Final Media Discourse CA

Can the news media continue to act as producers of meaning whilst remaining within the structures of formal rules about impartiality

The Press refers to themselves as the fourth estate, watching over all the other estates as a ‘watchdog’ for the general public and claim to be non-biased. However, from studying media discourse analysis we can see that there are a number of ways in which the media can weave a story together in order to get across their preferred meaning or to set their own agenda. The audience sees these events as a whole, but part of this whole is constructed by journalists.

For this essay I am going to analyze and compare two news broadcasts from within Ireland. One from a public service broadcaster and one from a commercial broadcaster. A public service broadcaster is non-profit. In Ireland it’s financed by the public through the payment of a TV licence. This licence costs €160 annually and must be paid by every household, business or institution in Ireland that is capable of receiving a TV signal (www.citizensinformation.ie). These channels have to provide programming that entertains, educates and informs all members of the public aswel as providing news and current affairs programming (Ibid).  A commercial broadcaster is owned by a company that finances it themselves. This is generally done through advertising. Commercial broadcasters are for profit and aim to attract large audiences. Pippa Norris states that private television should be used as a supplement to public television and not as a replacement as an increase in private television watching leads to less political knowledge (Glenn Doyle, Private Vs Public Broadcasting, lecture notes).  

The two news broadcasts I have chosen are from RTE Six One news (Public), and TV3 The 5.30 (Private). 

TV3 “started as Irelands first free to air channel not dependent on state aid at taxpayer expense. It offers viewers a quality alternative to the country’s three state-owned networks”, (http://www.tv3.ie/corporate.php).

“RTE’s vision is to grow the trust of the people of Ireland as it informs, inspires, reflects and enriches their lives”, (http://www.rte.ie/documents/about/rte_06_eng_annualreport.pdf).

Both broadcasts are from the 7^th May 2013 and cover the story about the three women found in Ohio who were kidnapped 10 years ago.

RTE Six One: http://www.rte.ie/player/ie/show/10146656/

TV3 The 5.30: http://www.tv3.ie/3player/show/450/0/0/The-5%3A30

Each news report begins with a headline on the story. RTE’s headline gives us the most information on the story. It begins with the newsreader saying “A dramatic escape of three women held captive in Ohio for more than a decade.” TV3’s newsreader opens with “Kidnap drama that appears to have a happy ending.” I think that while RTE’s headline is dramatic, TV3 try to make their headline sound more ‘Hollywood’.  RTE then go on to show ‘missing’ posters while they play the Audio of the 911 call saying “Help me, I’ve been kidnapped and missing for ten years.” They then show footage of outside the house they were held captive in of police, crime scene tape and members of the public in the street. The newsreader then informs us that one of the kidnappers is a former bus driver. An expert at the scene then says ”All three girls are healthy and doing well.” Whereas TV3 just show pictures of the ‘missing’ posters with the caption ‘Women Found’ and the newsreader tells us “Three women who went missing 10 years ago, all found alive in the US state of Ohio.” Here RTE are giving the audience a lot of the information all at once and then they address it in more detail in the main story, but TV3 are giving us a quick snippet to draw our attention. You could turn off RTE at this point and still know most of the story, whereas you have to stay tuned to TV3 to hear what happened. You can see here that RTE are providing us with the information and TV3 are trying to draw us in because they rely on viewers to make money.

Once the main story begins in the news report we can see how TV3 try to make it more sensationalized than RTE. TV3 put the raw events together like a narrative in a series of events as they happened to create drama for the audience. RTE try and give us as much information as they can at once where TV3 try to create a build up. In this way TV3 use connectives to weave the story together. They begin with a map that points out Cleveland, Ohio. A video then shows a crowd cheering in the street as police cars drive past. The newsreader narrates and explains how the crowd cheers after the ‘shocking’ discovery and how the ‘breakthrough’ came when a neighbour heard Amanda Berry ‘screaming’ and he broke down the bottom of the door for her to ‘crawl’ through to make the ‘emotional’ 911 call. All the words I have highlighted here are describing it as a very dramatic escape. They then play the audio of the 911 call with the pictures of the women on the screen. They also play more of the 911 call than RTE chose to play. At the end of the call, which RTE didn’t include, Amanda Berry could be heard saying to the operator that you need to get a police car out now before he comes back. This adds an element of suspense and drama for the audience as there was the fear there that he would come back and catch her. This adds to the ‘Hollywood type’ story that TV3 are trying to create.

By this point TV3 have still not mentioned anything about the Kidnappers, where RTE have mentioned them twice at this stage, letting us know it is a former bus driver and two of his brothers but TV3 try to keep us interested by withholding this for now. They then link up the audio clip with the man who helped her by saying he was at a BBQ with the house owner and never suspected a thing. This is followed with a clip of the neighbour, Charles Ramsey, giving his account of events and how he got the woman out. This gives the audience first had information from the ‘hero’, and makes the audience feel like a witness to these events. RTE also chose to show footage of the man recalling what had happened. We can see here that this is a genuine event as this has happened without the media present but once the news broke it turned in a huge media event with interviews with the ‘hero’, audio recordings of the 911 call being released and images of the scene and the house they were held captive in. It turned into a huge orchestration by the media.

The TV3 narrator then describes when the girls went missing and gives details of each disappearance while they show a photo of Amanda Berry in the hospital with her sister and a little girl believed to be her daughter. A photo of Amanda smiling with her daughter is also shown where they look like a normal happy family, this would make the audience empathize with them even more. When RTE describes how they went missing, they show a map pinpointing each area they vanished from with a photo of each victim. The map also shows where they were recovered less than a mile away. The way this is shown keeps the audience disconnected from the victims and is just providing the information.

TV3 then show Amanda Berry’s sister talking to the reporters. She talks about how excited she is and she constantly repeats the word excited numerous times and she is laughing and smiling. This also makes it more personal to the audience. They then contrast this with a photo of one of the kidnappers. They inform us that this is the man who owned the house and drove the bus.

RTE show experts talking such as the doctor describing the women’s condition and a policeman giving a statement about the kidnappers. Whereas TV3 shows the Mayor of Cleveland giving a statement and then the newsreader talks about how they were examined in hospital and that the police called Amanda Berry the ‘real hero’.  RTE chose to use more credible sources here with the doctor and the policeman rather than just having the newsreader report on it. Each report then finishes with very different but very rememberable conclusions. TV3 end it with you typical ‘Hollywood type’ line, “The ‘nightmare’ is over for then women and the ‘healing’ can begin.” RTE finish the report with a talking head claiming at the end, “Cleveland is great, God is good.”

