This whole section about media was interesting and useful. I
learned a lot how media can manipulate people through words and what they
present through their media products. The concept that I found most interesting
was “Sensationalism and the News as Entertainment”. This section talked about
how most news stories revolve around heartwarming, crimes, or disaster stories.
I found this interesting because it’s true, most of the time new stations
present these kinds of news to the public more often. They often headline less
serious things to the public because that is something that we usually find
more entertaining. They play on human emotions so that we can engage with them.
They find stories that will keep us attached to their channel even if it means
exaggerating upcoming stories they have in stored for that evening. I’ll be
honest, I have done that before. Right before they go to commercial break, they
usually tell the viewers to stay tune for more news stories and usually the
title is headline exaggerated and that’s what keeps me from switching channels
because I want to see what that story is about.
This part of the chapter is quite interesting. I did notice the sensationalism and the news as Entertainment as a contributing factor to the media. The news always reports saddening or disaster stories majority of the time. The emotions tend to be sympathetic and since the news usually comes on at night, a good amount of the American public are watching. For example, the most frequent topic that was on the news recently was Huricane Sandy. There were rare moments, when they showed anything positive during this Hurricane, because it was the bigger topic. Like you said, the news finds stories that will keep us attached to the channel and in this case it was Hurricane Sandy.
ReplyDeleteHi, this was also the part that I was interested in the most. I never really noticed that the news and media was actually like this until this semester. I never really thought about it. The stories that the news like to report on gets the most views which gets them more money. The higher ups are all about getting more money. My history teacher asked the class last week, "what is more important. The truth or money?" I realized then that the media wants to make money. The reporters might not like it but if their stories are not getting any views, their jobs might be at risk. Overall this section was really interesting.
ReplyDelete