INFOTAINMENT

Larry King declares himself an infotainer within our book “News as Entertainment: The Global Rise of Infotainment.” He indeed covers every major spectacle that occurs in the media, even those that may seem far from his reach/knowledge: the fashion of the First Lady. He brought in a wide range of experts from Nancy Reagan’s daughter to Andre Leon Talley - one of the editors at Vogue. For an hour they discussed the fashion of Michelle Obama, how that style has transformed and how she is perceived by various media outlets. There was also a brief discussion on Michelle as a symbol. The fashion editor from The Washington Post, briefly touched upon the concept of race. She said the media may be so focused and awed by her fashion and her presentation of self because she is a black woman. It was only briefly mentioned however, before going on to talk about her wonderful choice of fashionable cardigans.

I actually enjoyed this piece, and I think that even though it does not have very high news value but the context where it was presented was sufficient. Larry King Live covers a wide range of issues and he brings in a variety of experts to have substantial dialouge, even when the topic itself may not be “substantial.”

I saw this clip this morning on Fox News and it made me think about our discussions of the effects and uses of celebrities in news.  Fox News interviews Rosie O’Donnell and Senator Mary Landrieu of Louisiana who are lobbying for improving foster care in the United States.  While O’Donnell is somewhat of a valuable source because she is a foster parent herself, I found it irrelevant for her to be included in the story.  By including O’Donnell, rather than just Sen. Landrieu Fox was obviously able to attract more viewers.  I believe Becky discusses in her paper and raised the question if having these celebrities on our news programs and raising issues is more democratic because it may make people aware of different issues who would not normally care.  I think this is an interesting question to raise.  In this case, I don’t think many people would have watched the story if O’Donnell had not been attached to it.

However, what I found most interesting about this news story was how Fox framed the story and was able to slip in questions about O’Donnell’s personal life and about being leaving the show ‘The View’.  They introduce the story saying that O’Donnell goes ‘on the record’ and about whether or not she misses being on ‘The View’.  Although the reporter does a good job of keeping the interview strictly about the issue at hand, she is not afraid to slip in some questions about O’Donnell kleaving ‘The View’.  Overall, I think that this story shows how the use of celebrities can be a good and a democratic way of presenting news. However, at the same time I think it shows that many people won’t watch the news unless there is some form of celebrity or entertainment value.  It was almost as if the reporter just threw that last question in about ‘The View’ just to please their viewers…in fact most people probably watched that story because they wanted to hear about O’Donnell rather than how foster care can be improved.

What are your guys thoughts on this? Do you think celebrity endorsement and involvement in media is more democratic?

I decided to check out Pacifica Radio since it’s been mentioned in class a few times and I wasn’t familiar with it. As I was browsing the site, I came across a segment called “Doing It Yourself Democracy.” Pacifica started this program where they investigate local issues through the eyes of the residents in Southern California. For example, in one segment they cover a story in which the Bus Riders Union goes to the Metropolitan Transportation Authority to speak out against an increase in bus fares.  Not only is Pacifica bringing to light real public issues that are probably not being covered, but it is doing so in a way that allows the local residents to voice their opinions. In a brief description of the segment, it explains this opportunity.  “Our microphones capture the movement’s voices and amplify the message to get real about the region’s transportation needs. This, in a backdrop of election-year politics when it’s time to remind the politicians that the job of the locals is to help keep them honest.”  Therefore, Pacifica Radio is also doing its part for democracy by providing an avenue for citizens to affect politics and hold politicians accountable. As a community radio station, that is the goal of Pacifica Radio but it’s nice to see a media outlet is doing this.

Do you think there is a place for this type of media in society? Can it surive admidst all the mainstream media? Do you think a valid solution to our media crisis is more of these types of community stations? Or does the whole system need to just be reformed?

Here’s the link to the page where you can read the summary and listen to the different segments.

 http://www.pacifica.org/index.php?option…

I am utterly obsessed with watching music videos and staying up to date with the lastest information about my favorite musical artists, therefore I find myself on mtv.com quite often. Everyday to be honest! Under the news portion of the website they have this box called “Your Opinion” on the side of the screen. The box only displays one comment at a time, but shifts comments everytime a new comment is added. The comments in this box shift consistently because so many people make comments about the question of the day. These questions tend to pertain to everything from celebrity gossip to political discourse. What I have noticed since the election though is that the question in this opinion poll almost everyday appears to be something about substantive news and a plethora of young people comment on this blog in huge proportions everyday. Just in the last week, the question of the day has dealt with gay marriage, Obama’s 1st 100 days, and immigration. To me, this is an example of the positive aspects of infotainment. I do not go to mtv.com to engage in discourses about politics, but yet I find myself learning and thinking about politics almost everyday when I visit this site. Do any of you guys know about this “Your Opinion” box? Do you guys think that this is interesting?

