Media Discourse Analysis

I found the first class in this subject very interesting. It brought up topics that I would never have thought of or considered before. I never knew before that there are three ways in which information is given to us through the media and it's how the media manipulate and show it is how it's seen which is not always necessarily the truth. 

They are:

A genuine event

A media event 

A pseudo event

A genuine event is obviously something that has happened no matter what the media say about it and can't be influenced by the mass media. A pseudo event is something that is created for the purpose of getting media coverage which is something that I would have already known happened in terms of celebrities and what they do that is captured in magazines and news stories. These are not spontaneous, they are planned. But the one I never really had considered before is a media event, which is something that was going to happen anyway but it is received differently by the public because of the way the media decide to show it and manipulate it. A media event is held in response to an event or news story. But these events shouldn't be held to often as they need to be seen as a celebration or a spectacle of a specific event. 

It shows that we have to consider where our information is coming from and how we are receiving it. I am cynical enough already when it comes to things published in the media. As much as I love my celebrity gossip and would like to believe everything I read is true I know its not and even though I still read it I don't always believe whats being said. For example, a friend told me the other day about some music video footage that she heard was leaked before the release and straight away my response was, "That's definitely not true, it was planned, nothing is ever 'accidentally' leaked."

I think this module will make me look at stories more critically than I already do and probably make me analyse everything I see and read and be more cynical about what's reported in the news. I already blame the media for the recession among other things.