However RTE don’t finish there. They go back to studio where the newsreader talks to Richard Downs ‘live’ from Washington. A split screen shows him with pictures and videos from the scene with the caption ‘OHIO KIDNAP’. He then goes deeper into the story talking about the tell tale signs that included coverings over the windows and how no one was allowed into the house. He then goes on to say that the house was in foreclosure because the owner didn’t pay his property tax. This gives the audience a further insight into the character of the kidnapper.

 Conclusion

We can see the selection process that went on here with both news reports. RTE selected the information and gave it to us in a matter of fact form where TV3 selected the information that sensationalized the story and gave it to us in a way that we can empathize with the victims. RTE have also given us extra information on the story telling us about the tell tale signs and the house being in foreclosure. I also feel that while they are both getting the message across RTE’s sources for this information are more reliable, coming from the doctor and the policeman. In this news report I think that RTE are living up to their mission statement to grow the trust of Irish people and inform them. From watching this news report I would certainly trust RTE’s information in the future and I feel like I have been given all of the information I need to understand what happened. In regards to TV3 I think that their report is more theatrical. The are going for entertainment value rather than just giving us the information but as a private broadcaster this is what they need to do to generate revenue. Going back to their mission to provide a quality alternative they are certainly providing an alternative in the way of a more sensationalized approach, whether this alternative is of a certain quality is up to the viewer. Personally I believe RTE’s quality to be better and more professional. Based on all the information given to us in these two news reports, I feel that a public service broadcaster is more capable of producing meaning while remaining impartial as they are not trying to turn a profit, while a commercial broadcaster produces meaning to make it more dramatic and entertaining for the audience so they tune in and therefore earning them a profit.

 References

Citizens Information Board (2013) Citizens Information - Television Licence [online], available from: [accessed 8^th May 2013].

Doyle, G. ‘Private Vs Public Broadcasting’, lecture notes

RTE (2006) Radio Telefis Eireann Annual Report and Group Financial Statements 2006 [online], available from: <http://www.rte.ie/documents/about/rte_06_eng_annualreport.pdf> [accessed 8^th May 2013].

RTE Six One News (2013), RTE One, 7^th May, 6.01 p.m.

The 5.30 (2013), TV3, 7^th May, 5.30 p.m.

TV3 (2013) TV3 – Corporate [online], available from: <http://www.tv3.ie/corporate.php> [accessed 8th May 2013].

Media Bias

I have chosen a news broadcast from the RTE nine o'clock news that was broadcast on Sunday the 14th April. The specific report I have chosen covers the vote at the constitutional convention that same sex marriage should be legalised in Ireland. Politicians and a panel of citizens representing the electorate discussed the issue over the weekend and on Sunday they voted a majority of 4 to 1 for change.

The news broadcaster reporting on this referred to it as a 'controversial issue' and informed us that a spokesman for catholic bishops expressed dissappointment with the outcome. The picture shown to us on screen while the newsreporter was talking was that of a crowd of people holding up different coloured signs with the word 'equal' on them. I think these colours represent the rainbow colours of the gay pride flag. Although there is no headline to accompany the report I think that the word 'equal' can be seen as the headline for this story. As this is the only time that the catholic church is mentioned in this report we can see that it is biased in favour of same sex marriage and therefore shows us that the role of the catholic church is no longer as important as it once was in Ireland.

A video then plays of a crowd of people in the street cheering and holding 'equal' signs.  We can see here that this is a celebration as people are cheering and smiling. It is being portrayed to us as something positive. It then goes to a shot of the convention with people casting their ballot and we are informed that people voted 'overwhelmingly' for civil same sex marriage.

Gay and lesbian couples are given priority in this news report. Senator Katherine Zappone is interviewed after we are informed that she is fighting in the courts for legal recognition of her lesbian relationship as a marriage. The vote is described as 'sweet music' to her ears. She describes her feeling as being 'overwhelmed'.

With words such as 'overwhelmingly', 'equal' and phrases like 'sweet music' being used to describe the participants and their actions we are shown a happy, positive side of this report in favour of the gay and lesbian couples.

People who were at the convention and politicans who are in favour of gay marriage are given priority in the report as these are the people being interviewed. They are interviewed at the convention and outside the hotel it took place in. However one of the expert witnesses who addressed the convention was acused of being biased. We are told his name is Professor Jim Sheehan who teaches in Norway and who is a social worker and and experienced family therapist. Senator Ronan Mullen was then interviewed and assused him of showing his true colours more than he should have done as a neutral expert. The Charimain of the convention, Tom Arnold, was then mentioned for standing over Professor Jim Sheehan's comments calling them impartial and objective and said that there was no evidence that same sex parenting was bad for children. We are not told the full extent of what Professor Sheehan said but with the chairman saying that there was no evidence that same sex parenting was bad for children again shows support for same sex marriage.

The next piece of information we are given in the report is that Fine Gael has no position in legalising same sex marriage so the question is posed can cabinet ministers who are in favour bring the largest government party with them.This shows that the report is in favour of same sex marriage. If they were against it they could have said can ministers who are not in favour bring Fine Gael with them. The wording used here is favourable to same sex marriage. TD Frances Fitzgerald is then interviewed saying that they would have to tease out the possible consequences if such a referendem were held, she goes on to say that there are many issues that need legislation and detailed attention. This tells us that it is still a controversal issue with some people and it's not as straight forward as it may look after this vote.

The camera shots then go back to the people on the street showing them posing for photos and there's a close up of a gay couple holding hands where you can see an engagement ring on their finger. The camera shots show the point of view of the gay coulples and how much a vote like this means to them.

The sequence of the story begins and ends with the happy crowds on the street to leave the lasting image in our heads that this is something good and positive for Ireland and that all these couples are being supported.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HTNmQBkZHxY

Media as a means of production

According to Silverblatt (204) it can be argued that the media have emerged as a new social institution replacing traditional social institutions like the family, church and school. An increasing number of people are looking to the media for direction with respect to values and rules of behaviour although there is a tendency to avoid the unpopular and unconventional. The media have a huge effect on people's lifestyles, dictating daily activities, language and fashion. Daily activities include families sitting down at the same time every evening to watch the news. Language and Fashion can include people following the influence of what celebrities are doing and wearing.