Throughout the semester, we’ve discussed the paucity of meaningful and substantive reporting of world affairs in US mainstream media.  From time to time, we’ve mentioned Al Jazeera as a viable source for “news from outside the bubble.”  This story, written by independent journalist Jeremy Scahill, is just one more instance of significant, investigative reporting that doesn’t get the “echo chamber” treatment in US media.  It’s also indicative of the lengths the Pentagon will go to avoid bad press.

Yes I will admit the truth, I am an Law and Order SVU avid fan.  It may be the one show that I find entertaining and interesting.  Since I have been watching this crime tv series for a number of years, I have been able to see changes within the production of the series.  One change that I have noticed has been the gruesome elements they show on television.  In earlier episodes, when a character would be dead or beat to a pulp, NBC would not show the body of the victim.  During episodes in the recent years, more and more times the gruesome details are shown on television.   I think this relates to the issue that we have become desensitized to war and brutal elements.  If you watch previous episodes, I think you too will be surprised by the change in attitudes and what producers show today. 

A positive aspect of this show does include using stories that have recently been in the news.  For instance, tonight’s episode involved students sexting.  Now if you are not familiar with the term it is explicit messages from a cell phone or other devise.  Here is an article describing how sexting can been seen as child pornography and also can be distributed to many more people then intended.  Reports say that 20 percent of teens are sending these explicit texts without thinking about the repercussions of their actions, especially the criminal consequences that may face later.  A few states have come up with new legal responses due to the growing number of sexting, yet it still is a concern for many parents and lawmakers.

While watching this episode and finding background information on sexting I have concluded that Law and Order SVU is a great example of infotaionment.  I knew that many issues discussed in the news have commonly been the main story on this series, yet this is the first time I have seen this show as infotainment.  Even though crime television did not seem like it had any information from the news looking back to my favorite episodes, information is commonly the plot of the show.  

Furthermore, while the show went to  a commercial break for the local news program afterwards, a teaser story talked about the sexting issue with teens.  This reminded me about how stations commonly promote their own stories for the benefit of the ratings.  For many watching the show, they may be interested to continue watching the station to learn more about the sexting issue, clearly showing the stations motives and attempt to keep viewers.

A few days ago a news headlines flashed across my screen that slightly caught my attention.  It read “America’s Got Talent judge David Hasselhoff rushed to hospital…”  At the time, it was not worth my effort to follow the link and read the actual story.  I didn’t really care why he was in the hospital, as heartless as that may sound.  There were other stories that interested me more and actually pertained to my life in a political sense.

Now as I sat down, I thought maybe it would be fun to look that article up again to see what the fuss was all about.  I expected another celebrity news story about how The Hoff had ended up in hospital and perhaps some follow up stories talking to his family, or whatever.  And I did find a follow up story, but one that actually retracted the previous claims that Hasselhoff was taken to the hospital due to alcohol poisoning.  Apparently Mr. Hasselhoff has a bad case of food poisoning, not alcohol poisoning, and spent the night at the hospital.  The article said that Hoff was upset that people would leak out rumors like that and allow them to get printed.

Now, I expect this kind of “Oops, I didn’t get my facts right about something celebrity related because I wanted to be the first to get the news out, but let me clarify things now” stories on an entertainment website, but from a real news site?  I think this really allows us to see that editors just use stories to fill up space and grab attention without even caring whether the story is true or false.  Isn’t it their job to double check facts before printing them?  I was just hard for me to believe that a news source would have to retract a story about David Hasselhoff’s food poisoning. I guess it was too trivial to care where they got the story from.  But if that’s the case, why even post it at all?

Either way, I’m glad The Hoff’s name is cleared. Damn those annoying news journalists for not getting there facts straight!

In addition to the Swine Flu, there has been a lot of media coverage about the Somali pirate attacks.  Just today, one of the headlines on CNN was that the French Navy seized 11 Somali pirates who mistook a French military vessel for a commercial ship and tried to capture it.  The French Navy has reportedly intercepted 24 suspected pirates off the cost of Somali as part of a European Union anti-piracy operation.  CNN also had an article today that countries have pledged $213 million at an international conference to boost security in Somali to try and stop the growing piracy.

Somali piracy attacks have been growing fast over the past years and have been reported by the mainstream media more and more, now making the top headlines.  But as we have discussed in class, the mainstream media has not been trying to explain why these attacks are happening and why they are growing at an alarming rate.  The media has offered no coverage of the situation in Somalia other than to say that the government has not been effective since 1991.  Instead, the news simply reports the latest attacks and captures, portraying the Somalians as ruthless criminals.

