Manufacturing Consent
“The mass media serve as a system for communicating messages and symbols to the general populace.” This is a definition by the author Noam Chomsky in the book Manufacturing Consent. It the job of the mass media “to integrate them into the institutional structures of the larger society.” However, the world is wealthy and suffers from conflicts of class interest, the media uses systematic propaganda.
This occurs in countries, where the real power is by the government, state bureaucracies, who have monopolistic control over the media. Those include great corporations etc. They dominate, control the resources, and have influence on political system.
As a result, the media serves the dominant elite, which, like Chomsky said in an interview “is about 20% of the population”. The other 80% of the population are the people that get influenced by the media, not to think, those are the ones that pay the costs.
Those 80% are kept on course by emotionally potent oversimplifications by myth makers. One needs to control what people think, in order for the people not to go against the 20%, the government, the elite and so on.
The major idea in the book, where all examples are being used in service of this idea, is called the “propaganda model”. It consist of 5 filters, which include:
• Size, Ownership, and Profit orientation of the mass media
• The Advertising license to do business
• Sourcing mass-media news
• Flak and the Enforcers
These 5 filters are especially used by the national media, such as
• The New York Times
• The Washington Post
• NBC
• CBS
They set up the framework for the more local media, which then adapts to this kind of “style”.
This framework includes:
• Selection of topics
• Distribution of concerns
• Emphasis
• Framing of Issues
• Filtering of information
• Bounding of debate
By Determine, Select, Shape, Control and Restrict in order to serve the dominant elite groups. (The 20% of the people). For this reason, the rest of the 80% are the one that will suffer from the mass media.
The five filters are analyzed in the following manor. The first filter talks about the concentrated ownership, size and profit seeking incentive of the mass media. However, there is an example, how newspapers established that were concerned of the wants and needs of the working class. It “promoted a greater collective confidence by repeatedly emphasizing the potential power of working people to effect social change through the force of combination and organized action.” However this was seen as a major threat, because the ‘elite’ feared that the working class would take over. This changed the face of newspaper.
The major point taken is that since mass media is ruled by big corporations, the information presented is biased, because the newspaper needs to go after the interests of these corporations. They fear that when certain information is presented objectively, the profits could be affected. As a result, the corporations need to sacrifice their objectivity, in order to maintain their financial interests.
Advertising is the second filter in Chomsky’s theory of the propaganda model. In general, newspapers need to advertise, in order to maintain the great amounts of costs of production. In general, when a newspaper is advertising less, they are put at a serious disadvantage. The theory says that the people buying this product are the product themselves, because they are sold back to the business, which initially brought the space for advertisement. The explanation for this is that the readers, who buy the magazines, make educated decisions about the advertisement in the newspapers and take it with them. Stories that conflict with the ‘buying-mood’ of the readers, is ignored, in order to keep this buying mood maintained.
Sourcing of the mass media is the third filter. This simply says that it is impossible for even big media corporations to have reporters everywhere on this planet. For this reason, the corporations put their reporters to the “hot spots” of action, such as the white house etc. They assume that most of the interesting stories would come from there. However, people argue the credibility of these locations, because they fear that the information, the government gives out is only in service of great corporations that affect the 80% of the people.
The fourth filter is known as “flak”. In general the flak are people with negative responses to media statements. The most well known flak is the GCC, Global Climate Coalition. The GCC was started by Burson Marsteller, who is responsible for argue the credibility of climate change scientists. The flak is used, to discredit organizations, who disagree with the information the mass media gives out.
The fifth and last filter in their theory is anti-ideologies. The main goal of the media is to create fear and hatred. (Xenophobia). Chomsky gives the example of anti-communism, which was portayed as an endangering of freedom of speech etc.
Monday, May 3, 2010
Wednesday, April 14, 2010
Copenhagen
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/environment/copenhagen/article6955237.ece
From The Times
December 14, 2009
Copenhagen stalls decision on catastrophic climate change for six years
Protestors are restrained in Copenhagen
Ben Webster, Environment Editor, in Copenhagen
* 74 Comments
Recommend? (11)
The key decision on preventing catastrophic climate change will be delayed for up to six years if the Copenhagen summit delivers a compromise deal which ignores advice from the UN’s science body.
World leaders will not agree on the emissions cuts recommended by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and are likely instead to commit to reviewing them in 2015 or 2016.
Fits into the newspaper. Global Issue, reports on the thing they said etc..
The delay will anger developing countries who, scientists say, will face the worst effects of climate change despite having contributed relatively little of the man-made greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.
A draft text published by the UN says that there should be a review in 2016, which could result in an “update of the long-term global goal for emissions reductions as well as of the adequacy of commitments and actions”.