Media production is essentially based on the need to please the audience. If the audience needs are ignored then the likely outcome is commercial failure. These needs are met with their daily dose of news from whats going on around the world or from giving viewers their daily dose of soap opera drama or celebrity gossip. Media figures have emerged as societal role models, representing a standard of success that their fans seek to follow (Silverblatt, 2004).

However, ideology refers to a set of ideas which produce a partial and selective view of reality, this in turn serves the interests of those with power in society. We can see this in times of war when the government seek direct control over the media, they do not want their public support being undermined by images of civilian casualties.

Looking at it this way I think that the medias main role is circulating and re-inforcing dominant ideologies that are put in place by those in power. Because of the people in power they rarely undermine and challenge these ideologies.

Wag The Dog

Wag the Dog is a film from 1997 directed by Barry Levinson. The film begins with the American president getting caught in a scandal of sexual misconduct in the days leading up to the re-election. It shows how his advisors work with a Hollywood producer to fabricate a war with Albania that the president can heroically end therefore drawing the attention away from the sex scandal.

Wag the Dog shows the power of the media. Through made up story lines and special effects the media can make the public believe anything. Big media production companies who have the money and the resources can create just about any situation. In the film we see how the production company hire an American actress to play the role of an Albanian teenager running from a burning building holding a kitten. We can see all the little things considered in this scene to make it effective for the audience. The presence of a young girl and a helpless kitten would pull at viewers heart strings. A sound track of people screaming was also played to make it more believable. A green screen was used in the production process with the war zone background and even the kitten being put in digitally at the end.

We also see in the film how the people addressing the media were told what to say by the advisors. This makes me think about if anything we see in the media or at a press conference is coming from the actual person themselves or have they been trained by advisors on what to say and how to 'sell' what they are saying. Even when the presidents opponent in the film ends the war to the public, the presidents advisors come up with another 'brilliant' idea to make him look like a hero. They create a war hero who has gone missing so the president can rescue him and be the hero again.

I don't think that something to this extreme is possible in the real world but I do believe that some people would be willing to go to these lengths of deception to make themselves look good and to avoid a scandal. The public look to the media for advice and trust that the media have done their research, so having said that I don't think the public are the gullible ones here I believe that it's the news reporters who are gullible and will report on anything with very little evidence just so they have news to broadcast.

Although very controversial and raw at the moment are the recent bombings at the Boston marathon. They are a lot of conspiracy theories on the Internet at the moment about how this was a set up. There is a picture circulating online of an army vet, who took part in the marathon, in a wheel chair with his legs blown off. The internet posts are talking about how there doesn't seem to be a trail of blood behind him or any blood still coming from him and that if he has bled out completely he would be passed out. In the picture he is awake and sitting up in the wheelchair. Some posts also say that this army vet has already landed himself an acting role with out any acting skills. Now I am not saying that this is true or is at all possible I am just using it as an example as a potential similar event occurring in the real world and to demonstrate how the public are becoming more and more suspicious of the media and the government. People are no longer believing everything they are seeing in the media and are becoming more suspicious and critical of these kind of events.

Semiotic Print Advertisement Analysis

The advertisement I have choose to analyze is an ad to stop smoking. The image shows two cigarettes upside down with quite a large amount of smoke coming from them. The denotative level of meaning that comes from this image is that it's just two cigarettes and that smoking is bad for you. But the connotative level of meaning is that its a symbol of the twin towers on the day of the terrorist attacks on September 11th 2001. 

This symbol can be interpreted all over the world as this image of the twin towers has been seen everywhere. We can even see in the image how one of the cigarettes is burning quicker than the other further representing the twin towers. The cigarette on the left is representing the north tower which the plane crashed into at 8.46 a.m, and the cigarette on the right represents the south tower that the plane crashed into at 9.03 a.m. The syntagmatic axis is very important here. If the two cigarettes were in the opposite order it wouldn't look very like the twin towers the day they got hit so people could take a different meaning from the image. 

The large amount of smoke coming from the cigarettes is a signifier and the signified is the image of the smoke that came from the twin towers on that day. The blue background of the image also further indicates that this is a symbol of the twin towers as it represents the skyline in new york that day. This blue background is on the paradigmatic axis. If you took out this blue background and replaced it with a different color like red or yellow it wouldn't look like the new york skyline and therefore it could give it a different meaning. 

Everyone in the twin towers who was above where the ash is in this picture died where the people below the ash had a chance to survive. This could be related back to get people to stop smoking where the people who keep on smoking the cigarette further will die but if they stop now they have a chance of survival. 

You could also look into this further in terms of myths that are present in society. These myths are also culturally specific. The world trade centre would have been seen as a symbol of economic might and represented the elite and powerful in America and New York. Back in the 1960's smoking would have been associated with powerful businessmen and seen as a sign of style. Most notably, advertising execs in Madison Avenue which we can see in the TV series 'Mad Men'. But now smoking is no longer stylish or associated with the workplace just like the twin towers no longer represent the powerful in America. The terrorist attacks showed that America is weak and cigarettes can be associated with the weak also. 

At the very bottom left hand corner of the ad we can see some writing. It says 'Terrorist related death since 2001 11,377 + tobacco related deaths since 2001 30,000,000'. This could be something that would really hit home with some people. Smoking related deaths are preventable. The ash that fell from the sky that day caused a lot of people breathing problems whereas on a daily basis people are still choosing to put this into their bodies. 

I think this is a very controversial ad as it would bring back lots of painful memories for some people but I also think it's a very powerful ad and it would definitely get the message across to others.

Sources:

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2001/09/0913_TVsymbol.html

http://www.canada.com/stylish+smoking+sign+times/7754257/story.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/September_11_attacks

Semiotics

This week we revisited semiotics from first year and then looked at it in a bit more detail also. Semiotics can be defined as the study of signs but it can be applied to paintings, advertisements, posters, films, songs, etc. We use semiotics everyday without even thinking about it by using gestures, e.g. tapping your wrist with your finger where a watch should be could signify to someone that they are late. As a media student I need to be able to look at semiotics within texts as the construction of meaning, whether this is a preferred meaning or an authored meaning. Semiotics relies on a shared societal and cultural understanding of conventions. For example if we see a film trailer that shows us funny clips we go to see that film expecting it to be funny. If we went to see it and the film was scary, people would get a shock because this is not the accepted semiotic conventions. This is communicated through arrangements of music, lighting and camera shots. Here are two examples of comedy film trailers made to look like thrillers.

