News, trust, and "truthiness"

After reading through a bunch of blogs that have been written by my peers, I have come to realize that the majority of them believe these satirical types of news reportage are less reliable then the traditional news. Nobody explicitly says that they are completely unreliable but it is pretty much widely agreed, from what I have read, that the satirical types of reportage are less reliable. 

In her blog, Kelsey Spanik had stated that "Most of the time these parodies tend to not be completely true" (http://kelseyspanik.wordpress.com/2013/11/22/is-the-fake-news-the-real-news/). What Kelsey was referring to in her statement, was the satirical news reporting shows. Kelsey understands that what the people on these shows do is parody the actual news, which is pretty much making fun of it by mocking it. This is a method of culture jamming that is used quite frequently in our current public sphere. 

Another person who had said that these satirical types of news were somewhat unreliable, was David O'Connor. In his blog he says that "Using Rick Mercer's 'rants' as an example, the audience knows that the show is satirical, but they also know that Mercer is simply going to give his opinion" (http://oconnormedia.wordpress.com/2013/11/21/1f25-blog-entry-4-is-the-fake-news-the-real-news/). When David brings this up in his blog, I believe he is trying to use it to help the reader acknowledge or remember that these satirical news shows are not always entirely true. He also displays his thoughts of how it is mainly opinionated and I agree with him in this aspect as well as many others.

The third blog in which I noticed this recurring theme was a blog written by Raven Henry. Something that struck me from her blog was when she said that satirical news reporting "presents the news in a 'fake' light to bring the people of this generation news they want to listen to" (http://askrae.wordpress.com/2013/11/22/is-the-fake-news-the-real-news/). By saying this, she is showing, explicitly, that she believes satirical news reporting is unreliable. I understand what she was saying, and I do agree with the statement that she made. I do not know if I would go as far as to call shows like The Rick Mercer Report fake, but I do think that by being a more unrealistic and comedic that these shows keep the watchers interested and tuned in. 

After seeing that most of the people who watch or know about these satirical news shows believe that they are unrealistic, the same way I do, I can come to see that these satirical news reportages will not effect the longevity of the current public sphere. If readers can understand that these shows are spoofs and parodies then they can be expected to know that they shouldn't directly believe what the shows are saying. Since these shows do not reduce the truth of the actual news and are mainly opinionated, I don't believe that they would directly impact the contemporary public sphere in any type of drastic way.  

Blog Entry # 4: Is the fake news the real news?

If someone had asked me if I believed that satirical news reporting is a mainstream form of culture jamming, i would have to say yes. I feel like shows such as The Rick Mercer Report or The Daily Show are the modern versions of media which criticizes media in a parody-like fashion. 

What the show The Rick Mercer Report does is comment on stories in a style that is similar to the news. In the textbook for this course, it says: "Culture jamming is understood as a mode of resistance to the norms and conventions of mass culture that exposes and opposes the media's underlying power structures and ideological messages" (213, O'Shaughnessy). I see satirical news shows such as this one as current versions of culture jamming techniques. The show brings notice to the problems with the actual news that people would not regularly think about by parodying it and exposing the problems. 

At one point in the textbook, the author states that "In 2000, Sprite created a television advertisement that told the viewer that they didn't need sports stars like Grant Hill to tell them to buy a soft drink because it was cool"(225, O'Shaughnessy). What the Sprite ad does, is it explicitly displays to the consumer that they are being manipulated by the media. The ad brings about awareness in the watcher that they had most likely already know about if they knew anything about the media. Similarly, on the show The Rick Mercer Report, the host Rick Mercer does a rant about Rob Ford. He ranted about how Rob Ford is a huge mess, yet he is still the mayor of Toronto. We are all aware of the scandalous actions of Rob Ford, however, as long as he is creating the most amount of pros for us as citizens out of the candidates, we will not acknowledge his bad behaviour.  

  

Blog Entry # 4: Is the fake news the real news?

If someone had asked me if I believed that satirical news reporting is a mainstream form of culture jamming, i would have to say yes. I feel like shows such as The Rick Mercer Report or The Daily Show are the modern versions of media which criticizes media in a parody-like fashion. 

