ChittyChittyBangBang 4/1

Tuesday's class was a fun discussion. It was very entertaining to watch the clips from Outfoxed and see how ridiculous the news can be sometimes. It was interesting to divide up the different main sources of news such as Fox, CNN, ABC, and NBC and talk about the types of news they are each going to try to show because of who owns them. Such as Dr. Rog's example of what channel you should turn on if you want to hear about a baby suffocating in a refrigerator....fox... : ). It really goes to show that depending on what news source you favor really makes the difference of what information you know, what you believe, and that biases are going to be in each one. My parents for example, ONLY watch FOX news and they try to convince me that that’s all I need to watch. (even though im sure they too know the stereotypes of FOX) After taking some CMC classes though I'm a bit skeptical of taking any of the sources 100% seriously. There is so much propaganda behind the media.

I thought the examples in class about the weather reports were pretty funny. Bourdieu talks about how the "object of news is constructed in accordance with the perceptual categories of the receiver." (328) So a topic such as the weather is usually safe and often discussed even in people's personal lives if they are stuck in an awkward situation. It usually comes up as a conversation piece. Like many other things in the media, the weather stories are usually extremely exaggerated/dramatic! We talked about the famous shot of the news anchor standing in front of the shore for instance with an umbrella that’s breaking in half and the wind howling so hard that the anchor is yelling at the top of their lungs etc...etc... I also really want to find that clip of the lady canoeing down the street during a flood and then have a man walk right behind her. The news can be comical but they usually succeed in stirring interest and high audience ratings.

Another point I want to mention is the notion that people don't want to be challenged and hear complex things. The audience usually just listens to what the media says is bad such as Global Warming even though most people do not know or have the desire to know details behind the phenomena. I know I have spoken to people who do not do things that could help prevent global warming (or even really understand what it is) but talk about how scary and real the problem is. It doesn’t really add up. The news may scare several people but they don't always do the best job in actually informing and accurately educating their viewers.