The Hangover

Dumb and Dumber

Margritte makes the point that we forget that signs and symbols are all around us because we see them as 'things'. He states that an image or a sign of a 'thing' is not the 'thing' itself. We generally don't take the time to look at the signs and symbols for a deeper meaning or understanding.

There are different levels of meaning:
Denotation is the most immediate level of meaning, the basic or literal meaning.
Connotation is the second order of meaning. It reflects values that are attached to a sign. Likely to be culturally specific.

According to de Saussure signs are organsied into codes in two ways:
A Paradigm is a vertical set of units from with the required sign is selected.
A Syntagm is the horizontal chain into which units are linked to make it meaningful.

Advertisements use culturally desirable paradigms to get people to buy their product. Viewers know that if you buy a product you will not be like the person portrayed in the image so advertisers need to be clever with their use of signs to make the product look desirable to the audience. They also have to ensure that these signs adhere to the cultural conventions of the audience. In my next blog I will look at a specific advertisement in more detail.

Interviews - a case study

The interview I'm using as my case study is Dr.Phil interviewing Dina Lohan, the mother of troubled Hollywood actress Lindsay Lohan. I've taking the first 20 mins of this interview to analyze. Before the interview begins a VT is played of Dina where she summarizes her life with her kids and her husband, who apparently abused her, and claims to be 'just a normal mom that juggles everything'. She then says the purpose of the interview is to set the record straight because there are so many stories out there about her and her children and she wants people to hear her story and nobody else's. She says she wants to shed some light on herself and on Lindsay. It's very much pushed from the beginning that this is an exclusive interview and that this is something thats happening for the first time. I think all of this is used to draw the viewer in and let them know what to expect. But then the interview itself takes a completely different turn and becomes almost uncomfortable to watch. Dr Phil admits himself at the start that what he thought would be a normal in depth interview turned into something entirely different.

When the interview begins everything seems normal. Dr.Phil tells Dina that he wants to give her a chance to tell her story and set the record straight so people know who she is. Dina then seems to 'stall' by asking 'Are we to camera now, we're rolling?' She then goes into some detail about her past and turns to the camera and says 'Can we cut?' and she covers her face. She then asks again 'Is this rolling?' Dr.Phil tries to relax her by telling her to take a deep breath. I think she has gone into this interview with an agenda of making herself look like a victim. She talks about domestic abuse but because of how 'strange' her behaviour is, I feel that the audience won't connect with this or have sympathy for her. She comes across like she is drunk or on drugs during this interview.

At around the 7 min 30 sec mark Dr.Phil summarizes what Dina has said already about her relationship with her ex husband. I think he does this so the audience can get an understanding of what she has said. He is forced to operate under the constraints of her behaviour so he needs to summarize for the viewer.

At the 8.30 mark Dr.Phil asks her what was the lowest point. She then starts crying and covers her face and asks can they stop because she doesn't want to be on camera, but then she continues to answer the question making it look like attention seeking, playing the victim again (agenda).

The next question he asks her she tries to avoid by saying 'next question' but he just asks the same question again and she answers it. He doesn't let her get away with not answering the questions. He's firm with her but tries to make her feel comfortable. She then asks can she go home and he tells her she can do whatever she likes. You can see here that while he's not letting her get away with not answering questions he's also not willing to put up with this behaviour, as he reminds her that she was the one who wanted to do this interview to put everything behind her. He stays very relaxed and encourages her to keep going or she will regret it.

After this he then asks her what she wants to talk about, trying to make her feel in control, but she says you tell me you have the list. She then continues to talk about her ex husband saying he pays no child support and sees Lindsay as 'the goose that lay the golden egg' and that he never talks about his other children. Her agenda here is to make her husband look like the bad guy. We can then see how Dr.Phil is being neutral and wants to show the viewer both sides to this story by telling her that that's exactly what her ex husband, Michael Lohan, says about her, that her relationship with Lindsay is financial and she uses her.

At 11.50 Dr.Phil summarizes again what Dina came to talk about. She says she doesn't want to talk about something and he calls her out by calling back to her all the reasons why she wanted to do this interview. She tells him that she's being honest and he says 'no your not', he doesn't let her away with anything. From this point on he calls her out on everything she's doing. He tells her she's using words she doesn't know the meaning of. She calls him 'you people', and he responds by saying he's a highly trained professional, he's knows how to interview people and that he's not the media. He asks her again why is she here. He knows this interview means more to her than it does to him.

She tries to avoid questions again by commenting on his shoes so he calls her out again. He tells her that everything she is doing is a 'dodge' and she deflects everything. He summarizes how she keeps stalling asking about the cameras rolling and he calls her a 'phony' and a 'fraud'. At this point she sticks her finger up at the camera. This is around the 16 min mark. The interview continues where she keeps interrupting him and she keeps trying to put across her point or agenda that she just a normal person and she continues to play the victim by saying it's 'hard'. He describes her as 'flitting' around.

Throughout this interview we can see the interviewer using formulation because of the constraints they are under. You can also see how the interviewer is neutral. He tries to keep her calm and relaxed while also calling her out on what she's doing. I think by doing this he is getting the audience on his side. We can see erratic behaviour from the interviewee where she is avoiding questions by crying, playing the victim, changing the subject and stalling. She is also pushing her own agenda. But the interviewer doesn't let her get away with this. The interviewer in this case comes across as the better person.

Preferred Meaning

I found an article in The Irish Sun from the 16th Feb that I think has a preferred meaning. The article header says 'Behind plus-size fashion weekend', with the headline reading 'Our catwalk has beautiful, curvy NORMAL girls'. The preferred meaning in this article would be to make people believe it's ok and normal to have a fuller figure. The intended audience would be fuller figured women to help them feel better about themselves. This plus-sized fashion weekend has happened at the same time as London fashion week where you see super skinny models walk the runway. While the aim of this is to make women feel beautiful no matter what their size, there is another reality to this that we're not seeing here.