What the show The Rick Mercer Report does is comment on stories in a style that is similar to the news. In the textbook for this course, it says: "Culture jamming is understood as a mode of resistance to the norms and conventions of mass culture that exposes and opposes the media's underlying power structures and ideological messages" (213, O'Shaughnessy). I see satirical news shows such as this one as current versions of culture jamming techniques. The show brings notice to the problems with the actual news that people would not regularly think about by parodying it and exposing the problems. 

At one point in the textbook, the author states that "In 2000, Sprite created a television advertisement that told the viewer that they didn't need sports stars like Grant Hill to tell them to buy a soft drink because it was cool"(225, O'Shaughnessy). What the Sprite ad does, is it explicitly displays to the consumer that they are being manipulated by the media. The ad brings about awareness in the watcher that they had most likely already know about if they knew anything about the media. Similarly, on the show The Rick Mercer Report, the host Rick Mercer does a rant about Rob Ford. He ranted about how Rob Ford is a huge mess, yet he is still the mayor of Toronto. We are all aware of the scandalous actions of Rob Ford, however, as long as he is creating the most amount of pros for us as citizens out of the candidates, we will not acknowledge his bad behaviour.  

  

Blog Response 3: Demonstrable Demographics

After reading through a bunch of my classmates' blogs, I have come to realize that many of them share the same thought process as I do when looking at interpellation and hailing. A trend that i realized throughout the blogs that I had read was that, familiarity and star power sells products. Many of my classmates had similar thoughts to mine whilst choosing their advertisement and writing their blog. The demographic for these types of advertisements is typically adolescents of either gender who take a liking to the type of product being sold by the celebrity or to the celebrity them self.

It has become strikingly apparent to me that others also believe that celebrities sell products. David O'Connor said in his blog that "By using Bieber as the main focus of the commercial, the younger generation of society is reeled in". David had realized, in the same way that I have, that star power is what draws buyers in, especially the younger demographic who are gullible and fall for the marketing ploys of the large corporations. I feel as though seeing someone you look up to endorse something just makes you want it that much more.

http://oconnormedia.wordpress.com/2013/11/07/1f25-blog-entry-what-the-hail/

Brittany Shannon had also written something similar to me in her blog. Brittany had said that: "If young adults buy this product, they might not care if it does what the advertisement entails or not. They will be thinking about the face that their favourite celebrity uses the same product and that the people around them will notice the difference immediately". It is reassuring to me that many others realize the psychological tactics, used by companies, to sell their products to consumers the same way I do. Brittany and David have similar thoughts within their blogs about how famous people are used to sell products, however, others have a different view of how products are sold to us.

http://britshannon.blogspot.ca/2013/11/what-hail.html

Another type of hailing, is one described by Skyla Read which I would describe as a type of self-esteem tactic. Skyla describes that the providers of the goods "want you to feel like you can't be flawless or completely beautiful without makeup. That if you want to get somewhere in a career or in a social life you must wear their make-up line to succeed". I never really thought about this type of hailing to the consumers. Although I have never looked at this type of hailing, I feel as though this would be a very effective way to get consumers to buy your goods. If you make the buyer feel as though they NEED the product to better themselves, then they will buy it. From what I have experienced, from people I have relationships with, is that people of our generation are very self conscious about their image.

http://skyr12.wordpress.com/2013/11/05/what-the-hail/

Their are a plethora of hailing strategies used by companies to attract customers to their products. Some of these tactics may include using celebrities, and others may be the use of the psyche of the consumer. Different tactics are used for different demographics, and the sellers of the products have become skillful in finding specific ways to attract specific consumers. The methods they use may be irrelevant to the product, but they still work and we still purchase the goods.

Blog Entry #3: What the Hail?

The add that I had used for my blog was the Bauer Vapor APX2 hockey stick commercial. What happens in this commercial is that it shows a hockey player named Patrick Kane from the Chicago Blackhawks stick-handling with a puck through a plethora of other pucks which are stationary on the ice and there is progressively more and more pucks on the ice for him to stick-handle around.

