JCOM 1500 Quizzes

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JCOM 1500 Quiz Archive • (online)

WEEK1Intro2MassCommQuiz • FIXT
Quiz1—The Syllabus
Here are my responses to these items. It wasn’t a real quiz, of course—just a way for me to see if you found and read all that opening stuff. Here are my thoughts on these issues, subject to your responses, too, if you feel so moved.

1. There are quotes from real people throughout the Smarts syllabus, including the four that lead it. Pick one of the quotes from anywhere in the syllabus that you particularly like, and that you can relate to your idea of why being “media smart” is important. (two pithy sentences +/-).
Pease writes: I like so many quotes from Stoppard’s “nudging the world a little” to Ginzberg controlling the culture, to the thousands of others I’ve collected over 14 years of Today’s WORD on Journalism. I also like Sir William Berkleley, because he ridiculously condemns both education and free thinking in one swoop. But E.B. White is one of my particular heroes. His quote about television, from the first time he saw it demonstrated in New York in 1938, was prescient, I think. Can you imagine worrying in such circumstances about how “messages, distant and concocted” would affect how people interacted with each other, and wondering if TV would be a “saving radiance” or a “disturbance of the general peace.” Smart man. And that’s exactly the kind of issue we examine in this class—how technological changes in media changed and affected the larger society. And how about Pease’s horoscope in the Wednesday (1/20) WORD?

2. What is a pictograph? And why might we think of Dr. Ted’s “Ooog the caveman” as the first journalist? What did he do that was revolutionary and different from other cavepeople sitting around the mastodon BBQ, grunting?
Pease writes: Some of you didn’t really think through this little fiction about Ooog and Furd and the pictographs. (These images are actually petroglyphs. There’s a difference, but both are rock drawings.) The invention of cave drawings was a major deal, because instead of grunting to other cavemen face to face, stories now could be told to multiple people over long periods of time—the first form of “mass communication,” maybe. That’s why I say that Ooog and other cavemen who recorded their stories on cave walls were different from other oral storytellers. Their stories lived on and many more people read them. In fact, down south of Moab there’s a wall of pictographs about 50 feet square called “Newspaper Rock,” so-called because it records the stories of Anasazi life and death.


More specifically, here’s Ooogs’s first critic....


3. Before we even start, how do you think of your own mass media use? Do you use mass media a lot? What kind? What do you use it for, mostly?
Pease writes: There’s obviously no “correct” answer to this question. But here’s something to think about: The “Information Age” is a time when there is more knowledge available to us than has ever been true. But are we (are you?) better informed than our parents were? The question of how we use mass media is important, because are we using the information available to us for something useful‹to be better informed about our participatory democracy, for example—or are we “amusing ourselves to death” (the title of a book about media by Neil Postman)? A study by the Kaiser Family Foundation found that young people (through high school) use electronic gadgets—cell phones, computers, TV, video games—7-1/2 hours a day!!!? So are those kids getting information? news you can use?

4. Some of you already have commented on the opening column (Under “Dear Students—Listen Up!” in the blog index), “Advice for a New Semester.” What’s your response to this advice? Be specific.
Pease writes: A number of you wrote that you wished you’d had this advice when you started college, which is a good reaction, I think.

5. While we’re at it, what do you think of Dr. Ted’s column about students, “The Dumbing of America”? Were you insulted? If students are “disengaged,” how can we professors re-engage them?
Pease writes: I really do want to know how to engage you better. It’s harder (for me, anyway) to do online than in person, but this is a continuing question for me, so don’t be shy.

6. Have you ordered the Folkerts/Lacy/Larabee text online? Every have either a hard copy book or the online one? What do you think about it so far?

7. This week you were plunged into Today’s WORD on Journalism, and received five of the daily emails. You can see them all here. Do you like any of these? Which and why?

8. Speaking of fascinating humans, anything interesting in Dr. Ted’s bio?

9. Where did Dr. Ted earn his bachelor’s degree? In what?
Pease writes: I’m a recovering English major from UNew Hampshire (1978)

10. You should have watched (and maybe shared with your friends and other lumps of clay) the Stephen Colbert video on the Week1 list. So who is funnier—Professor Pease or Stephen Colbert? Why?
Pease writes: You’re right—a trick question. Clearly, me, because I hold your academic fate in my cyberhands. And if you believe that we need to talk...
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WEEK2Intro2MassCommQuiz • FIXT

Select the one BEST answer in multiple-choice questions; for the short-answer questions, write BRIEF, FOCUSED responses using key terms that demonstrate you know what you’re talking about.

1. From Folkert/Lacy Ch 1: The first printing was done by Egyptians and others at least 2000 BC by pressing images soaked in dye onto papyrus. But the first movable type was used by whom to create books in AD 1041?

d. Pi Sheng. (Text pp. 4-5)

2. Why was telegraph a breakthrough for communication?

Dr. Ted sez: Information could travel from the event to the newsroom instantaneously (well, a lot faster than by boat or horseback), which meant a more promptly informed citizenry. Because telegraph is sent over wires, “wire news services” like United Press and others (Associated Press today) developed. Telegraph also affected how news reporters wrote their stories: Because early telegraph service was notoriously undependable—wires were cut by enemies in wartime or by storms, ending messages in mid-transmission—reporters started writing in what eventually became the “inverted pyramid” structure, placing the most important new bulletins at the top, so that they would get through fastest before the wire could go down. News writers use the same structure for “hard news” stories today, to get the most important news out fast before the reader can lose interest. Question: So is Twitter this approach taken to a ridiculous extreme? (Text pp. 6-7)

3. The advent of printing resulted in what major social upheaval?
a. Wide increase in literacy.
b. Spread of new ideas.
c. An end of church and royal control.
d. Rise of individual freedom
--> e. All of the above. (Text pp. 5-6)

4. Even after the advent of printing, it took centuries until truly mass-audience publications were available. What was the major factor in increasing the spread of information to people?

--> b. Improved transports networks and printing technology. (Text pp. 5-6)

5. Define media convergence. Why is it important?

Dr. Ted sez: Media convergence refers to the merging of a variety of communication devices or hardware, linking (for example) video to phone to text to voice to Internet, etc. The advent of digital technologies made this possible, permitting text/photo/audio/video/graphics and MORE! to “converge” into a single message. Thus, computers (and devices that are like computers, including cell phones) are now becoming more popular with young people than television, so “couch potatoes” now can be found everywhere. (Text pp. 8-10)

6. Media consolidation refers to large corporations owning vast arrays of different kinds of media—from book publishers to movie companies to Internet delivery systems. This is more than efficiency and business, the authors suggest: What is the threat of corporate consolidation of media?

-->b. Less diversity in the media marketplace. (Text p. 9)

Dr. Ted sez: NOTE: The problem with concentration of ownership of mass media is that huge multinational companies—Disney, ComCast (which just bought NBC from General Electric), Viacom, etc.—own huge segments of what most media users consume in a given day. Ownership of all kinds of stuff—from the creators of content (newspapers/TV news stations, book publishers, magazines, etc.) to the producers of content (movie studios, TV networks, etc.) to the syndicators of content (ESPN, NBC, CNN, etc.) to the delivery systems for that content means that a single corporate entity can control everything in the pipeline from the first line of a writer’s novel to its syndication as a TV movie with international distribution rights to subscriptions for online viewers (or NetFlix, for example). The concern is over what voices are not heard when such huge corporations own the entire system. What happens to the “marketplace of ideas”—less product to choose from? And are we less fully informed—how would we even know?....