Related Links
* In Denmark even anarchy is well organised
* Copenhagen police arrest hundreds of protesters
* 'Don’t let West carry carbon burden'
The Times has learnt that negotiators from developed countries are planning to use the idea of a review to justify failing to agree the 25-40 per cent cut in the 1990 level of emissions by 2020, recommended by the IPCC.
Even the most ambitious provisional offers made by all the countries amount to a reduction of only 18 per cent.
Tony Blair, the former Prime Minister, said leaders would be unable to deliver a deal in line with what the IPCC had recommended.
In an interview yesterday with The Times in Copenhagen, he said: “It would be a big mistake if we failed to get an agreement because we didn’t meet the highest expectations people have.
“Get the agreement, get it under way, and then understand you will inevitably have to change and adjust as you proceed.
“If you actually manage to cut emissions by 18 per cent by 2020, you would have made a very, very big change in the way economies work,” he said, before adding: “Don’t let the best be the enemy of the good.”
A joint report by Mr Blair’s office and the Climate Group, an environmental body backed by some of the world’s biggest companies, including BP, HSBC and Google, said that, even if all the provisional offers were delivered, emissions of CO2 in 2020 would still be 5 billion tonnes higher than the atmosphere could safely accommodate.
This would mean that global temperature would rise more than 2C above pre-industrial levels, with the result that large parts of the world would become uninhabitable.
The joint report, published yesterday, proposed a review of targets in 2015 to allow “scaling up of ambition”.
Countries are unlikely to improve on their provisional offers over the next five days, because the US has made clear it will not be raising its own relatively weak provisional target for cutting emissions.
President Obama has offered to cut US emissions by 4 per cent on 1990 levels by 2020, subject to approval by the US Congress. The EU has committed to a 20 per cent cut over the same time scale, but said it would raise this to 30 per cent if other countries made comparable efforts.
Mr Blair discussed Mr Obama’s offer last week with Todd Stern, the US chief climate negotiator, and agreed that the focus should be on accelerating US emissions cuts in the decade after 2020 rather than before.
Mr Blair said that, while the scientific evidence of man-made global warming was very strong, it was much less clear how quickly temperatures would rise.
“When you come to very precise dates, percentages and so on [. . .] then the figures are somewhat more fudgeable.
“The important thing is to give a clear direction out of this conference. Don’t fixate on the precise percentage,” he said.
A source close to Britain’s negotiating team said Britain would continue to press publicly for a deal in line with the IPCC’s recommendation, but acknowledged that the targets emerging from the summit would need to be reconsidered at a later date.
Bernarditas Muller, lead negotiator for the G77 and China group of developing countries, said putting off the most difficult decisions on emissions cuts would be a betrayal of commitments made by rich countries under the UN Climate Convention.
“Developing countries have the most to lose if we do not agree a just and ambitious outcome in Copenhagen. We are simply asking developed countries, ‘Don’t shirk your responsibilities. Just do what you have already agreed to do under the Climate Convention’.”
Smaller developing countries were excluded yesterday from a meeting in Copenhagen of environment ministers from about 40 countries.
Ed Miliband, the Energy and Climate Change Secretary, said after the meeting: “We’re now getting close to midnight in this negotiation and we need to act like it.
“That means more urgency to solve problems, not just identify them, more willingness to shift from entrenched positions and more ambitious commitments.”
The Prince of Wales will address the summit tomorrow and Gordon Brown will meet other leaders in Copenhagen on Wednesday.
About 120 Prime Ministers and Presidents will attend the final day of the summit on Friday.
From The Times
December 14, 2009
Copenhagen stalls decision on catastrophic climate change for six years
Protestors are restrained in Copenhagen
Ben Webster, Environment Editor, in Copenhagen
* 74 Comments
Recommend? (11)
The key decision on preventing catastrophic climate change will be delayed for up to six years if the Copenhagen summit delivers a compromise deal which ignores advice from the UN’s science body.
World leaders will not agree on the emissions cuts recommended by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and are likely instead to commit to reviewing them in 2015 or 2016.
Fits into the newspaper. Global Issue, reports on the thing they said etc..
The delay will anger developing countries who, scientists say, will face the worst effects of climate change despite having contributed relatively little of the man-made greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.
A draft text published by the UN says that there should be a review in 2016, which could result in an “update of the long-term global goal for emissions reductions as well as of the adequacy of commitments and actions”.
Related Links
* In Denmark even anarchy is well organised
* Copenhagen police arrest hundreds of protesters
* 'Don’t let West carry carbon burden'
The Times has learnt that negotiators from developed countries are planning to use the idea of a review to justify failing to agree the 25-40 per cent cut in the 1990 level of emissions by 2020, recommended by the IPCC.
Even the most ambitious provisional offers made by all the countries amount to a reduction of only 18 per cent.
Tony Blair, the former Prime Minister, said leaders would be unable to deliver a deal in line with what the IPCC had recommended.