Now while I believe that curvy figures are much nicer than super skinny and that curvy women should feel beautiful there is a line between what's healthy and what's unhealthy. The plus-sized model in the article says that she is a size 16 and eats healthy and goes to the gym, but the reality that's not being pushed here is that a size 16 figure could be very unhealthy. While it might be healthy for this model to be a size 16 depending on her height and her BMI, it doesn't give us this information in the article, so in turn every size 16 girl reading this may be led to believe that it's healthy when they could in reality have an unhealthy BMI. It is very unhealthy for people to have excess fat around their mid section, especially for women. According to the Drummond Clinic website:

"Carrying weight around the middle represents a serious health risk. It is now known that there are major health implications of storing fat in the middle of the body rather than anywhere else – studies have shown it increases the risk of heart disease, diabetes, stroke, cancer (especially breast cancer) and high blood pressure." 

http://www.drummondclinic.co.uk/articles/fat-around-the-middle/

In the article the model also says "Designers make clothes up to a size 16, so why don't they use real size 16 women, their customers, to show them off? Why would a designer create clothes in larger sizes if they don't want to see them worn?" The reality not being said here is that the designers are the ones picking the super skinny size zero models to show their clothes on the catwalk. At the end of the article there's a small piece by the fashion editor saying that "The Irish Sun has been campaigning against size zero models since 2007." While I am against size zero, I would be against unhealthy size 16 models also. I believe fashion shows should have size 10-12 models as this to me is what represents 'normal' and also healthy figures. I believe that women should be confident and feel good regardless of their shape but they also need to be healthy and this is the reality that is no being pushed by this article.

Here is a link to the article online:
http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/woman/article4797781.ece

Here is also a photo of the article that I saw in the newspaper:

The circuit of culture: The article is represented to us with a picture of the size 16 model posing seductively so that people will think she's beautiful and desirable. She is also the one being quoted in the article and as she is taking part in the plus-sized fashion week she is a reliable source for this kind of information. It's printed in a tabloid newspaper making the information easy to digest by the reader. They know that this sort of article will be acceptable by the reader and it is definitely aimed at female readers. It's also a short article with a big headline to catch the readers attention so they are likely to read it. The picture of the model may also catch the eye of some of the male consumers.


I think that the alternative reality is not being pushed here because people get so caught up in trying to get rid of size zero models that they forget about what's actually healthy and what's not healthy when it comes to plus sized models. Plus sized models want to make people think it's ok and normal to be that size so they don't tell them the risks that go along with it.

Pseudo Events

Pseudo events are events created by the media to generate news. The need for pseudo events comes from the general public. People expect papers to be full of news. If a reporter cannot find a story they are expected to make one. We demand more news than the world can give us resulting in fabricated stories. We keep these news reporters in business by demanding that they fill our consciousness. More and more of what we are seeing in the news are pseudo events, but this is because we expect them so therefore we are given them. These events become 'need to know' by the general public and therefore the lines between what people really need to know and what they can know become blurred. This news then becomes 'packaged' news. The news reporters select, invent and plan these events and news stories.

Pseudo events have 6 characteristics:
1. They are more dramatic and easy to get across and receive
2. Can be repeated/re-enforced
3. Cost money to create so they are advertised in advance
4. More sociable, easy to digest, convenient
5. Knowledge of the event becomes the test of being 'informed'
6. Pseudo events spawn other pseudo events that dominate our consciousness

A very recent example of what could be a pseudo event is from the Grammy Awards last night. Rihanna was seen at the awards ceremony wearing a ring on her engagement finger. She was sitting in the audience with Chris Brown, now four years after he assaulted her, wearing many rings on her fingers including her wedding finger, and she was clearly showing them off. When the singer then got on stage to perform she just had one simple silver band on her wedding finger. This lead to speculation on twitter about an engagement. This kind of of event being captured and reported on generates a lot of free publicity for Rihanna and Chris Brown. All she has to do is show up at an event with a ring on her finger and without even saying anything everyone on the internet is talking about it. This could have been totally planned by the singers PR team to get people talking and the ring could really mean absolutely nothing, knowing that the news reporters would need this as news. It could also be a plan to show the doubters and skeptics how happy and together the couple are on the 4 year anniversary of her beating from Chris Brown. Here is a link to the story that I found on the mail online website:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-2276772/Grammys-2013-Rihanna-snuggles-Chris-Brown-flaunts-engagement-ring.html#axzz2KbB4OHzP

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. 

My Creative Self

For my creative self project I wasn't quite sure what to do at the beginning but thought about the different things I'm good at and what I like to do. One of my favourite things to do is to take pictures, especially when I go traveling. I also like to make videos so thought about coming up with some way to combine the two. I wanted to make some sort of video collage of my photos. I looked up the internet for different tutorials on how to make creative photo collages. I spent a lot of time looking through different tutorials and picked my favorite ones. The general theme I decided to go with was the look of film from a camera and polaroids. The next task I had to do was to pick out the photos I wanted to use. I went through all my travel photos from America, Canada, Thailand and Europe and picked what I thought were the best ones that represented my travel experiences. I then put these altogether as collages in photoshop. After I had these finished I edited the video together in iMovie and put music to it. I also wanted to add something at the end that represented me, not necessarily me creatively but me as a person. So I decided to take three different photos of myself and edit them together. The first was of me sitting at my laptop as I'm always on the interent, the second was me drinking coffee as I drink coffee everyday and the last photo was of me on the phone and also holding my small tub of vaseline as my phone and vaseline are two things that are never out of my hands. Anyway, enough of me talking about the video, have a look below. 

The Creative Spark Project

The brief for our project was to create a creative media artefact which promotes the creative industries in Louth in general and the Dundalk IT and Creative Spark in particular. One of the sub themes of the brief was the Spark Plugs Social Club. Myself and my group had a look on the Creative Spark website to see what the social club was about. www.creativespark.ie  

After looking on the website we didn't find out much information about it apart from that if you rent an office in the Creative Spark building you get membership to the social club. So as a group we decided that we wanted to organize something around the social club. 

Our first idea was to set up an online forum for the social club so people would have somewhere they could talk to people outside of the meetings and then maybe the forum could be use to further discuss topics brought up at the meetings. So our group member Aoife created the online forum so we have it up and running for people to sign up to. 

We then decided that we wanted to hold the first meeting of the social club so the next step was to organize a meeting with the head of the Creative Spark Sarah Daly. Our group member Sarah emailed Sarah Daly and arranged a time we could meet with her. On the day we went down to the Creative Spark building and we told Sarah Daly our idea to hold the first social club meeting so she was very pleased with this idea. We wanted to get feed back from her of what she wanted from the social club. She wanted to get the tenants of the building involved and the Science Service Centre and then just general people working in the creative industries and students. She was interested in the idea of having a guest speaker on the night too so she was going to speak to the tenants to see if they were interested in speaking and we said that we would try and arrange a speaker too. She also agreed to give a brief introduction at the meeting about the Creative Spark. 

Other things she wanted from the meeting was feedback on certain things. She wanted to know how much people would be willing to pay to join the club and also what people would like to see from the social club. So we decided that we would do a questionnaire that people would fill out after the meeting. 