7. The key concept embedded in the term “the marketplace of ideas” is:

-->d. Ideas can freely compete for public acceptance. (Text pp. 11-16)

8. There are multiple factors affecting what kind of content fills the media system. What do you think is the most important factor? Why?

Dr. Ted sez: I would like to think that media producers, starting with news organizations, create content to help people live their lives better, to create a more informed citizenry that is better equipped to participate and contribute on issues of public concern and importance (like elections). But is that really what drives media content in a capitalism system? Of course not. Content producers create content that sells—“It’s what people want,” is how they justify it, although media content producers also invent markets and create demand for their products (stuff that we didn’t even know we wanted!) through advertising (ex: women are beautiful if they look like this, and they need to buy this to get there… Or what about Hummers? Does any normal human really need a car that big to go to the grocery?), through attitudes/values/items showcased in entertainment programming, through every media image we see that frames women/men/Arabs/minorities/whatever in particular ways that we come to accept as “normal” or desirable or ideologically correct. For example: A survey released this month (1/23) finds that a majority of Americans actually support health care reforms when they are told what reforms are actually being considered!!! So who is (mis)telling us the story on that, or any other controversial issue? (Sorry. That was starting to be a rant.) (Text pp. 12-17)

9. Social scientist Harold Lasswell described three fundamental functions of mass communication in society. What are they, and (briefly) explain what each means.

Dr. Ted sez: Actually, there are five, but the central three are: 1) Surveillance of the environment: We use mass communication to help us know what’s going on in the world. This is why free and open reporting (unlike in Logan!) is important, so that journalists can be there to ask the questions and record the answers when citizens can’t be themselves. 2) Correlation of elements of the society: To assist citizens in gathering enough information to make decisions about events, about trends in society, about different segments of society. And 3) Transmission of culture: Information that reveals and defines and explains cultural and social norms and standards, group identity, traditions and social/cultural history/identity. To these, scholars add functions of 4) Diversion, meaning entertainment and leisure activity; and 5) Self-understanding: Use of media content to gain understanding of themselves or others, to keep you company (coach potatoes!), to learn about one’s own behavior/attitudes. (Text pp. 18-21)

10. Not to belabor the points made in Professor Pease’s pair of columns on Martin Luther King Jr., now 11 years old, but his decision to publish the full text of the racist critic’s letter drew some complaints for repeating such unsavory sentiments. But Professor Pease would argue that putting the letter out there for everyone to see and decide about reflects on the key concepts discussed in the text’s Chapter 1 about what critical function of a free communication system?

Dr. Ted sez: There are many ways to answer that. I would (and did) argue that the racist rant elicited by the first column deserved to be expressed openly and fully so that “consumers” in the marketplace of ideas could make decisions for themselves and for the larger community as to whether these attitudes were worth “buying” or not. Another basic of free and open journalism is that you can kill a lot of malfeasance and mildew by shining a bright, hot light on it!

BONUS: What major international mass media event takes place in Utah this week? The SundanceTWENTYTEN Film Festival! See this link and this link, for example, or Google Sundance.

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WEEK3Intro2MassCommQuiz • FIXT

Select the one BEST answer in multiple-choice questions; for the short-answer questions, write BRIEF, FOCUSED responses using key terms that demonstrate you know what you’re talking about.

This week’s reading in Folkert/Lacy Ch 10 provides a very important (and condensed) overview of the philosophical and structural evolution of journalism in America over three centuries. We will return to many of the topics outlined in this chapter, so remember where you first heard about these issues for future conversation.

1. What is the major difference between journalism as practiced in the American colonies, and “public journalism” as described in the text?
Dr. Ted sez: There are many ways to discuss this. Colonial “journalists” were printers who made their living printing books and pamphlets and tax stamps for the British government. Many of these printers were not political and did not report “news” or challenge English authority (do you remember the quote on the syllabus by Sir William Berkeley, the royal governor of the Virginia colony? What’s his attitude toward printers—or education, for that matter?). Those colonial printers who did dabble in politics often got into trouble, so most basically did what they were told and otherwise kept their heads down. (pp. 253-255) “Public journalism” (pp. 270-271) is quite different, in that it values two-way (or more directions!) engagement among journalists and citizens. In this model, readers/viewers work with news organizations to make news decisions, journalists can become more active participants in events, instead of mere observers and recorders, and many more voices and perspectives are including in the news. That’s pretty different from the hierarchal, top-down flow of information in the much more authoritarian colonial system.

2. Define “credibility” as it refers to journalism, and explain why it is important in a free, participatory and self-governing society.
Dr. Ted sez: Credibility is perhaps the most essential element of any kind of communication. If we don’t believe the sender of the information—whether a politician or a newspaper or your little brother—we will filter it out, discount it, reject it. Remember Chicken Little, who ran around yelling that the sky was falling until she became a joke, so when the sky really did fall, no one believed her. For news organization, credibility—trust—is essential; without it, newspapers are good only for making fires and wrapping fish, and TV news is just noise. If we agree that citizens need to be well-informed in order to made decisions (like voting) in a participatory society, then they need credible sources of information. Without credible news and information, citizens can’t make good decisions (and might be misled, as in the period of press history when the partisan press—newspapers allied with particular political parties—simply told readers what they wanted them to think and how they wanted them to act/vote, etc.). Today we would call such “journalism” biased. How credible are news organizations today? And how well informed about important information do you think citizens are, so they can made informed and intelligent judgments?

3. There are five BIG rights granted in the First Amendment. What are they? And which do you think is most important?
Dr. Ted sez: I like to say that the First Amendment (p. 255) is the most powerful sentence since “Let there be light.” In just 43 words, the First Amendment lays out five HUGE and interrelated ideas:
1) that a free people have the RIGHT to believe what they want to believe—the freedom not just of religion, but of conscience (“Congress shall make no law representing an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof…”);
2) and that a free people has an absolute right to say what they believe (“…or abridging the freedom of speech,…”), and to
3) write down and publish and disseminate what they believe (“…or of the press;…”); and
4) that a free people can gather together with others to talk about those beliefs (“…or the right of the public peaceably to assemble, …”); and, finally,
5) the right to complain to their elected representatives in the government if they don’t like the way things are going (“…and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.”).
Whew.
These rights won’t feed you, but they will guarantee you the freedom to live. Which one is most important? Trick question—they are all part of a whole, the freedom to think what you want to think (beliefs), to talk freely about them, to express them in writing, to meet with others to discuss them, and to tell the government what’s right, not the other way around.

4. What was the significance of the John Peter Zenger trial?
Dr. Ted sez: During colonial times (and before), criticism of the government or people in power (like good old Sir William Berkeley of the Virginia colony, a real sweetheart) was punishable by all manner of awful penalties. This had been a long tradition, ever since the European kings and church leaders were considered to be the representatives of God, and so criticism of authority was equal to criticizing God. Off with his head!!! In fact, it was this kind of heavy-handed rule that led to the First Amendment: A writer in England in the 1600s, John Milton, got thrown in a deep, dark prison with rats for complaining about unfair laws, which was criticism of the people in power. When he got out, he wrote a long treatise called Areopagitica, complaining that truth should not be punished, because truth comes from God and free expression of truth will always beat the evil lies of Falsehood. He wrote, “Let Her (Truth) and Falsehood Grapple; Who Ever Heard of Truth Put to the Worse in a Free and Open Encounter?” (They were big on Capital Letters back then.) This argument eventually drove the resolution of the John Peter Zenger trial, which was a hugely significant decision that created a legal precedent of truth as an absolute defense. At the time, “seditious libel” (that is, criticism of people in power) was a criminal offense, as in England where criticism of the king or the Pope or the nobility could land people like John Milton in a deep, dark hole. Zenger was not thrown into a deep, dark hole or beheaded, because he and his lawyer (Andrew Hamilton) successfully made the argument that truth is a defense. Can you see how that connects to the First Amendment, and to the marketplace of ideas, and to John Milton’s Areopagitica? (pp. 253-254)

5. The Hutchins Commission of 1947 established five guidelines for the press that form the basis for what theory of the press?
a. the partisan press system
b. the “enlightenment” press
c. the authoritarian press system
d. the social responsibility press (pp. 256-258)
e. the “new journalism”

6. Why was the “penny press” a significant development?
a. It meant that literacy was widespread in society
b. Editors stopped writing political news and reporters covered more day-to-day stuff
c. “Journalism of exposure” created hoaxes
d. Reporting was more entertainment than true
e. Newspapers stopped supporting political parties.

