post-it, Bourdieu

I think that blogs are becoming an interesting way for anyone to post their thoughts and opinions on any topic that they choose, although I also believe that they undermine the status of print media in the United States. By giving bloggers the same level of visibility as an educated journalist devalues the role of the journalist in our society. The internet’s amazing and paradoxical ability to give this visibility while taking jobs away from the same journalists is explained in Bourdieu’s article, “On Television.” His view of television is that it exists in a realm of competition and balance between ratings and the market, unlike most commodities that must only satiate one of these measurements. It is the television media that has control of this industry. I say this because television networks must compete to give news to their not-wanting-to-think viewers. So it is the competition that dumb down the news. It is the competition that makes Americans unable to give networks a reason to change their stories to substantial stories of traditional journalistic culture. The way they are now, the news sounds the same every evening. The format leads to a routine. Shooting story followed by the exciting court cases that went on trial to a commercial to the positive outcome of a school board meeting to the breaking news, which is just a non-updated version of the first story that was shown. In this case, reporters look for such stories to fill the slots that have become so familiar in content and schedule. The competition between reporters to get their story on television results in reports of the same themes, but also allows the network to formulate the best broadcast from the lot that is given to them. It is for this reason that I believe the format is to blame for my preference not to watch the news. All I do is find myself making fun of the reporters. They are supposed to tell me what is going on in my world, not the other way around.