advertising is a very sly business, on average a total of 5,000+ advertisements and brands are exposed per person (Crazy, right?). Food is one business which is heavily advertised, from organic foods to fast foods, on billboards to magazine pages they are everywhere but how much of this advertising influence ones perception of food? I believe the whole advertising business does. McDonald’s “McPick Two” commercial shows how enjoyable it can be to have two products for the price of Five Dollars. People are eating with their friends, their perfect teeth are shining, it is diverse. The reality is when you buy two McDonald’s meals you will without a doubt feel guilty about the fat intake. Well I certainly do hence why I dislike these advertising schemes. 

Food marketing is a large business and does influence the health of the nation, there are many fast food chains and alternatives to check out, and with advertisements looking so perfect it’s no wonder why food chains are earning big bucks whilst people are earning collective calories. It takes “several hours” to create a burger that is perfect on a poster whereas it takes minutes in real life within an unpleasant environment. People are unaware with what is happening beyond the advertisements and are only seeing what is visible to them. More denotations over connotations. Dominos Pizza released a commercial this year revealing their new “DXP” …except the only thing they were advertising was a delivery car rather than the actual product itself which is the pizza. Food marketing are looking outside of the box and are looking for another avenue to appeal to a wider customer range. Personally I thought that commercial was decent, it had a concept of how pizza deliveries should be however the message still remained which was that they are enticing you to buy their product despite talking about a whole new topic. It is scary to think how these campaigns gather customers to buy food regardless of health and what is worse is that we follow. People are ignoring the health factors and are seeing enjoyment over wellbeing. We need to look at food in a whole new manner.

Week 6: Blog Post #8: Participatory Journalism: The Arabs Springs

Citizen Journalism is a great way of getting people involved and tells the whole world the truth rather than selective viewings the media tend to show on their news outlets. 2011 in Tunisia, the Arab Springs began as rage broke out when Mohammed Bouazizi burnt himself and people reported it rather than the media. People went against the hierarchy and began anti government protests, the government retaliated. Tunisia’s government began to close all social media accounts across all platforms until an anonymous group hacked into government organizations and crashed the stock market too. What was this unidentified group called? Anonymous. The ‘anonymous’ and ‘sidibouzid’ hashtag went viral following their activities. It shows the power of social media, the government did not know what hit them. Egypt also followed suit as the Arab nations began to come together with Tunisia and journalists who were at the scene began to be captured with their articles being removed. Twitter allowed others to keep updates on those who were detained, without social media the world would have been unaware of this. There were no media companies showing what was happening as they all remained silent. People though didn’t care and posted everything they saw, this was the honest truth. This was Citizen Journalism. 

Recently we saw a similar situation occur with the Alton Sterling and Philando Castile were killed by the police within 24 hours because of their ethnicity. The hashtag #BlackLivesMatter went viral across social media and made people go against the police leading to the shootings of policemen in Dallas. So it sparked a horrible debate of ‘Black Lives’ was being punished and police brutality. All this began due to raw footage of both victims being killed and it was posted on social media becoming viral. This raised many questions such as the topic of gun laws, the police occupation and African Americans being treated a different way. All these topics would not have been talked about if the videos weren’t posted... this is the power of social media and Citizen Journalism.

Blog Post #7 Week 4: Social Media & Identity

It is a terrifying thought to see how much of your actual identity is online. Anyone in the whole world could see your profile on Facebook and know something about you. It doesn’t matter what it is but they have that one thing that they know about you. They may know what football team you like, where you live, what job you have, what school you go to or even how you look like if you decide to add a profile picture. For instance, if I somehow lost all my memory and only remember my social media login and passwords I bet I could retrieve most of my information about myself than I could have imagine. 

I am a person who updates their profile picture on Facebook once a year, writes a status once a month, has no Instagram, has Twitter but what can 144 characters say about myself if I am not a constant Tweeter? Yet despite the limitations I have set in terms of my social media usage, people will have a good idea of who I am on social media. They know where I am from, what I am doing, my like and dislikes, the way I talk, practically everything. My memory could go from zero to hundred by going through social media because that is where home is for constant social media users. Frightening.

Of course I am not that stupid enough to reveal everything online. You cannot trust the internet by all means. I have friends on Facebook but no way do I know 500+ people let alone call them ‘friends’. Personal information is kept offline because the internet is a nasty place that cannot be trusted despite it being a norm to life. I am more open in real life and there is so much more to discover about me than there is online. I am lazy to update my profile on Facebook as I really don’t have the time to do so. I hardly update my likes and dislikes because looking at them right now there is no chance that I follow the same YouTubers on Facebook as I did 5 years ago. Time changes.