After reading and hearing so much about the attacks and heroic rescues of Americans, I wanted to find out what are the reasons and motivations behind these attacks.  Not surprisingly, it wasn’t the commercial media that offered me the answers.  It was PBS’s Online NewsHour.   NewsHour has an entire section of in-depth coverage called “Somalia’s Struggle for Stability” which offers news updates, video, history, and analysis on the issue.  Most importantly, the website seeks not only to report the attacks, but explain the motivations behind them.

NewsHour explains on its website how Somalia has not had a functioning central government for 17 years.  Because of a weakened transitional government with little power or enforcement, this has allowed increased pirate activity within Somalia.  But it’s not just that Somalians’ are greedy criminals who are taking advantage of a weak government, as they have been portrayed.  It is because the economy in Somalia is in a highly ruined state, meaning people are desperate to make money and stay out of complete poverty.  Piracy has thus become a viable option to make an income off of cargo holds and put food on the table for their families.  Reading this information from NewHours gave me a much more sympathetic view on the pirates, a side I didn’t get from any other major newsource.

 Because the economy has gotten increasingly worse in Somalia, this has caused the increase in piracy that has been documented in the past few years.  So while the mainstream media has been quick to blame the pirates as money hungry criminals who need to be punished, they do not discuss the bigger problem of Somalia’s economic collapse which is causing piracy.

  It made me think: shouldn’t countries be putting money into the Somalia government to help it stabilize and stimulate its economy instead of spending millions of dollars just to increase security against pirates in Somalia?  Increasing security isn’t helping to solve the root of the problem.  The pirates will continue to exist.  It’s scary to me that the public can’t voice these concerns, because the media does not make the public aware of the bigger picture.  I think this lack of information has to do with the media’s attempt to make stories and news entertaining, as we have discussed in class about how war is reported. The media likes to spin stories to make them exciting and grab the attention of the public.  Reading about cruel and greedy pirates is sadly a lot more enticing than reading about poverty-stricken Somalians who pirate out of desperation.  Reading about this issue has made me more appreciate of the diverse information offered by public news sources like PBS.

While doing research for my final paper I have come across a very interesting and controversial issue.  Do soft news programs turn viewers into harsh critics of politicians and the government as a whole? And if so, is this skepticism really a bad thing to question, and criticize the government? Look at the situation our country is in right now economically, because a large part of where we are today has to do with the decisions the government has made and is making.  Would watching shows such as The Daily Show or The Colbert Report really cause people to be anymore cynical towards the government than they are already?  I feel that if anything these shows bring to light the mistakes and problems that our government has made and is making now?   

Also many scholars feel that much of the information presented on shows such as The Daily Show and The Colbert Report are too politically complex and many politically uniformed viewers will not understand it. This in turn, will cause them to blame their incompetence on those that run the system rather than their own ignorance. The information presented in certain soft news programs may be complex, but even the few that are like this, are no harder to understand than hard news programs that discuss politics.  Wouldn’t it make sense too, that people who watch these types of shows have to be politically knowledgeable, otherwise the show will not be entertaining or even make sense.  Therefore, the majority of the people that do watch The Colbert Report or The Daily Show put it upon themselves to be politically aware in order to enjoy the show, thus making them do their own political research or watch hard news programs. In a sense it causes people to unconsciously and consciously educate themselves so that they can be entertained. In a 2004, interview with The New Yorker, Ken Auletta asked Jon Stewart about kids getting news from his show.  Stewart argued, “I’m not worried that they’re getting their news from me. The truth is I know they’re not…Because we don’t do it…If they came to our show without knowledge, our show wouldn’t make any sense to them”  I just wondered if you feel that infotainment programs do cause people to become to cynical or skeptical towards the government and if it is a bad thing?  Also do you believe that infotainment can cause people to look down upon the governmental system because they may not understand the information being presented?

Yes, I know, yet another post on the supposed “swine flu epidemic.” But I promise, this is more entertaining! Leave it to TMZ.com to make light of such a “serious” health problem…Ha…

1976 Swine Flu Commercials

Sure, it’s from 1976 but I just opened CNN.com to see that the Breaking News story is that “The number of confirmed cases of swine flu has jumped to 236 cases worldwide, the World Health Organization said today.” I feel like all the media hype (I turned on the local channel 6 news last night and the first words out of the news anchor’s mouth was “Swine Flu: Do you have it?”) surrounding this swine flu isn’t too far from the hilarity of the propaganda/PSA video. Sure, maybe it’s not so exaggerated today but it does seem to be causing panic in some people, right?