Dr. Ted sez: NOTE: “B” is the best answer here, but you could also argue that all five answers were true. The “penny press” was so-called because newspapers lowered their prices to reach more people in growing mass (urban) societies, which meant that the press published less opinion and argument based on political parties (the partisan press), and offered more popular fare—cops and courts, scientific information, hoaxes and entertainment, etc. This content for the first time was produced by hired reporters, not by the newspaper’s editor/publisher/printer/political party, which had previously been the case. More people were gathered in one place, more people had learned how to read and had the time to read, and more people started being interested in what was going on in their communities. (pp. 260-261)

7. Is objectivity possible? Why?/Why not?
Dr. Ted sez: You can argue this in whatever way works for you. Here’s my take: “Objective fact” is an artifact of the hard sciences: we know that water boils at 212 degrees F, for example, and a rock contains these minerals, etc. Objectivity in journalism refers to the goal of presenting only confirmed facts without opinion, shading, etc. Thus, an “objective” report should be “truth.” But as we’ll discuss elsewhere, no one can report only truth (whatever that is), because each of us approaches events and issues with our own preconceptions, our own perceptions, our own biases that are formed by who we are as individuals and how we each see the world. Beyond that, how can any report include everything there is to say about a subject? Reporters have to select certain facts and exclude others, if only because there’s not enough space for everything. Who decides what to include and exclude? The reporter. The source who is interviewed. The editor who decides how long the story is and where it appears in the newspaper. All these things change the “objective truth” to something that is variable, depending on who is doing the reporting, and who is doing the reading. There’s much more to say on this, but try this experiment: Watch both Fox News and the BBC or CNN or Al Jazeera, or listen to National Public Radio on any given day. Focus on one breaking news story. Who’s telling the truth? How do you know? What and who is “objective”? Tricky, hunh? (pp. 266-267).

8. News Values: Explain each of the following and give your own example to demonstrate your understanding of what they mean and why each is newsworthy. (1 pt each)(pp. 267-268)
a. Timeliness: News is NEW.
b. Impact: What is the consequence of the event, who is affected and how?
c. Proximity: How close is the news event? A tanker truck crash in Toledo isn’t news in Logan, Utah.
d. Prominence: Important people/groups make news if they just sneeze. If Bill Clinton came to your town and had a Big Mac and left, that’d still make news (well, in Logan, but maybe not LA).
e. Conflict: Disagreement, tensions, he said/she said often makes news, whether it’s the Tea Party protesters or a couple of neighbors fighting over potholes.
f. Human interest: feature stories about the strange, the news of the weird, the unusual, cute puppies, a guy who has a 12-foot moustache… these are news because they are unusual or heartwarming.

Dr. Ted sez: These are some standard elements of what makes news, plus relevance to people and some other stuff. There are a number of useful definitions of what makes news. For example, NY editor John Bogart once said, “When a dog bites a man, that’s not news. But when a man bites a dog, that’s news.” Another editor defined news as anything that makes you say, “Gee whiz, Martha!”

9. Why is the concept of a “marketplace of ideas” important for a free society?
a. All information and ideas are available for public scrutiny.
b. Citizens can select the ideas they like the best, like at the grocery store.
c. Truth and falsehood compete freely.
d. There is no limit on individual opinions
e. All of the above.

10. There’s a chart on p. 253 that asks you about your perspectives on different kinds of media. I reproduce it here. Check the chart for instructions and rate each of these information sources for Trustworthiness (rate 1(low)-5(high)), How often you use them (Daily, Several times/wk, Weekly) and what kind of information they are best at providing (B=breaking news; A=analysis or opinion; E=entertainment).

BONUS: What did you think of the Billy Joel video? How many of the images meant something to you, gave you associations with things you know about historical or cultural events?

15 pts possible

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WEEK4Intro2MassCommQuiz • FIXT

Name: Dr. Ted

Write BRIEF, FOCUSED responses using key terms that demonstrate you know what you’re talking about.

This week’s reading in Folkert/Lacy and the blog-post on mass communication theories provide an important overview of some key theories that help us understand the interaction of individuals and mass communication content, news and the building of society. We will remember these concepts as we consider different slices of the mass media and society, so remember where you first heard about these issues for future conversation.

1. At the beginning of Ch. 15 in Folkerts et al. (p. 395), you are asked to think about how you think you make decisions about how the mass media affect you. Please fill out for yourself the “Research in Your Life” table. For this quiz, answer this: Can you think of something you saw/heard in the media that affected your opinion about a product, a pair of jeans, a political candidate, or a public issue (like global warming or gays in the military)? Briefly, what was it, and describe the media message that influenced you, and how?

Dr. Ted sez: There are no wrong answers to this—the mass media affect (not “affects”! “Media” is a plural noun.) everyone differently (selective perception?), and it’s a rare individual (or media-smart fish) who is impervious to the constant bombardment of images and arguments and “truth” in news, advertising, billboards, TV sitcoms, etc. This week, we’ve been watching some of the coverage of the Vancouver Olympics. As usual, I find myself annoyed by NBC’s preoccupation with U.S. athletes and the constant “U-S-A! U-S-A!!” focus. Not that I don’t wish the American athletes well, but there are 80 nations competing, and it’s sometimes hard during the nationalistic Olympic coverage of these and other Games to see anything but our peeps (Gatekeeping? Agenda-setting? Framing?). In 2002, I had the HUGE honor of running the Olympic Torch before the Salt Lake Games. During that experience, I met a guy from LA who was born in Korea. He was so proud to have been picked to run the torch for America, and he was so excited about the Korean figure skating team (I forget). Never did hear/see any coverage of his heroes during those games.

2. One of the ways to understand the role of the mass media in society is to employ a social science approach to research media issues. Describe key elements of social science research.

Dr. Ted sez: The key differences between the “social science” and “critical-cultural” start with the use of “hard-science” quantitative techniques of empiricism used in the social science approach, and qualitative approaches in critical-cultural studies. Empirical methods involve numbers—surveys of large numbers of individuals, or counting news stories in content-analysis studies, for example—in an effort to arrive at conclusions that can be generalized across populations. Critical-cultural methods are more interpretive, seeking to make connections between mass communication systems and culture, society and political behavior. Critical scholars look at cases, at examples of connections, at textual meanings (in news or entertainment content, for example), using techniques such as textual analysis, participant observation/ethnography, and interviews. Social science approaches are quantitative, using statistical analyses of large groups of items (people in polls or news content, for example) to arrive at generalizable conclusions. Critical studies are typically qualitative, looking at individual meanings and perceptions to evaluate how messages are interpreted by individual audience members.

3. Same question for the critical-cultural approach to social science.

Dr. Ted sez: See No. 2 above.