The company Bauer utilizes a star player from the NHL to lure younger aspiring hockey player in to buy their product. In the textbook it states: "Do you notice that different sec ions of the newspaper seem to be addressing different social subjects? The sport section hails the reader as male, the social pages hail the reader as female…" (186, O'Shaughnessy). In relation to this, I believe that the target audience for this commercial could technically be anybody who plays hockey, regardless of their age, nationality, or gender. I however believe that the advertisement would typically effect younger males more than anyone else. The textbook also says that: "the game Joanna Dark is in '3D first person shooter' format, which means that those who plat the game have to BE Joanna Dark. In other words, male players have to transvest themselves, in a virtual sense, and occupy a female body in order to participate in the game" (184, O'Shaughnessy). I see Patrick Kane in this commercial in a way that the writers of the textbook see Joanna Dark. The consumers of the stick from the commercial wish to be like and ultimately play like Patrick Kane. 

From my personal point of view, I feel as though the advertisement did a very good job in generating a want from the viewer. By using a super star NHL player (Kane) in their commercial it makes the viewer feel like they can become as good as him if they use the same equipment as him. This works on children, however not as much in adolescents and adults because as you get older you understand that the equipment does not make the player but the player makes the equipment.

Blog Response #2

I personally believe that as a society, we do not want the same media that we may need. Many people living in today's society are craving and looking for media regarding their favourite celebrities or athletes rather than media regarding social and political leaders that discuss world issues which people our age should be concerned about. Since the majority of today's society focuses on media that revolves around entertainment, it is less common to see media regarding cultural, political, social, and/or economic matters.

After reading many of my classmates' blogs, i have come to realize that many of them are using the media for matters such as news which is very informative. I am personally not using the media in such a way but am now contemplating starting to use the media equally for news as I do for entertainment. In her blog, Mary Castaneda stated: "The use of the word 'terrorist' versus the use of the word 'rebel', the word 'terrorist' consisting of 'terror' sounds much more threatening than rebel". Her saying this shows her understanding and knowledge of the types of tricks used by the news to make stories more interesting. She is knowledgeable in the sense that she can understand what the news does to try to draw in the society as watchers.
(http://mc11he.wordpress.com/)

Many people are very concerned about what is going on around the world. An example of this is my father who is constantly watching the Egyptian news on satellite. He is concerned about what is going on in his native homeland because his family still lives there. Kevin Shen said in his blog that: "The biggest piece of media that we want is the news because people want to know what is happening around the world or maybe in their own cities". I believe that Kevin understands that people are genuinely concerned about news that has any kind of connection to them.
(http://kevinshen94.wordpress.com/)

Media is constantly changing and redesigning who we are as people. When we see something on TV or in a movie it shapes who we aspire to become. For example, when I watch hockey on TV, namely the Chicago Blackhawks team in the NHL, I wish to become as good as the captain Jonathan Toews who is my idol. Haley Bourque had stated in her blog that: "As a society, we learn to listen and become influenced by what we hear or see through advertisements, magazines, reality TV, news channels etc.". I feel as though Haley understands the ideas of the media by knowing that, what they are trying to do is make the consumer want what they are producing/making.

Blog Entry #2: The Media We Want

When you look at what media we are being provided with today in relation to the wants of the consumers in the present day, you can make a relation between the two. You can either think that the consumers (we), get the media we want, or do we want the media that we get. When I personally look at this, I believe that we get the media that we want. When referring to an individual in the mass media world today, the person would normally only partake in the media that they truly like. Seeing as how there is so much media in the world, people with different preferences can get the things they prefer since the whole media spectrum is covered. I believe that as the consumers, we shape what the media becomes. The creators of the media have to create the media in a way that it is likeable by the audience. The reflection of the world in the media displays the impact that the viewers have on the media, showing that it becomes what we are and what we want.  "The first suggests that the media reflect the realities, values, and norms of a society. Thus, if we want to study a society we could turn to its media-its films, novels, television series, magazines, and popular stories-which reflect to us what people feel and think, how they behave, and so on" (43, O'Shaughnessy). If the media is reflecting the people of the world then it can be easily seen that we shape the media and we get the media that we want. If the media is going to be successful, they need popularity. "When commercial television was first introduced into Western societies, audiences quickly turned to those channels that offered the entertainment they liked best, particularly game shows and soap operas" (37-38, O'Shaughnessy) For media to be popular, its consumers must enjoy what they are taking part in. Media that ends up successful is media that the consumers genuinely want. If they don't want it, then they will switch to another brand of media, for example a different television series. In short, media types will become popular and successful when consumers sincerely want what the media is providing them with.    

O’Shaughnessy, M., & Stadler, J.. (2012). Media and Society. 5^th Ed. South Melbourne, Oxford University Press.