brookes77, Pierre Bourdieu

“Making Everything Ordinary” was the first sub category in this reading. It discusses how in television, we can predict what we will see. People talk about the weather every day and on the news because it is not a topic that will shock anyone and it is normal to us. TV does not want to “offend anyone and it must never bring up problems- or if it does only problems that don’t pose any problems.” This is so true we like to watch every day things, and talk about them, it is our social norm. When we view a news story that is about child hood shooting, or stories such as Columbine, we are extremely shocked, when really stories such as these happen every day, maybe not as extreme. Also Bourdieu brings up a really interesting argument. He states that people pay a lot of money for this notion of “TV news. It suits everybody because it confirms what they already know and above all, leave their mental structure intact….that aim at the material bases of society.” Why do we pay so much to listen to “safety stories” why do we not want to hear or believe what is going on. We act unconscious that we are saving ourselves from hearing something avant guard, that will mix up the structure of what we know. It is a waste of money to tell ourselves we are learning something out of our comfort zone.
The article then goes on explaining the pressures and hardships of journalists and how they use “censorship” without even realizing it because this is what sells, this is what is interesting to people. Although I do believe that our society is changing and as Lyotard explained we find pleasure out of pain. It has become something we have enjoyed and it has become less avant guard in our journalistic news stories. People do choose to watch reality TV shows more because, as Bourdieu states, are more “slices of life” and they can relate to because this is the easy way out. I believe this is directed to the youth of America, they are becoming lazy, their way of thinking is becoming lazy and they are not willing to step out of their normal programs to watch something real that would affect and stick with them. Another important quote in the reading was what Boudrieu explains how journalist and sociologists think that “ you haven’t a prayer of being popular with TV people if you try to tell the truth about television”; this means people really do not want to hear what is real, they like to think they know what’s real like in reality TV shows, but what is real requires much effort and too much hear. Another quote that supports this argument was on page 333: “ If sociologists always disturb things, its because they force us to make conscious things that wed rather leave unconscious.” We would rather just pretend it is all ok, and that we can relate to this perfect world.