Another group in the class were arranging an open night and exhibition in the Creative Spark so Sarah said she would like to hold the meeting on the same night so it could all tie in together. We then spoke to the other group about this and they agreed that it was a good idea. 

In the following week or two then we kept in touch with Sarah through email and kept her updated on how the planning for the meeting was going and she informed us that a lady called Tracey Dunne would speak at the meeting. She owns a company called Element Design and was the first tenant in the building. At the same time we were trying to arrange a speaker too. We had a man from Boylesports that agreed to speak but then he pulled out. We then arranged for a girl called Julie Reilly to speak. She is a past student of our course and currently working as an online editor in Boylesports so we asked her to talk about her experiences. We also spent time over the two weeks emailing some people to try and get the word out about the night. 

We also decided then what we were going to do as the media artefact. We wanted to create something positive for the Creative Spark and create something that they could use. So we came up with the idea of making a video that they could put on their website. We decided to take photos on the night of the meeting and the exhibition and then do a vox pop on the night of people talking about how they think the Creative Spark will benefit them and then we were going to put tis altogether in a video. 

We were all set then to go for the meeting so we just had to hope it went well on the night. The open night was on the 22nd Oct from 5-8 so we had our social club meeting from 6.15-7. There wasn't a big turn out on the night and we were worried about this but it ended up being a good thing for us. We held the meeting in a small room of a bout 15 people. The guest speakers were really interesting and informative about working in the industry and everyone really enjoyed the talks. The small number of people meant that everyone could get out any questions they had and it kinda turned into a bit of a group discussion then and more people felt comfortable talking. We left questionnaires on the chairs and collected these after the meeting so we could give the feedback to Sarah. After the meeting we also got people to sign up to the online forum and we went around and did the vox pop. 

I think that the first social club meeting was a great success and as a group we were very happy with how our project went. All that was left to do then was to put the video together and let Sarah know our findings from the meeting. 

Some photos from the night:

The room set up

Guest speaker: Tracey

Guest speaker: Julie

People there on the night

Culture and Society - Online civil disobedience and political activists

After researching Anonymous and Lulzsec it's clear to see a difference between the two. Lulzsec hack into different websites and systems just for the fun. They want to show people that they can do it and that their site's are not as secure as they would like to think they are. There is no meaning behind what they are doing just purely the fact that they can do it. They are responsible for high profile hackings such as Sony, Nintendo and the CIA website. They claim to have 7 members with one as the leader. They don't hack for profit but just for fun. They even opened a telephone request line so fan could request potential targets. 

Whereas with Anonymous they have political reasons for what they do. They are trying to protect users freedom online and free speech. Anonymous defended Wikileaks as a way of defending free speech but they also hacked into the accounts of Amazon, Paypal and Mastercard. To me, hacking into these accounts doesn't make sense in defending free speech so I think that in a way they also do it because they can but they want to be seen as doing good. I think that they do have good intentions and when they hack into these accounts they don't release any of the information but a lot of the time they aren't doing good for the general public. They contradict themselves by shutting down websites in the name of free speech.  They protest against things that they are passionate about and obtain private information of people who may not be passionate about the same cause as them. Although the other side of this is that by hacking into these large corporations they are showing a flaw in their security and therefore people loose trust in these companies resulting in them losing money and some control. Anonymous is not a specific group of people it is a mass of people all existing separately or some together. 

I understand the fun aspect of it coming from Lulzsec. If they can do it why not point out the flaws in national security systems. In the long run they are probably helping these systems iron out the bugs in their security. I don't agree with taking personal information of account holders though. With Anonymous they seem to have a good cause that I also agree with which is freedom online and I think that they are good at creating awareness. I also like the whole mystery aspect as who these people are. I think they both have good intentions but don't always end up doing good. You're never going to get everyone to believe in your cause anyway. 

I don't think that I could be convinced to become politically active through targeted social media. For me it's not about the means in which you are targeted but it's if you are targeted for something that you are actually interested in or passionate about. I have no interest what so ever in the politics of this country. I choose to ignore it and not watch the news and live in my on little bubble because it's just depressing otherwise. So if there was a social media political campaign I would swiftly ignore it and move on to doing something even more useless with my time. My own little world is a happier place this way.

Information

http://www.cjr.org/the_news_frontier/are_online_attacks_civil_disob.php

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-13787229

Culture and Society - The Networked Public

Children today are growing up in a networked society. They are connected to everything through the internet. The internet is now widely available on mobile devices making it easier to be connected 24/7. People need to be careful what they put online though. I like to think I monitor my online profile carefully on sites such as Facebook. 

I have my page completely private so that potential employers (or stalkers) can't find me if they search for me in google or in the Facebook search bar. I also have my Facebook chat divided into groups of people I don't want to talk to that I keep offline all the time and then my friends who I talk to all the time and keep online. I also de-tag myself from photos I find to be unflattering or even ask my friends to take certain photos down. My profile photo will always be a photo I think represents me best whether its a photo I think is nice or a photo of something fun. I decide how I want to come across on Facebook by a way of micro managing my profile. 

The future of people growing up as digital natives means that they will not have the same childhoods as us. I can't say whether they are missing out on certain things growing up that we had because thats not for me to decide. They may think that they have a better upbringing because of all the advances in technology. But older generations will always think they lived in a simpler time. Children now will communicate through the internet or over the phone. Even phone conversations have decreased. Texts are widely used now to communicate. Long gone are the days of people talking on the phone for hours. Now people choose to text all day long instead. The implication of this is that your tone in a text message could be taken up wrong by the other person whereas this wouldn't generally happen over the phone. 

People no longer call to each others house unannounced. You will always call or text someone before arriving to their house to make sure they are there. When i was growing up if you had nothing to do you would just arrive at your friends doorstep to see if they anted to come out and play. The notion of the doorbell also seems to be dying out. Now people will not get out of their car to ring a doorbell they just text or ring the person to tell them they are outside eliminating the need for a doorbell. I can't decide whether it's laziness or convenience. I think it is a combination of both. Children will no longer hang out  down the road, outside in the cold. They will hang out online. 

I think people who engage in online deviance are people who feel bad about themselves and like to see other people suffer to make themselves feel better. They are clearly people who have nothing better to do with their lives only sit at home on a computer and make other people feel bad. Sometimes I read comments under certain blogs posts and a lot of the time they are comments from people abusing the person who wrote the blog. This is one thing i don't understand. If you don't like a blog or the person who writes it then why do these people continue to go on and read these blogs. If people just stopped going onto to these sites and giving people abuse for no reason they'd be a lot happier in themselves. 

