The newest craze in news today is the citizen journalist. Now that more newspapers have looked to the web for posting stories, so have local citizens. Most news websites allow readers to post comments, however readers are now being given the opportunity to post their own news stories. All someone has to do is write up a story that is relevant to their local neighborhood and then post it on a website for the rest of the community to read.
I was checking out some of these new websites to get an idea of what kind of news is being posted by local citizens. One website I came across was called neighborsgo. This website is strictly for residents of a small community in Dallas who want to write local news to share with the rest of their neighborhood. After reading a few of the "top" stories I got an idea of what types of stories were important to this community.
The site had multiple stories related to school activities and local events and I found most of the stories to be very short and simple. One story talks about a Family History Night at a local elementary school and shows a picture of a young boy dressed up as Uncle Sam. Although the stories are simple and upbeat they aren't what you would call hard news stories. I also noticed that many of the postings came across as advertisements rather than news stories, which may make them a little bias.
Overall, I found that this website is a great way for local residents to share positive stories and feedback about their community. Although they aren't your typical "hard news stories", I feel that it is necessary to acknowledge small events, such as a Family History Night, otherwise no one else will.
Although these new websites are becoming more and more popular, I don't feel that they will completely take over the world of news. After reading over a few websites, I believe that they are more for small stories that no one else cares to cover, but are still of importance to people in the community. I feel that the more news there is the better and I hope to see more of these citizen journalist websites in years to come.
Friday, February 29, 2008
Tuesday, February 12, 2008
Survivor: Fans vs. Favorites
"I think the fans versus favorites setup is the ultimate challenge because we have the favorites who have obviously played the game before, coming in here with experience. But at the same time you have us (the fans) and we know their game. We know not only their strengths but weaknesses too. So I think that puts us at a huge advantage." This quote was said on the season premiere of "Survivor: Fans vs. Favorites" by Alexis, a motivational speaker and member of the Fan team.
One dimension of media literacy is the aesthetic domain which contains information about how to produce messages. This allows a person to make judgements about who are great artists, such as a director or actor. It also gives a person the ability to determine visual manipulation such as editing and staged behavior, which are both very prominent in reality television.
The fans may have an outside look of the game and players, however they have no control over what they see. Directors and editors can easily turn reality into entertainment by staging or editing scenes. All the "behind the scenes" stuff can give a viewer false ideas about the game or a player.
Finally, I feel that nothing is more valuable than actual experience, especially in a show like Survivor. The previous players have a huge advantage over the fans simply because they have been on the show and know what to expect. They mentally understand all the twists to the game and are physically capable of completing the intense challenges. Although the fans might have watched every episode of Survivor they may not be aware of the visual manipulation of the media and they lack the experience of the Favorites.
One dimension of media literacy is the aesthetic domain which contains information about how to produce messages. This allows a person to make judgements about who are great artists, such as a director or actor. It also gives a person the ability to determine visual manipulation such as editing and staged behavior, which are both very prominent in reality television.
The fans may have an outside look of the game and players, however they have no control over what they see. Directors and editors can easily turn reality into entertainment by staging or editing scenes. All the "behind the scenes" stuff can give a viewer false ideas about the game or a player.
Finally, I feel that nothing is more valuable than actual experience, especially in a show like Survivor. The previous players have a huge advantage over the fans simply because they have been on the show and know what to expect. They mentally understand all the twists to the game and are physically capable of completing the intense challenges. Although the fans might have watched every episode of Survivor they may not be aware of the visual manipulation of the media and they lack the experience of the Favorites.
Saturday, February 2, 2008
Max Headroom and Media Literacy
The television series Max Headroom was a futuristic show based on a news reporter named, Edison Carter. He worked for Network 23, which was in competition with another news network called BreakThru TV.
In the episode entitled War, BreakThru TV planned and staged terrorist attacks and then quickly reported on the stories. The setup was created in order for BreakThru TV to recieve better ratings than any other news network. As the network's ratings increased so did the planned attacks. The network was even going to go as far as killing a woman in order to recieve higher ratings.
This episode illustrates numerous concepts of Media Literacy, however the one concept that sticks out is the idea of blending messages. The media has three types of messages which are news, entertainment, and ads. News messages are designed to inform and entertainment messages are created to evoke emotion, such as laughter or fear. In this episode, BreakThru TV blends these two types of messages in order to create a higher response and higher ratings.
BreakThru TV discovers that by creating the news they can make it more entertaining. However, instead of informing the public with true information they are creating false facts and making the audience believe that they are being informed. This all relates back to the mass media's primary purpose for distributing messages, which is to generate revenue.
In the episode entitled War, BreakThru TV planned and staged terrorist attacks and then quickly reported on the stories. The setup was created in order for BreakThru TV to recieve better ratings than any other news network. As the network's ratings increased so did the planned attacks. The network was even going to go as far as killing a woman in order to recieve higher ratings.
This episode illustrates numerous concepts of Media Literacy, however the one concept that sticks out is the idea of blending messages. The media has three types of messages which are news, entertainment, and ads. News messages are designed to inform and entertainment messages are created to evoke emotion, such as laughter or fear. In this episode, BreakThru TV blends these two types of messages in order to create a higher response and higher ratings.
BreakThru TV discovers that by creating the news they can make it more entertaining. However, instead of informing the public with true information they are creating false facts and making the audience believe that they are being informed. This all relates back to the mass media's primary purpose for distributing messages, which is to generate revenue.
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