On 2/5/08, Alan Dayley <
alandd@consultpros.com> wrote:
> Joshua Zeidner wrote:
> > On 2/5/08, Charles Jones <charles.jones@ciscolearning.org> wrote:
> >> Personally I find it interesting that Britney Spears doctor visits make
> >> headline news, but not a peep from "the media" about the apparent
> >> deliberate cutoff of entire countries communications.
> >
> >
> > yes, that's what happens when you've got an ass for a chairman of the FCC.
>
> I don't see a connection here. Certainly not a direct one, anyway.
>
> How does the performance of the FCC chairman effect what news stories do
> or don't get reported?
Alan,
unfortunately, not too many 'tech guys' understand the Media biz
all too well. I'll try to put this into concise terms here:
consolidation = 'information richness'--.
in other words, if media is owned by few- then obviously the
overall choices are diminished. The basis of our information then
takes on a less diverse character, and typically in order to maintain
this situation, the 'illusion of news' needs to be propagated. So we
fill the viewers heads will all sorts of useless topics like Britany
Spears, etc. because we have to report *something* [1] and we employ
people with nice haircuts and terse voices to give the illusion of
importance, because without some kind of information to fill our
heads, we will have the feeling that we are being uninformed, in which
case the program has no or an opposite effect. The last failsafe is
to prevent the 'media consumer' from essentially smashing their TV
set.
Martin @ FCC has persued a consistent policy of promoting
monopolization of the media, often in direct opposition to public
protest. Specifically Martin's treatment of the newspaper medium will
have a drastic effect.
For a background in these topics I recommend reading Walter Lippman.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walter_Lippmann
Also Dan Gillmor is somewhat of a figure in this realm. He now
works at ASU.
http://www.dangillmor.com/
-jmz
[1] And appealing to your reproductive instincts is perhaps the most
effective way to provide this stimulus.
--
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