The networked public also seems to have giving rise to a new form of bullying. Online bullying is very common now. I don't think that it has made more bully's but I think that it has made the bully's that are already out there more powerful. Now if someone gets bullied in school it doesn't stop when they go home. They continue to get bullied once they are home whether it's online or over text. This tragically results in school children taking their own lives because they never get a break from the bullies. For the person being bullied the want to kill themselves can then further be fueled by pro-suicide websites where people can talk on forums and make suicide pacts and even get tips on how to kill yourself. 

There is a never ending world online and nearly anything you want or need can be found online in some way, shape or form. It is clear that there are both good and bad sides to this. The sad reality is that whether you want to seek help for being bullied or whether you want to get tips on how to kill yourself, there's something out there for everyone. 

Culture and Society - Relationships online

There are many advantages to forming relationships online. It is very easy to find people online that have the same interests as you. If you go to an online form you can get chatting to people about something you have in common. You don't have to waste any time getting to know someone to then realise you have nothing in common, here you know straight away that you have shared interests. It's becoming increasingly popular for people to use online dating websites and on these everyone generally has the same intensions. They want to form a relationship online with the intension of meeting up and possibly having an offline or sexual relationship. 

Having never used a dating website I can only make assumptions about what happens on them. But what I think is that people would be very open with each other and it would be easy to find someone in a similar situation to you, e.g. two people going through a divorce. There isn't the same messing around as there would be if you went to try and meet someone at a bar. Not everyone in bars are looking to meet someone, a lot of people there would already be in a relationship or be married. This makes it harder to approach people when you don't know their situation. With online dating you know that everyone is there to try and meet someone. You can also hide behind your computer, this may feel like security for some people. If you were to meet someone in public you'd have to really put yourself out there. Also chatting online avoids any awkward silences. You have a few minutes to think about what you want to say next and this is also a way of avoiding saying something you may regret. 

Having an online relationship is also very convenient. You can sit at home by the fire with the TV on, in your pj's and chat to someone. All you'd have to do maybe is to upload a photo of yourself from one time that you may have been dressed up with makeup on. If you were to go out to a pub to try and meet someone you would constantly have to get dressed up, perfect hair, perfect makeup to try to look attractive to the opposite sex. With online dating you can also form a relationship without it being based on what you look like. You can get to know someone based on their personality and when your ready send them a photo of yourself. Then you can arrange to meet up with the other person once you've really got to know who they are and feel comfortable around them. I think that people also spend hours online chatting to someone they have just met for the first time. This would help the relationship excel very quickly. Whereas if you were meeting someone for a first date you would spend maybe two to three hours together at a time and it would take a few dates before you really get to know them. Online you can get to know everything about a person in the one evening over a space of a few hours and then you can decide if you want to continue this relationship with them or move on.

There is also some disadvantages to forming a relationship online. It is a lot easier to deceive someone online then it is in person. I don't think it's a lot more natural for it to happen now online but it certainly gives people that extra platform to deceive. People have been deceiving each other for years before the internet arrived. Many people have been found to live double lives before the internet. I think that now that you can form relationships online it is easier to deceive but it's also easier to be found out. An example of this I will take from the film Catfish. The relationship in this documentary was mostly online so when the girl sent the man a song she said she recorded of herself singing he was able to find the exact same recording on youtube and subsequently finding out that the whole relationship was a scam. 

People can easily get sucked into the lies and scams of who they meet online, who they think they can really trust and develop genuine feelings for. But I would just say to have your wits about you and be weary of people. It's ok to question things and if they are genuine they shouldn't have a problem with this and they should understand your need to question. Sometimes if someone is too good to be true they generally are so you just need to be careful. I have had one extended family member to meet someone online and three years later they are still together and very happy. They were both there for each other when they needed someone and helped each other through a very difficult time and came out the other side very happy. The problem is you only ever hear of the bad stories and the scams reported in the media, you don't hear about the 'happily ever afters'. I believe that there is more good then bad in online relationships.

Culture and Society - offline/online communities

This week I have considered my engagement with different communities. When I was younger I definitely felt more like part of the community I live in then I do now. When you're young and in school it's very easy to be part of the community you live in. You go to school everyday, you go to the local shop everyday after school, you go to youth club, you go to football/camogie training. All of this involves being part of the local community and engaging with all the people in the community. I live in a very small village so in primary school everyone hangs round with each other and everyone knew each other other. All of the school and after school activities involved the same people. But since going to secondary school I got further and further away from the community I live in. Instead of hanging out in the village every day I was at school in town and hanging round town after school and making new friends. I never really felt like part of a community during this time. Maybe it was a community in itself but it was nothing like the sense of community that I was used to.

Now, even though I've lived in the same place my whole life I don't feel like part of the community I live in. There has been so many new houses built in my area in the last few years that I don't know a lot of people that live there now that I maybe would know if I was only growing up now. I also never see a lot of the people that I used to see everyday because we hang out in completely different circles now. I still hang around with two friends that live beside me but most of my friends are in town.

When I say 'hang around' even that meaning is different then it used to be years ago. Now I hang around with my friends in each other houses every evening. Years ago we were hanging around sitting on a wall, freezing, down the road. I used to tell my mam 'I'm going down the road.' She would never really know where I was but now its more specific when I say I'm going to a certain friends house. But before we would pick a specific point, ie. the wall, and a specific time to meet and everyone would be there at the exact time and place. Now when I'm meeting someone its like 'I'll ring you when I'm leaving to see where you are.'

In terms of hanging around online I think teenagers see this as very important. They are afraid to be offline incase they miss something. I think the idea of missing out is a big thing for teenagers. I know when I was younger I always wanted to do the things and go places everyone else was going incase I missed something but as you get older you definitely grow out of this and realise that maybe other things are more important. But for teenagers I think that hanging around online is the equivalent of this nowadays. In a way it does make more sense to hang around online waiting for your friends to come so you can talk or play games with them rather then hanging round on the street hoping that one of your friends might come along. There's also definitely a benefit to engaging online in a warm house on a comfy seat rather then outside on a freezing cold wall. It also means to don't have to get dressed or put on makeup, you can look a mess while talking to people without having to care.