4. From the reading on mass communication theories, explain how issues of selective perception influence how news consumers interpret information. Provide a specific example.

Dr. Ted sez: Depending on the forces that have shaped our individual backgrounds and lives and worldviews, we each interpret—perceive—issues and people and topics differently. It appears that exposure to mass media messages can be at least as influential in shaping our perceptions of the world as other formative influences, including family and training and socio-economic status. One obvious way that mass media shape all our perceptions is in issues of gender and sex. Women are typically portrayed in mass media messages as objects, as victims, as things with unattainable standards of “beauty” that includes breasts, butts and legs (but rarely brains!). These kinds of images, constantly repeated and reinforced in mass media messages from advertisements to movies to TV shows, may gradually shape our view of what women are “supposed” to be like, for both women and men (and kids!)

5. Thinking back to the table in the Folkerts text (p. 395) referred to in Q1 above, please discuss how selective perception may influence individual answers to any of the questions posed in the table.

Dr. Ted sez: See No. 4 above. Also: Item 1 (advertising/products): Which cell company is better? “Can you hear me now???” Item 2 (politics): Sarah Palin. Item 3 (issues): A recent survey (social science approach) found that people were more supportive of health care reforms when they knew what actually is proposed. Item 4 (TV behavior modeling): Kids & Harry Potter.

6. What is the difference between qualitative research and quantitative research? What are the strengths/weaknesses of each?

Dr. Ted sez: See No. 2 above. Quantitative research is number-based. Qualitative research is case-based and interpretive. Numbers yield information that is generalizable to a large population (i.e., People who voted for Obama like Dove soap). Qualitative research can interpret information and provide insight into the Why? question of human behavior.

7. The Folkerts text discusses issues of race and TV (p. 401). Discuss this topic (briefly) in the context of at least one of the mass communication theories—which theory/theories help explain the kinds of issues about coverage of race discussed in this short article?

Dr. Ted sez: A variety of studies have found that TV viewers (for example) begin to cultivate certain attitudes—assumptions—about people based on their race (and gender…see No. 4). One study, for example, asked kids—like 4th graders—what roles in TV shows certain people in photos would play. Black men would be the bad guy, they said. White men would be the Boss or the businessman. White women would be mommies, teachers or nurses. Etc. Both quantitative (surveys) and qualitative (focus groups) studies find that Blacks are typically framed and perceived as violent and criminals; content studies of news find that Blacks (and to a slightly lesser degree Latinos) are pictured in the news more often than Whites as crime suspects in mugshots, being handcuffed, in connection with gang and drug stories…

8. Early mass communication research assumed a “magic bullet” effect of mass media messages. What is that? What are the problems with this concept?

Dr. Ted sez: Early social scientists thought that mass media messages acted as a “magic bullet,” shooting concepts and political positions and ideas/ideals into the brains of passive audience members. This is the basis for propaganda during wartime. Also known as the “hypodermic needle” theory, this assumes that message receivers are uniform, brainless, insentient, that our own circumstances and personal experiences and knowledge would play now role in how we individually interpret such messages.

9. Explain gatekeeping theory, and why it has important implications for a free society.

Dr. Ted sez: Gatekeeping describes the selective process of what kinds of messages/ideas/foci are included in mass media content. What gets through the “gate” between events and audiences depends on decisionmakers along the line as media messages (stories/news/sitcoms/movies/ads) are constructed. This makes a difference in a participatory society because what we “know” from media messages is controlled by gatekeepers. So how informed are we (see the comment above about public perceptions of health care reform, No. 5)? NOTE: Gatekeeping is not generally governed by editor “bias” except in the most neutral form—that is, what the gatekeeper lets through the news “gate” tends to be based on what s/he thinks is most important, not necessarily out of ideological motives of what s/he personally believes.

10. What is agenda-setting? Give a current example in your life.

Dr. Ted sez: Agenda-setting is a theory describing the role of the mass media in the public conversation about issues and policies. The mass media can’t tell us what to think, according to this theory, but they can be stunningly effective in telling us what items to think about—setting an “agenda” for our daily awareness of what’s happening in the world. A lot of stories run about “ObamaCare,” so people tend to talk about health care more. NOTE that agenda-setting also describes what’s not in the news and so what doesn’t get covered. In other words, if a tree falls in the desert in, say, Darfur, but no reporters are there to hear it and tell it, did those 600,000 people really die?

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Smarts Quizzes (Sp2010)

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Quiz Archive•Spring 2010

WEEK1MediaSmartsQuiz • 1/15/10 FIXT
1/15/10 Quiz1—The Syllabus

Here are my responses to these questions. Future quizzes will be different, but in this case, the goal of this quiz was to see if you had looked at all the intro material I gave you to read last week. Everyone who did the quiz gets credit. Feel free to comment on any of my comments.

1. There are quotes from real people throughout the Smarts syllabus, including the four that lead it. Pick one of the quotes from anywhere in the syllabus that you particularly like, and that you can relate to your idea of why being “media smart” is important. (two pithy sentences +/-).
Pease writes: I like so many of them (obviously), from “Question Authority” to the Tom Stoppard quote about “nudging the world a little” that I use on my email signature. E.B. White, however, is one of my particular heroes. His quote about television, the first time he saw it demonstrated in New York in 1938, was prescient, I think. Can you imagine worrying in such circumstances about how “messages, distant and concocted” would affect how people interacted with each other, and wondering if TV would be a “saving radiance” or a “disturbance of the general peace.” Smart man. Here’s another quote I like, but it’s not on the syllabus: “Don’t take life too serious, Son. It ain’t nohow permanent.” … from an old Pogo comic strip. And how about Pease’s horoscope in the Wednesday (1/20) WORD?

2. Professor Pease claims that, ”We’re being lied to, boys and girls” in (or by) the mass media. That’s (usually) not literally true. So what is Pease saying? Do you agree/disagree? Why?
Pease writes: Perhaps “misled” is a better term than “lied to,” but I think the point needs consideration. As you will read in the media literacy materials, ALL media messages are constructions that are purposive and intentional on the part of their creators: advertising people want viewers to buy soap; political consultants want voters to buy candidates or issues, photographers retouch women to make them seamless and breastier and thinner.... We all see the world differently, based on our own experiences and background (as we’ll discuss in the context of mass communication theories). So all media messages are created with the particular perspective of their author embedded in them, intentionally or not. Is that lying? Not really. Could it be? It’s at least potentially misleading to the unaware and unwary. That’s why we need to become media-smart—a basic literacy of the 21st century.

3. Explain Marshall McLuhan’s concept of the “fish,” and how those of us who now live in the mass media age are like his fish. Does that analogy make sense to you?
Pease writes: Some of you gave up on this, but I think you just didn’t read the syllabus closely, or think about the metaphor very carefully. Just as a fish is immersed in its environment and is generally unaware of it (unless the pond water gets too bad), we humans live in a mass-mediated age in which messages on TV and radio and billboards and magazines and the Internet, etc. etc., are EVERYWHERE. Most of us, like the fish, are generally unaware of how the media content we breathe in and out may change our perspectives on the world, create assumptions about people and things and issues. Our mass media diet is to a large degree unintentional—in that we often suck in stuff that we didn't specially go looking for—just the stuff that surrounds us in the media environment. Most of us—like McLuhan’s fish—don’t think much about how toxic that stuff that we breathe in and out might be. Becoming aware of that environment—that’s being a smart fish!