In an interview yesterday with The Times in Copenhagen, he said: “It would be a big mistake if we failed to get an agreement because we didn’t meet the highest expectations people have.
“Get the agreement, get it under way, and then understand you will inevitably have to change and adjust as you proceed.
“If you actually manage to cut emissions by 18 per cent by 2020, you would have made a very, very big change in the way economies work,” he said, before adding: “Don’t let the best be the enemy of the good.”
A joint report by Mr Blair’s office and the Climate Group, an environmental body backed by some of the world’s biggest companies, including BP, HSBC and Google, said that, even if all the provisional offers were delivered, emissions of CO2 in 2020 would still be 5 billion tonnes higher than the atmosphere could safely accommodate.
This would mean that global temperature would rise more than 2C above pre-industrial levels, with the result that large parts of the world would become uninhabitable.
The joint report, published yesterday, proposed a review of targets in 2015 to allow “scaling up of ambition”.
Countries are unlikely to improve on their provisional offers over the next five days, because the US has made clear it will not be raising its own relatively weak provisional target for cutting emissions.
President Obama has offered to cut US emissions by 4 per cent on 1990 levels by 2020, subject to approval by the US Congress. The EU has committed to a 20 per cent cut over the same time scale, but said it would raise this to 30 per cent if other countries made comparable efforts.
Mr Blair discussed Mr Obama’s offer last week with Todd Stern, the US chief climate negotiator, and agreed that the focus should be on accelerating US emissions cuts in the decade after 2020 rather than before.
Mr Blair said that, while the scientific evidence of man-made global warming was very strong, it was much less clear how quickly temperatures would rise.
“When you come to very precise dates, percentages and so on [. . .] then the figures are somewhat more fudgeable.
“The important thing is to give a clear direction out of this conference. Don’t fixate on the precise percentage,” he said.
A source close to Britain’s negotiating team said Britain would continue to press publicly for a deal in line with the IPCC’s recommendation, but acknowledged that the targets emerging from the summit would need to be reconsidered at a later date.
Bernarditas Muller, lead negotiator for the G77 and China group of developing countries, said putting off the most difficult decisions on emissions cuts would be a betrayal of commitments made by rich countries under the UN Climate Convention.
“Developing countries have the most to lose if we do not agree a just and ambitious outcome in Copenhagen. We are simply asking developed countries, ‘Don’t shirk your responsibilities. Just do what you have already agreed to do under the Climate Convention’.”
Smaller developing countries were excluded yesterday from a meeting in Copenhagen of environment ministers from about 40 countries.
Ed Miliband, the Energy and Climate Change Secretary, said after the meeting: “We’re now getting close to midnight in this negotiation and we need to act like it.
“That means more urgency to solve problems, not just identify them, more willingness to shift from entrenched positions and more ambitious commitments.”
The Prince of Wales will address the summit tomorrow and Gordon Brown will meet other leaders in Copenhagen on Wednesday.
About 120 Prime Ministers and Presidents will attend the final day of the summit on Friday.
Monday, March 15, 2010
HHGG essay
"In the beginning the Universe was created… and been widely regarded as a bad move" This is an excerpt in the radio script "The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy." It illustrates the absurdist elements, which drives the entire book. Narrative elements are constantly found throughout the serials. Themes such as the "Probability of the Improbable", "42", "the unimportance of humanity" and "Aliens rule" are fundamental in the passage and are driven by different humorous devices, such as Irony. Motifs such as the "earth", "Deep thought" and "the ultimate question" are constantly found throughout the passage. The radio script shows different elements of genre, because it is radio serial, including science fiction and absurdist comedy.
This excerpt occurs at the beginning of the episode, where the main characters are delivered by an explosion to the restaurant at the end of the universe. As with the beginning of each episode of this or any serial program, there is a review of previous events in order to bring the audience back into the story as well as the reintroduction of the cliffhanger moment with which the previous episode ended. Unlike most serials however the HHGG also uses its introduction to tell strange ironic and usually absurd tales intended to amuse its audience.
There is a reminder within this introduction that the earth was in fact a giant computer run by mice and created solely for the purpose of determining the question to the answer 42. This answer to the question of the meaning of life, the universe and everything and the idea of earth as a program is highlighted by the use of a biblical reference and an absurd creation story from ‘another’ intelligent species . Thus the recurring themes of the importance of humanity, mostly harmless, aliens rule, 42 and the probability of the improbable are all reintroduced before returning to the narrative itself.
