Media Consolodation: Good or bad?

Today our media is controlled by no more than 6 major companies. These companies, are controlled by a very limited amount of people. The way I see it, this almost completely invalidates the mass media. When someone can get two completely different versions of the same story from two major media outlets, there is something wrong with our system. Today however, more and more people are being turned off to the mass media and going to alternate sources provided by developing technology. For example, people may check a few of their favorite blogs or talk to some of their friends online instead of watching the morning news. This is the new face of media. Media made by the people, for the people. It is individuals voicing their own opinions in an unbiased and limitless environment. There is no corporate hand that can control people expressing themselves over the web. This new type of media is the opposite of the super-consolidated giant corporations that control the major media outlets. Media consolodation allows too much room for bias to be injected into the mainstream.

User-created media is the solution to the ever increasing issue of media consolodation. People should turn off their T.V.'s, turn on their computers, and get some real insight and opinions from other individuals as opposed to the manufactured and processed news we hear from the mass media.

American War and the Media: Friends or Foes?

Does media coverage of wars help the government achieve its goals or prevent them from success? The answer to this question has changed over time.

In the Civil War the media did not really help one side of the fighting more than the other. This is because since there was no nationwide source of news, each newspaper just reported that the side of the war they supported was doing well. This certainly riled up the public and could have been the reason the civil war was such a bloody one.

However, in later wars, such as the Vietnam war, there was a national source of media. The public was also much more divided in their support for the war. As national news broad casted generally negative things about the war, many citizens protested. With the advance in technology, there were many video cameras on the battlefield, with footage being sent home daily. This new raw view of the war inspired a peace movement against the war.


Today, this raw battle footage enabled by technology has become more common, more accesible, and even easier to send home. Innovations like digital cameras carried by soldiers themselves, and the internet allows Americans to see footage of the war in Iraq the day it was taken. It is clips like the following, that have been a main contributor to many American's dissaproval of the war in Iraq.



Although the government does it's best to censor the techology fueled raw footage Americans see of the war everyday, it can no longer keep the public from seeing the war's real horror. Today's incredible footage of war is starkly contrasted with the one-sided and sometimes made up news coverage seen in earlier wars. With continuing advances in technology, the public has become more and more opposed to the idea of war in general.

The Lie the Media Brought to Life

In March 2006 Crystal Gail Mangum accused three members of the Duke lacrosse team of raping her at a party held on March 13, 2006. The charges against the three boys were dismissed as Mangum's accusations were completely false. These are simply the facts of the case. The accused boys were victims of a "tragic rush to accuse".

One might wonder how a case based completely around an entirely made-up story can get so far. The answer is simple: the media. The media dramatized the story to the point where people jumped to conclusions about the guilt of the boys.The media did this by bringing up un-related subjects like race and socio-economic status, by bringing in bias and preconceptions, and by some media outlets exaggerating the story to compete with others.

After the accusations, the stories released by major news outlets mentioned many things that weren't necessary for the reader to understand the story at all. For example, in an April 1st article, the New York Times called the lacrosse team "a clubby, hard-partying outfit with roots in the elite prep schools of the Northeast." Calling the team "hard-partying" and hinting at the average socio-economic status of Duke's students by using the word "elite", contributed nothing to the readers understanding of the story. What these things did do is make the reader likely to side with the accuser before any real evidence had actually been presented. The media knew what they wanted people to think and they made biased speculations to convince their readers.

Sometimes, the media dramatized the story just to compete with other news outlets' coverage of the same story. In the following clip, Nancy Grace uses an exaggerated tone to dramatize the Duke case.



The type of coverage seen in that Nancy Grace clip gives people an exaggerated view of the story and is only dramatized in order to compete with more balanced news coverage. For example, the coverage of the case shown on the Early Show.




The media's blatent exaggeration of the story and their providing of biased information is not an accident. The media is intentionally doing these things in order to get people to side with who they want and to not see the whole truth. The media will always provide the news in whatever manner gets them more viewers. This means they will not always provide the fair and balanced news that some people trust them to. The three innocent boys that were accused in the Duke rape case were victims of the media's unrelenting bias that caused many people to jump to conclusions about their guilt.

The Duke Lacrosse "Scanda;

An Image That Changed The World

This photo, titled "Dead on the Beach" was taken by George Strock 1943. Life magazine ran this horrifying image of dead soldiers on a beach in Papua New Guinea in order to remind Americans how gruesoime war could be. Life was addressing concerns of president Franklin D. Roosevelt. He was convinced Americans had become too complacent with the war. In response, Life shocked the country with this startling photograph of dead American soldiers. It being run certainly detracted from the complacency surrouinding the war at the time. This image will be forever remembered for its unearthly morbidity and how it changed America's view of war forever.