4. Columnist Erma Bombeck is quoted as saying that, “My children refuse to eat anything that hasn’t danced on television.” What is she saying, and how does it relate to what we’re studying in this course?
Pease writes: Among the most vulnerable of the “fish” in this mass media pond where we all live in the 21st century are children, who have their preferences and perspectives formed for them by TV more than any other single source. So Bombeck’s kids preferred the stuff that had been sold to them in entertaining ways on TV. They believed what they saw on TV more than they believed stuff they actually experienced. Any of you who have small siblings or cousins or kids of your own know about how important the right (fill in the blank)…clothes, toys, video games, pickup trucks (older kids…) are. Where do they get that? A study released yesterday (1/20) found that kids spend as much as 12 hours a day! with some form of gadget—cell phones, TV, computers, games. Talk about a generation of couch potatoes!

5. What’s your impression of John McManus’s website? (And have you bought “Detecting Bull” yet? If you have, what do you think of it so far?)

6. McManus, on his website, says, “[M]ainstream news is becoming shallower and more commercially biased—more written for advertisers and by publicity agents. Online, new providers are arising. But most don't follow professional principles.” Why might that be a problem?
Pease writes: As per some of the previous items, even as our society becomes more cyber-connected, the actual content of what’s in the pipeline (or electronic IV tube) that fills out days and lives is increasingly trivial. The mass media should be an amazing tool for public education and knowledge. Instead…American Idol, beer ads, Anna Nicole Smith…. The head of the Federal Communications Commission called TV a “vast wasteland” nearly 40 years ago. Has that assessment changed?

7. How confident are you that you know the real story behind the kinds of historical events discussed briefly in the syllabus? Can you identify a specific piece of history you may have “learned” about through a movie or TV show, and that, you now realize, may not be completely accurate?
Pease writes: Be smart fish. Consume media critically, with a large grain of salt. It’s a little scary that so many people—including, maybe, some you the people in this class—“see” and “know” the world and history based on entertainment media. A reader poll in the Logan Herald-Journal some years ago asked readers who killed John F. Kennedy. The majority responded that it was a government conspiracy—the theme of Oliver Stone’s movie, JFK.

8. Speaking of “smart fish,” from his bio, what fish do you think may be one of Professor Pease’s favorites?
Pease writes: If you checked my website(s), you’d see a lot of salmon (yes, that silver thing is a Chinook, or King, salmon).

9. Where did Professor Pease earn his master’s degree?
Pease writes: UMinnesota, 1981

10. You should have watched (and maybe shared with your friends and other lumps of clay) the Stephen Colbert video on the Week1 list. So who is funnier—Professor Pease or Stephen Colbert? Why?
Pease writes: You’re right—a trick question. Clearly, it’s me, because I hold your academic fate in my cyberhands.… and if you believe that we need to talk.

§ § §

WEEK2MediaSmartsQuiz • 1/26/10 FIXT

1. In Detecting Bull, John McManus argues that the Web has had a democratizing effect because…
a. Democrats made effective use of the Web during the 2008 presidential campaign.
b. The reliability of news is declining.
c. Now anyone can report news to anyone.
d. Newspapers are dying, anyway.
e. The old news models didn’t work.

2. Why does McManus say the reliability of news is declining?
Because the forms that news takes, who produces it, for what purposes, and the technologies used to deliver it are rapidly changing, it is becoming more difficult to identify reliable news and to separate it from rumor, junk journalism and propaganda.

3. Why does Geneva Overholser, former editor and Washington Post ombudsman, say media literacy is needed?
Media literacy is needed to counter the impact of these trends. “Citizens of a democracy have a responsibility to be informed. Media literacy courses, stronger civic education and other tools can create the environment of vigorous debate in which the press can thrive.”—Geneva Overholser.

4. McManus talks about “neural entanglers” who muddy public debate. Who are they?
The neural entanglers—spinmeisters and propagandists—are becoming more skillful. Pundits and talkmeisters and partisan commentators…. From Amy Goodman (Democracy Now) on the left to Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck on the right.

5. In the Pease&Cooper chapter, “Making Sense of the Information Age,” which of the following characterized the change from an Agrarian Society to the Information Age?
a. People no longer grew their own potatoes and other food.
b. A social shift from small community and family units to mass culture.
c. A shift from an individual economy to a mechanized economy.
d. A change from the importance of products to the importance of knowledge.
e. All of the above.

6. FALSE In discussing the impact of TV, E.B. White coined the term “the global village.” It was Canadian sociologist Marshall McLuhan

7. How does instantaneous mass communication create a “global village”? What does that term mean?
We are all more and more interconnected—potentially closer to one another, with more understanding and interaction (ha!).

8. Among the negative consequences that some people fear about the “information age” . . .
a. people know too much
b. people shop at home
c. people have less contact with others
d. people don’t vote
e. none of the above

9. According to Pease&Cooper, how has the information age diminished a sense of community? Various commentators cited in the chapter worry about isolation (electronic shut-ins—Gans), a loss of national identity and the national conversation (Brown), loss of time spent with famility/humans in favor of TV and electronic distractions….etc.

10. In the news: What major media event takes place in Utah, starting this past week? Sundance Film Festival TWENTYTEN!

BTW: Question: What do you think of the controversy over the Sundance release of USU JCOM alumni Reed Cowan’s documentary, 8: The Mormon Proposition?

§ § §

WEEK3MediaSmartsQuiz • 2/5/10 FIXT

1. In his “Some Principles of Media Literacy,” David Considine says the old saying, “The camera never lies” isn’t necessarily so. Why?

Dr. Ted sez: As we are learning, there are a number of reasons why the camera does lie. And that’s not just an artifact of the special-effects era of PhotoShop, multimedia manipulation and the rest. During the Civil War, photography was a technology in its infancy, but even then, famed Civil War photo-documentarian Mathew Brady repositioned dead bodies for “artistic” and storytelling reasons. He may have said, “"My greatest aim has been to advance the art of photography and to make it what I think I have, a great and truthful medium of history," but how “truthful” is it? We also have learned that the way information—text, images or whatever—is framed can alter its meaning, just by including and excluding different elements. In “Forest Gump,” Tom Hanks’ character is seen mooning LBJ, and in “Saving Private Ryan,” Hanks is fighting on Utah Beach in Normandy. Does the camera lie? Of course. (See these links: Media Lit. and More Media Lit.)

2. In the media literacy readings, the authors suggest that production techniques like superimposing a reporter onto a green screen of the White House can have what effect?
a. Makes the news more exciting.
b. Misleads viewers.
c. Increases journalistic credibility.
d. Enhances viewer comprehension.
e. All of the above.
Dr. Ted sez: I can argue that all of these is potentially true. If you watch The Daily Show, you will often see Jon Stewart talking to his reporters in the field—but John Oliver and Jason Jones and Co. are actually just standing there in the studio in from of a green screen and footage from Iraq or the White House or wherever. The studio audience laughs, but the TV viewer could be fooled…. Still, it’s better and more effective storytelling, isn’t it?