These themes are of course all intertwined as 42, the all important answer cannot now be properly questioned due to the untimely destruction of earth, raising the importance of the seemingly (until now) unimportant ape like creatures, who populated its surface. The double irony is that they are unimportant, but may now prove to be of great importance (and will later again prove to be of no importance of course). Their unimportance is emphasized by the use of jargon and hyperbole, ‘hyper-intelligent pan-dimensional beings, gigantic supercomputer,’ juxtaposed against the description of mankind as ‘strange ape like beings’ and ‘totally unaware’. All of this is of course both wildly improbable and totally absurd which is of course the fundamental driving force and intention of this work.
The discussion of creation by means of the biblical allusion, its antithetical response and the absurdist creation story which follows, all serve the absurdist intent of the author which sets the tone for the episode as well as leading nicely into the reintroduction of the creation story of the earth. In the excerpt, the earth functions as a motif that is used in service of the theme. The fact that the earth is a giant computer, processing the "ultimate question" is, again, ironic. The author used this humerous device, in order to make a connection to the theme; "The Probable of the Improbable". In our view, it is highly improbable that the earth functions as a giant computer to process a question. Therefore, a humerous atmosphere was used in service of the theme. In general, this idea is highly absurd, which emphasises the absurdist comedy genre.
Wednesday, March 10, 2010
Presentation "The Times"
Presentation
National Economic
Mittwoch, 10. März 2010
13:16
Times:
• Oldest British National Daily
• Founded in 1785
• Printed Daily (Except Sundays) since 1788
• Newspaper of Record
• Affectionately as "The Thunderer"
• Paper of Establishment
• Conservative
• Historically a Broadsheet Newspaper
The Times is the oldest British national daily, founded in 1785
From Broadsheet to Tabloid in 2003.
Paper of record
Header
no brevity
Loaded language
Deck
No deck
Picture
1st Paragraph
Introduction who, where, what
Overall pretty objective, small opinion, using evidence with quotes and facts
For sophisticated and educated people.
However, not as specific as the financial times (normal people understand)
Financial Jargon
Naming, listing banks
Gaines-Cooper versus HMRC
Conservative and right winged
While those who move abroad because of a full-time contract with an employer usually find it easier to maintain links with the UK, people who do not have full-time employment will find it more difficult.
Syntax consists of long sentences with a lot of detail to inform the people with great detail.
Only assumes the intelligence of the audience to a certain extent.
Intertextuality in the article.
The Oscars / fluff story
"Times Online Picture Gallery"
Provokes a different audience and their interest
Educated and sophisticated people have only limited interest in oscar dresses.
Only womens dresses (male and female interested in female)
At the side there is a little comment about the dresses. Mostly with a negative tone to it.
The Times - hard newspaper.
Tuesday, March 2, 2010
Homework 1.3.2010
Tabloid:
Headline: no brevity, long sentence. loaded language, naming, listing,
No Deck
First paragraph: Who is involved "BBC presenter Kristian Digby has been found dead"
Broadsheet:
Headline: no brevity, alliteration, repetition.
No Deck
"investigate" - action verbs/power verbs
First Paragraph: Introduction. What is happening, who is involved. (Intro is in use of the Deck)
Millionaire BBC TV presenter Kristian Digby, 32, found dead by ex-lover in his East London flat
Headline: no brevity, long sentence. loaded language, naming, listing,
No Deck
First paragraph: Who is involved "BBC presenter Kristian Digby has been found dead"
Broadsheet:
Lord Mandelson asks House of Lords to investigate Lord Ashcroft
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/politics/conservative/7350548/Lord-Mandelson-asks-House-of-Lords-to-investigate-Lord-Ashcroft.html
Headline: no brevity, alliteration, repetition.
No Deck
"investigate" - action verbs/power verbs
First Paragraph: Introduction. What is happening, who is involved. (Intro is in use of the Deck)
Monday, March 1, 2010
Extended Essay Sources
The Language of Journalism: Newspaper Culture: 1
by Melvin J. Lasky
- Gebundene Ausgabe: 478 Seiten
- Verlag: Transaction Publ (September 2000)
- Sprache: Englisch
- ISBN-10: 0765800012
- ISBN-13: 978-0765800015
News Talk: Investigating the Language of Journalism
by Colleen Cotter
- Gebundene Ausgabe: 294 Seiten
- Verlag: Cambridge University Press; Auflage: 1 (11. Februar 2010)
- Sprache: Englisch
- ISBN-10: 052181961X
- ISBN-13: 978-0521819619
The Psychology of Jingoism (1901)
John Atkinson Hobson
- Taschenbuch: 146 Seiten
- Verlag: Kessinger Pub Co (August 2009)
- Sprache: Englisch
- ISBN-10: 1120040000
- ISBN-13: 978-1120040008
The Power of News
Michael Schudson
- Taschenbuch: 288 Seiten
- Verlag: Harvard Univ Pr; Auflage: Reprint (September 1996)
- Sprache: Englisch
- ISBN-10: 0674695879
- ISBN-13: 978-0674695870
Thursday, February 25, 2010
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