Cr1+1c4l 3ye

For my Critical Eye project, I visited Ernest Hemingway's former home in Key West, Florida. At first I was excited about the tour of the home/museum because I'm a fan of Hemingway's writing, but as the tour rolled along, I realized Ernie was just a normal guy... who happened to also be really good at writing.

The tour kicked off outside the house, with a general summary of Ernest Hemingway's daily activities. Apparently he was a fairly reclusive man, because there wasn't much to say about him. He wrote daily (obviously), was often frustrated by writing (even more obvious), and liked to hang out at a bar called Sloppy Joe's. This last thing struck me as odd. Sloppy Joe's sounds more like some place you would find an average guy like me than "The Great Ernest Hemingway". (Maybe not me now cause I'm 15, but you get the point.)

As we moved through the house, I slowly became bored with the tour guide and began to let my eyes and thoughts wander. In the dining room I saw a table. A chair. Forks and knives. He's just a regular guy! I have no idea how I thought Ernest Hemingway would have eaten before I visited his home, but for some reason I didn't think it would be with forks and knives. Upstairs I found a bathroom, a bed, lamps. Still, nothing out of the ordinary. I guess that's what I really got from the trip. Just because you do something extraordinary, doesn't mean you don't still live ordinarily.


All in all, I was surprised by my trip into the house of one of the greatest American authors of all time. I think the best part of the trip was that it got me thinking, if this guy eats with forks and knives and sleeps on a bed, why can't i be a just as good of a writer as him? Maybe I can.

"All my life I've looked at words as though I were seeing them for the first time. "
-Ernest Hemingway

Facebook and Targeted Advertising

I think that collecting information about individuals through facebook to better advertise to them specifically is a good strategy. I feel sort of uncomfortable that people are collecting data about me when I am not even aware of it, but seeing as I agreed to it by signing up for facebook I don't disagree with it. There's no arguement that this is an invasion of privacy, because the user agrees to it. I don't look at my friends' profiles and entries as a source of advice on what to buy. I know it seems ridiculous, but I probably pay more attention to the advertisements at the bottom of the page than my friends' advice. I think that as targeted advertising on the web becomes more precise, the content of the web will become more important. If you are interested in skateboarding, and when you get online you see ads all about skateboards, I think it's just going to make it that much easier to find what you're looking for. I don't see targeted advertising as an invasion of privacy, but as a smart business strategy and helpful tool.

Advertising... and ME!!!

I have been affected by advertising for as long as I can remember. Even before I was aware of advertising my parents would dress me in clothes with brand names and logos on them. Now that I can better understand advertising though, I think I am better at filtering it. Thesedays, I honestly don't think my wants, desires, and purchases are affected by advertising that much. However, I could be wrong. I know that I have friends who are affected by ads A LOT and have absolutely no idea. Daniel Szwerc makes it a personal holiday every time a new Apple ad comes out. I know people whose lives are consumed by advertising and I don't think I am like that at all. I always try to look at ads subjectively. But in the end some ads don't get filtered! With the constant barrage of ads in America today sometimes you don't even know you're being advertised to. I do what I can.

Lipitor Ad

The makers of this ad are not being "irresponsible" in any way. I mean, they obviously shouldn't have addressed the man in the commercial as Doctor, seeing as he isn't one, but the rest of the information in the ad is accurate. The only thing that even might be a problem here is that they called him a Doctor. I don't think they should have done that, but it doesn't mean the ad needs to be pulled. He simply says he is a Doctor. It's not like he's doing open heart surgery. This is no more than an example of an advertising strategy.

Pepsi Justin Timberlake Superbowl Commerical

This commercial was mad by Pepsi and its target audience was pretty obvious. Teens, specifically teen girls . The commerial uses a variety of techniques to attract its target audience. One of the most obvious ones is that the commercial stars justin timberlake. Other than that, the general mood of the commercial is teen-oriented. The humor featured in the commercial is just slapstick joke after slapstick joke. Celebrities and simple humor are combined to target teens in an effective way.

Dean Tisdat's wife is teh n00b.

My Thoughts On: http://www.breitbart.tv/?p=34564

First of all, I'd like to start by saying this kid probably had it coming to him seeing as he didn't post the message that he left on their machine. However, it is completely the fault of Mrs. Tisdat that the message got spread all over the internet. She is obviously completely oblivious to the accesibility of the internet today. Leaving a kid this message she probably expected him to show it to a couple of his friends, but not thousands of people. This is where she was wrong. Any high school kid who gets his hands on a piece of comic gold like this is almost guaranteed to put it on the internet, even if it's just to get more people subscribed to his youtube channel. This was simply a sad and embarassing mistake for a naive Mrs. Tisdat. Thus, i label her teh n00b.