3. Why do media literacy proponents argue that citizens need both to understand and be able to analyze/evaluate media messages, but also to create media messages themselves?
Dr. Ted sez: Literacy in the 21st century means not only reading, but visual literacy (see No. 1) and capabilities to communicate with multimedia. The pencil has become a much more sophisticated instrument! Effective communication is a tool for everyday life in 2010.
4. Explain each of the following principles of media literacy and provide a brief example to illustrate your understanding. (1 pt each)

a. Media are constructions: All media messages—words to special effects—are products that someone constructs.
b. Media representations create reality (how and to what effect?): Because of what the message creator selects and how s/he arranges the message’s components, the media product may represent reality to varying degrees. When you see Bigfoot in a business meeting, that may not be complete reality (!) Misrepresentations of fact can mislead readers/viewers. We call that “lying.”
c. Audiences negotiate their own meaning: Audiences are not passive recipients of media messages who just soak in the sender’s intended meaning. All of us see the world and interpret is differently. For us Red Sox fans, Derek Jeter is no hero….
d. Media constructions have commercial purposes: Take a broad view of “commercial”—we who communicate want our target audiences to “buy” something: a philosophy, a perception of the world, an idea, a political position, a bottle of shampoo. More crassly, the more eyeballs a media message attracts, the more valuable it is to people who can sell it….
e. Media messages contain values and ideologies: The worldview of the message producer governs the message tone and focus and emphasis. Even if we try to be absolutely “straight” in our reporting of events, we can’t help but have our own ideas of what’s important, why it matters….
f. Media messages have social and political consequences: Media messages can’t tell us what to think, as we know from agenda-setting theory, but they can tell us what to think about. As the public starts to focus on some issues (and ignore others), pressure may grow to “do something.” People who see the world as a dangerous place may pressure lawmakers to create stronger laws and stiffer penalties and to build more prisons. Policy decisions grow from public sentiment.
g. Each medium has its own unique aesthetic form/impact: Communication is an art form, and like all art forms, some media lend themselves to telling certain kinds of stories better than others. A radio report on a tornado has a different impact than video footage of the damage (or did you see the LA mudslides last weekend?)

5. Explain (briefly) the relationship between the rise of mass communication and the industrial age.

Dr. Ted sez: As people moved from the countryside to cities in pursuit of work or marketplaces or whatever, it became easier to communicate to large groups of people—town criers, pamphlets and posters on walls, newspapers that communicated between a single individual editor/printer to many people at once. Gesellschaft

6. Explain what the heck Marshall McLuhan was talking about with his fish analogy.
Dr. Ted sez: One more time: The fish in the pond is unaware of subtle changes in its environment, and may happily swim around, “breathing” in and out an increasingly toxic environment even until it became so toxic it kills him. We are generally as unaware of our daily media “diets”—stuff we absorb from mass media without even thinking about it, until our perceptions of the world may be altered. See Pease’s column.

7. On Teddy TV, Professor Pease talked about how the advent of TV might have changed Fiji. What happened and what might have been the cause? (The same thing was at work with Dr. Ted’s teenage crush on a French woman…)

Dr. Ted sez: Fijian perceptions of the “norm” of the world—what bodies should look like, how people should act—was influenced as this Polynesian culture started seeing American values on TV. Similarly, ma petite amie française had seen too many Al Capone and Bonny & Clyde movies: Chicago was a dark, dangerous place.

8. Critical thinking about media, according to the reading on Key Concepts of Critical Thinking, is NOT … a. finding fault with media performance
b. learning what to think
c. eliminating incorrect media messages and content
d. protecting children from violent images and ideas
e. none of the above Dr. Ted sez: That’s confusing: critical thinking is none of those things…. So what is it????

9. Discuss your responses to the Billy Joel video in the context of the concepts of media literacy and the central question of this class—how do we know what we think we know?
Dr. Ted sez: A picture is worth at least 100 words—maybe 10,000. Images can be linked to popular culture, iconic images that carry with them much more meaning than just the tones and forms of the photograph. JFK’s shooting, Ghandi, Marilyn Monroe.... These images are shorthand for events that changed the world, the culture, people’s lives and perceptions of life and society. Powerful stuff.

10. General knowledge: Who is Samuel Alito and why is he in the news this week?
Dr. Ted sez: Samuel Alito is a Supreme Court associate justice who was seem reacting negatively to President Obama’s State of the Union speech, when Obama criticized the Court for its decision to permit unlimited political contributions by corporations.
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Examples of Truthiness at Work

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(Posted on JCOM 2010 blogsite 2/7/2010)

Dear Smarties:

I have noted a couple of examples of the ramifications of the “truthiness” syndrome in the press this weekend.

Yesterday (2/6), the Herald-Journal ran this wonderful letter from a guy in Smithfield named Russ Larsen, titled “Gore & Co. distorting facts,” about what he calls “all the recent ‘hoopla’ about global warming.” Click here for the full letter (or see it pasted below). Note the “facts” Mr. Larsen is citing. Wherever you stand on the question of global warming and environmental change, this guy’s understand of reality is a little skewed. I’m not saying he doesn’t believe what he’s saying, but why does he believe it?

Another example is yesterday’s appearance at the Tea Party convention in Nashville by Sarah Palin. Without asserting any facts, Palin pumps up the crowd with her anti-Obama rhetoric, which then can be reported as news on outlets including Fox, which employs her as a commentator. Again, wherever you stand on Obama, reality is being created by the echo chamber of the event, the coverage and the creation of news from the event and the coverage. This morning, Chris Wallace was interviewing Palin (again, a Fox employee) on the Fox Sunday talkshow.... If you repeat something often enough, it becomes important, and maybe even “true.” (See Christian Science Monitor coverage here.)


One more example: In today’s (Sunday 2/7) Salt Lake Tribune, columnist Peg McEntee addresses climate change as a “conspiracy theory”—NOT! (And cartoonist Pat Bagley, right, also focuses on this.) This is targeted at Utah state Rep. Mike Noel of Kanab, who thinks scientists, government officials and liberals are conspiring to force global cooling on us. Last year, Noel asked USU President Stan Albrecht to discipline some USU climate researchers because they had testified before state legislative panels about climate change (they believe it). Noel said these guys are on the state payroll, and shouldn’t be allowed to promote lies. (Noel later backed down). As McEntee reports in her column, Noel and others who see global warming as a fake left-wing conspiracy (like Mr. Larsen from Smithfield, above; Gov. Gary Herbert also thinks humans have nothing to do with climate change) think this is an effort at world population control. Bills are pending before the Utah Legislature to shut down the federal Environmental Protection Agency until “a full and independent investigation of the climate data conspiracy and global warming science can be substantiated.”

So this “truthiness” stuff is complicated. How do we “know” what we think we know? We see letters like Mr. Larsen’s or columns like McEntee’s, or cartoons like Pat Bagley’s, or coverage of rhetorical entertainment like Sarah Palin’s or Glenn Beck’s or Rachel Maddow’s (or Jon Stewart’s!). Yikes! How to decide what to believe? See how important it is to be critically thinking media smarties???

Keep thinking, Smarties.

Dr. Ted

§ § §

Gore & Co. distorting facts

Logan Herald-Journal

Saturday, February 6, 2010 2:55 AM CST

With all the recent “hoopla” about global warming, recent factual reports show that the EPA accepted only two so-called analysis reports (one from some ice glacier climber and one from a student on his own opinions) that global warming exists. Other reports, from left-wing radicals (Al Gore), really have distorted the facts.

Remember Mother Nature will do her thing regardless of what others believe. On Dec. 23, 2009, an advertisement on CBS radio, as well as NPR radio, reported that Santa’s elves told Santa that global warming was so real that Santa and the North Pole will no longer exist due to global warming. Imagine Santa’s surprise — this crushing childhood fantasies.

Al Gore and his self-appointed group should be ashamed of themselves. I submit that Al Gore had a troubled childhood.

This is purely unadulterated “horse puckey.” These clowns are in it for the money at yours and my tax money expense.

Yes, Christmas is way too commercialized and the real meaning of Christmas is gone. But, to victimize Santa at the expense of “kooks” like Al Gore and his cronies is absurd to say the least.