Culture and Society - Fan culture and remix

Fandom has really become huge since the development of the internet and social networking sites. Here you can find people who are fans of absolutely anything. If you're into something that none of your friends like you can easily find hundreds or thousands of people online that have the same interests as you.
Before online fan communities if someone was interested in something it generally would have died out after awhile if you were the only person interested in it, but now with online fandom you can keep it going for a very long time because there will always be other people online who are into the same things as you.

For me it was David Beckham that I was a huge fan of when I was younger. I had everything that was ever release with him on it. In my bedroom I had what I called my David Beckham wall of fame that was just covered in photos and posters of him. I cut out every single picture of him in every paper and bought every magazine he was in. I even have a David Beckham mug that I still use to this day. My friends would buy me posters of him for my birthday and I had a Man utd jersey with his name and number on the back. I truly was obsessed with him, but after a while my obsession died down. I still love him but not to the extent that I used to. I was the only one of my friends who liked him so much so after a while I really had nothing to keep me going with my fandom. This was all before I knew about the internet and online fan communities and I think if they had of been around then I would have kept it up a lot longer. If I could have gone online and shared all the stuff I had collected on him I think I would have kept doing it. Maybe this picture will help you understand my obsession a bit more..

I think fan culture has definitely contributed to remix culture. That's one of the ways in which fans engage with the objects of their affection. They take music or videos of people they love and put it all together in their own creative way. I wouldn't call it distorting the original, I think these people are very creative and I admire they're ability to do remixes and I think it's great that they are so passionate about something they love. So part of the fan culture is making these remixes and putting them online for people to see and comment on and then to also share what they have done. A great way for people to engage with fandom is twitter. On twitter people can actually engage with celebrities and tweet them in hope of getting a tweet back and a lot of the time they do so this reinforces the fandom. People even name themselves on twitter after the people they admire or use the same surname as them. Facebook pages are also great for famous people to keep their fans up to date by posting photos and events. This way fans can go see them at an event or signing they might be at. One good example of fandom is when the boy band One Direction were filming their latest music video they posted it on twitter that they were going out in London and loads of fan showed up and ended up getting in their music video. I think these outlets on the internet also allow celebrities let their fans know that they really appreciate them so this also reinforces fan culture.

Culture and Society - The rave scene in Britain

In its heyday rave attracted tens of thousands of people and the venue often remained a secret until a few hours before the event. Rave crowds are mostly young and from all different areas of society.

People in Britain got involved in the rave scene to escape from reality. They worked long stressful weeks and and went to raves at the weekends. It was their way to escape and deal with issues of identity for a few hours each night at the weekends. They release all their stress built up from the working week by dancing non stop for about three hours. Rave isn't about going out and getting so drunk that you cant't stand, it's even about drinking at all. It's more about the dance and getting lost in it. People may use cocaine and e tablets for a bit of a high and to try and stay in control, they want the feel good factor. Ravers generally stay away from alcohol but not everyones opts for drugs either. A lot of people stay away from everything and they just go for the music and to dance,they get high on the atmosphere.

Both men and women wear very little when raving, this may be due to the heat generated while dancing but they also like to show off their bodies. The activity involved at raves can be described as child like, the whistle blowing and dummy sucking. Clothes are considered symbols or badges of acceptance. People involved need to appear as in control. These are the norms of the group.

Raves take place in empty warehouse's rather than in nightclubs or anywhere you can fit a lot of people and a sound system. It's not the club that is being promoted but the organiser of the rave. This made the scene fresh, exciting and liberating. Organisers strived to achieve exclusivity. Newspapers reported on how hard these raves were to get into but this was good publicity for them as more and more people now hoped to get in. These were then referred to as superclubs.

Rave happened in Britain during a period of major consumerism and individualism. Margret Thatcher was telling everyone to look after number 1. This together with English Dj's coming back from the rave scene in Ibiza, having experienced drugs and rave culture first hand, had an effect on the people of Britain. Instead of money and power, rave called for empathy, intimacy, spirituality and the joy of losing yourself in the crowd.


But, by the early 90's the government had enough of the rave culture. Police were giving the power to order people to move if they were believed to be preparing a rave, waiting for a rave to start or attending a rave. All offences were liable to imprisonment or a fine if ignored. This killed off free parties and events not licensed through local government.

*Information came from these two websites
http://www.thesite.org/drinkanddrugs/drugculture/drugstrade/thehistoryofrave

http://www.bath.ac.uk/criac/publications/pdf/10_Shankar_CMC.pdf

Culture and Society - Moral Panic

What is moral panic?

Moral panic is generally something that the media tries to create. It is a fear in older people about what younger people are doing. The media try to inform parents what their children are doing but what they end up doing is informing other young people how to get involved in something they would otherwise know nothing about. Moral panic happens when something looks like it is going to threaten social order. So this is one of the impacts of publishing people's behavior. The media make things look like all teenagers are involved in something when really it is only a few hundred or thousand involved, but now it becomes a conscious activity for them to get involved in the particular behavior.

The media builds up events and put in place the conditions for this behavior to happen and then people are outraged when teenagers do behave like this. The world panic can be associated with lack of control so when parents find out what their teenagers are taking part in on the streets they panic because it's something that they cannot control. It happens when there is a disagreement between groups or a lack of understanding and certain people become a threat and threaten the conventions of society and how it operates. The media have hidden agendas and normally what they report on is over staged and sensationalised. This results in minority groups getting all the backlash.

A modern day moral panic would be binge drinking.

It is on the news a lot lately about how they are trying to make it illegal for an off license and supermarkets to sell cheap drinks or have special offers on alcohol. They are trying to stop teenagers having access to alcohol by making it more expensive to buy. The way the media are reporting it is as if all teenagers are going out every weekend and getting really drunk and hanging round street corners when in reality this is not the case. But because of this media coverage thats what parents think all teenagers are doing. Binge drinking is seen as a major threat to society when really it's only a small group of people who do it. The majority of people drink moderately and can control their drinking habits but the media only report on the people who fall out of nightclubs.

In countries like Spain and France they have a more relaxed attitude towards alcohol. Alcohol is widely available in shops, bars and cafe for a cheap price. It is also seen as ok for people younger then 18 in these countries to have a glass of wine with dinner. I think that this approach to alcohol is much better as children are gradually introduced to it and don't feel the need to go out drinking on the streets to hide from their parents. They can have a drink at dinner with their parents in a safe place. I think if Ireland as a country didn't make such a big deal over alcohol it wouldn't be such a big deal. They need to adopt a more relaxed approach. The media and news reporters need to stop going on about it and people wouldn't get into such a panic over it.