With the recent revealing reports of false documents of global warming, Al Gore and his pals should be “cut off” from our taxpayers’ funding. Al Gore should be required to spend two winters in Cache Valley and then be exiled to the coldest part of the world forever with no modern conveniences. End of story. What a savings to us taxpayers.

Think back to TV ads. Butter vs. margarine. “It’s not nice to fool Mother Nature.” She will do as she pleases.

Climate change is a scam at our expense. Believe it. You far-out loons are crazy.

Russ Larsen
Smithfield

Book Review: Dubya and the Media

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Book Review
A Dubya in the Headlights: President George W. Bush and the Media. Joseph R. Hayden. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2009. 275 pp. $75 hbk.

Note: This book review appears in the Winter 2009 issue of Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly. I post it because the book illustrates and documents news media manipulation by the White House, and how the resulting “truthiness” served to distort public understanding of events on many levels. —TP

A Dubya in the Headlights is an indictment of the George W. Bush presidency driven by compelling evidence that in no way spares the media.

Joseph Hayden, a former TV producer who teaches journalism at the University of Memphis, begins with research questions that are answered via multiple quantitative and qualitative methodologies. The author enhances statistical data on media coverage by examining individual stories for specific phrasing and imagery. Because the line separating conventional news from entertainment is blurry, he considers the impact of talk shows, movies and even Saturday Night Live, noting how Bush benefited from television’s “inattention to substance.”

Hayden challenges assertions that the Dubya White House masterfully manipulated the media. If the press “doesn’t respect you, and thinks you’re an idiot,” Hayden concludes, “you are no master of press relations.” It was not a matter of clever manipulation of the media, Hayden argues, but a matter of the media allowing (and sometimes enabling) the manipulation.

Bush’s greatest faults, Hayden thinks, was his indifference to his own ignorance and his seeming determination that everyone remain uninformed, too. John Dean said Bush and Cheney “created the most secretive presidency of my lifetime,” which is quite a statement coming from the innermost corridors of the Nixon White House. And Helen Thomas agreed: “[T]his administration’s secrecy is beyond belief, more than any previous administration.”

Beyond concealing relevant information, the Bush White House distributed what Hayden characterized as “chronically misleading information.” It didn’t even have to be an important issue. “A much-cited article in National Review about Bush’s alleged love of reading turns out to be a hoax planted by Karl Rove,” Hayden explains, because the books were simply ones Rove had given to the president. And sometimes it was a matter of absurdly fallacious logic: The U.S. uses waterboarding; the U.S. does not torture. Therefore, waterboarding is not torture.

But the blame is not just the administration’s. Hayden points to the deceptions on the road to Iraq as the most egregious example of the “failure of American news organizations to do their duty as vigilant watchdogs of the public trust.” Bush associated Hussein with WMD, the 9/11 attacks and even mushroom clouds. In a 90-minute presentation before the United Nations, Colin Powell “delivered the knock-out punch,” according to Hayden, “. . . and many Americans, including many journalists, trusted him.”

The New York Times’s Judith Miller was “one of the great enablers and dupes of the Bush White House,” quoting “senior officials” when she distributed false propaganda, Hayden notes; Bush press secretary Scott McClellan later wrote that Miller was “a valued stooge.”

Former TV journalist Karen Ryan, was one of the Bush Administration’s faux reporters. When her VNRs aired, the administration recycled them on their Websites and in promotional materials, which led to a Congressional investigation of VNRs because, as Hayden explains, spending tax dollars on “phony news reports” is illegal. Even conservative commentators squawked, one asking, “How many more of these bozos did Bush buy?”

In the post-9/11 adrenalin flow, Dubya warned, “Either you are with us, or you are with the terrorists.” Hayden questions the false choice that ignores neutrality and stifles dissent, and the penalty for dissent was indeed high—witness the outing of CIA operative Valerie Plame “for her husband’s untimely criticism . . . endangering both her and the nation in order to settle political scores.” Ironically, Rove had been fired by Bush’s father more than a decade earlier for leaking a story to the same conservative columnist Robert Novak who named Plame.

Some of the most surprising criticism of Bush’s handling of the Hurricane Katrina aftermath came from Fox News commentators Shepard Smith and Geraldo Rivera. “The administration’s campaign of misinformation was eventually discredited” even by White House “insiders,” Hayden writes. In his 2008 memoir, McClellan charged that the amoral argument of “the ends always justify the means” legitimized all manner of untruths. Hayden acknowledges McClellan’s “regret for the wrongs he committed,” but notes that the Bush insider raised no objections “at the critical time when his reservations might have made a difference,” when he was “publicly defending” the misdeeds.

In his final chapter, Hayden considers Dubya’s legacy. In a 2004 poll of 400 historians, 338 assessed Dubya’s presidency as a failure. In a 2008 follow-up poll, the failure assessment rose from 81 percent to 98 percent, and 61 percent of the historians ranked it as the worst presidency ever. Even the conservative Weekly Standard declared it “a failed presidency” in a cover story.

But, as this work records, the press shares blame for that failure. Hayden has delivered a fascinating, well-documented narrative that demands critical introspection by so many in the media who bear guilt in the Dubya story.

—SUSAN GONDERS
Southeast Missouri State University

Essay Instructions

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General Instructions on Smarts Essays

Three pages (1,200-1,500 words), 12-point Times (or equivalent), double-spaced, one-inch margins, emailed to Dr. Ted as a Word attachment. Dr. Ted will post essays on the class blog so everyone can see what you’ve come up with.

Writing Guidelines
1. Intro: Summarize, but not everything! What’s the most startling, most interesting “news” from your study? What are your key findings? (In news-talk, what’s the “lead” of your story. See The Fred Rule)
2. The Central Message: What is the overall message conveyed in the Fox news stories about your topic? How is the issue framed by Stewart and/or Colbert? In other words, how are audiences encouraged to think about the issue?
3. What are the facts? Based on our research on the online fact-checking sources, is the way the issue is framed by Fox and Stewart/Colbert true or truthy? Compare the facts from your research to the specific examples of coverage of the topic you examined.
4. News Media Performance: How’s they do? How well were the Fox and Comedy Central fact-claims supported by evidence? Were any fact-claims erroneous? Was important information omitted, distorted, or taken out of context? Specific examples needed.
5. Bias? Was the coverage partisan, biased, or incomplete/inacccurate?
6. Examples: What terms are used to describe frame the issues? Are the terms “;oaded” in any way? How?
7. Assess: Based on what you know from reading coses of journalistic ethics and the Hutchins standards for a socially responsible press, how fair and balanced or “truthy” was the coverage? Be specific.
8. Apply Mass Comm Theories in evaluating the media performance. What agendas were being set, what info got through the news “gate” and what didn’t? How was your issue framed? What kinds of attitudes might audiences cultivate from the coverage?
9. Conclusions: How are audiences encouraged to “think” about this topic/issue?
10. References: Include a reference page listing all sources and URLs (MLA or APA style).

Notes:
• All web sources are NOT created equal. That means no Wikipedia. Click here for info on how to determine the reliability of online sources. The sources teams use for this assignment need to be from reliable news sources, academic articles or books and nonpartisan “fact-check” online sources listed on project directions.
• This is NOT an opinion essay. This is a critical analysis using documented sources.
• Writing counts. One usage issue: “Media” is a plural noun and requires a plural verb. Correct: “The media are completely screwed up.” Incorrect: “The media is completely unbiased.”
• Grading: Essays will be graded on the basis of the instructor’s assessment of a) the quality of your argument(s); b) how well and how completely you address the central questions; c) the content of your essay; d) writing and mechanics (e.g., spelling, grammar, syntax, organization, etc.); and e) whether your conclusions are supported by your data.
• Help? Let me know if you have questions regarding the goals/focus/content/direction of the project.
• Have fun.
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Press Freedom and Responsibility

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PHILOSOPHICAL UNDERPINNINGS OF FREE EXPRESSION IN SOCIETY

By Edward C. Pease
©1991

[Excerpted from Pease, E.C., STILL THE INVISIBLE PEOPLE: Job Satisfaction of Minority Journalists at U.S. Daily Newspapers (Athens, Ohio: E.W. Scripps School of Journalism, 1991)]

In a society based on individual rights and participation, democracy may be defined as a process of dialogue among all constituent groups. The philosophy on which this nation was founded holds as central to its basic democratic structure the importance of the individual vis a vis society. This includes a presumption of the individual’s power of rational thought and concepts of individual natural rights – including religion, speech and press.[1] These concepts were the prevailing notions of Locke, Milton, Mill, Paine and other 17th- and 18th-century thinkers whose writings combined eventually into marketplace-of-ideas theory, from which the First Amendment developed.

Central to the theory is the entirely free and unfettered exchange of ideas, including a free press operating within a social system in which all opinions had equal chance to be heard, the assumption being that truth would emerge from a robust and wide-open debate on issues of public importance. As Milton put it in his Areopagitica, “Let Her and Falsehood grapple; who ever heard of Truth put to the worse in a free and open encounter?”[2] From Milton’s perspective, and that of other libertarians, it was preferable to permit false opinion in the marketplace of ideas than to limit open exchange of ideas, any one of which might contain or lead to truth; free discussion was a self-righting process from which truth eventually would emerge. As social philosopher Carl Becker explained it:

The democratic doctrine of freedom of speech and of the press ... rests upon certain assumptions. One of these is that men desire to know the truth and will be disposed to be guided by it. Another is that the sole method of arriving at the truth in the long run is by the free competition of opinion in the open market. Another is that, since men will invariably differ in their opinions, each man must be permitted to urge, freely and even strenuously, his own opinion, provided he accords others the same right. And the final assumption is that from this mutual toleration and comparison of diverse opinions the one that seems the most rational will emerge and be generally accepted.[3]

Drawing on the work of his father, James Mill, and that of Jeremy Bentham, John Stuart Mill’s brand of 17th-century libertarianism was pragmatic and utilitarian: To achieve the greatest good for the greatest number in society, he said, society must insure that all its members have the right to think and act for themselves. Limiting expression, Mill suggested, would limit society members’ ability to think for themselves. Mill made a four-part argument: First, suppressing opinions – however disagreeable they might be to others – might result in suppressing the truth, he said. Second, even an erroneous opinion might contain a kernel of truth, leading to the larger truth. Third, even if the generally held opinion is truth, the public may cling to it irrationally, solely because of rote and tradition, unless forced to defend it. Finally, Mill said, unless the commonly held opinion is challenged occasionally and those holding it are forced to reaffirm it, even truth loses its strength and positive effects on individuals and society.[4]

As Mill wrote in his essay, On Liberty:

If all mankind minus one were of one opinion, and only one person were of the contrary opinion, mankind would be no more justified in silencing that one person than he, if he had the power, would be justified in silencing mankind. ... If the opinion is right, [people] are deprived of the opportunity of exchanging error for truth; if wrong, they lose what is almost as great a benefit, the clearer perception and livelier impression of truth, produced by its collision with error.[5]

By the beginning of the 20th century, however, pure libertarianism was on the wane as newspapers and other media grew in size and influence, and the concept of the wide-open debate among individuals was supplanted by the reality of mass communication driven by technological advances. Public resentment of the size, scope, influence and excesses of the press gave rise to efforts to legislate limits on them; the media’s occasionally irresponsible exercise of their First Amendment freedom thus threatened all rights of individual free expression. Media scholar Theodore Peterson argues in his seminal Four Theories of the Press that, just as libertarian theory was founded on the principle of a “negative freedom” – that is, freedom from external restraint – new thinking in the 20th century saw a need for a press both free from restraints but also responsible to larger society.[6] What became known after publication of the Hutchins Commission report as social responsibility theory rests equally on a negative freedom from restraints, as well as on a positive freedom of the press to be proactive – freedom for social good, freedom to help society attain its goals.[7] J. Edward Gerald agreed: “Mass communications media are social institutions, the product of social demand,” which include predictable expectations of performance.[8]

The new social responsibility perspective of the press added to libertarianism the concept of the public’s right to know, at the same time placing moral responsibilities on publishers, who themselves had begun to link responsibility to overall public good with their constitutionally mandated freedom. Because liberty carries with it obligations, the greater freedom accorded the press in a democratic system carries with it responsibilities to fulfill certain functions in society.[9]

Leading newspaper publishers already had come to similar conclusions on their own regarding the role of the press in the new, industrial age. Joseph Pulitzer, legendary publisher of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, told his staff in 1907 that his paper should be

an institution that should always fight for progress and reform, never tolerate injustice and corruption, always fight demagogues of all parties, never belong to any party, always oppose privileged classes and public plunderers, never lack sympathy with the poor, always remain devoted to the public welfare, never be satisfied with merely printing news, always be drastically independent, never be afraid to attack wrong, whether by predatory plutocracy or predatory poverty.[10]

In the inaugural issue of his Detroit Evening News in 1873, James Scripps enunciated a similar vision of the role of the crusading press that was reminiscent of Milton:

Nineteenth Century Americans need not have their opinions molded for them by the newspaper press. Give the public the facts and arguments on both sides, and they will quickly determine the right or wrong in each case as it occurs. The vox populi, in the long run, will pretty certainly be found to be the vox Dei.[11]

His younger brother, E.W. Scripps, in his first issue of the Cleveland Penny Press in 1878, addressed these same issues of independence from special interest pressures and voiced libertarian confidence in the rational abilities of the reading public. He wrote: “The newspapers should simply present all the facts the editor is capable of obtaining, concerning men and measures before the bar of the public, and then, after having discharged its duty as a witness, be satisfied to leave the jury in the case – the public –to find the verdict.”[12]

Adolph S. Ochs, upon assuming control of The New York Times in 1860, had a similar vision for his paper: “. . . to give the news impartially, without fear or favor, regardless of party, sect or interest involved; to make the columns of the New York Times a forum for the consideration of all public questions of importance and, to that end, to invite intelligent discussion for all shades of opinion.”[13]

But despite the sensibilities of publishers such as Pulitzer, Scripps and Ochs, as the press grew in size and influence, it came under increasing criticism. By 1900, the criticisms had fallen into seven basic themes:

1) The press and its press barons had wielded power to their own ends, at the expense of opposing views and discussion.

2) The press had become subservient to big business and advertisers.

3) The press resisted social change.

4) The press stressed the superficial and sensational over the significant.

5) Press content endangered public morals.

6) The press invaded individuals’ privacy.

7) And the press was controlled by a single socioeconomic class, further endangering any chance for robust and wide-open debate in the free and open marketplaces of ideas.[14]

Following World War II, the American public was frightened by the images of thought manipulation through mass communication, brought on by the Nazi propaganda machine. Those fears, coupled with the growth of the mass communications industry and the social and technological changes that followed the industrial revolution, led Henry R. Luce, founder and publisher of Time, to commission a group of scholars in 1947 to examine the prospects for a free press in America.

The Hutchins Commission

Echoing Mill, the chairman of the Commission on Freedom of the Press, Robert M. Hutchins of the University of Chicago, described concerns about the role of the mass media in the 20th century this way: “The tremendous influence of the modern press makes it imperative that the great agencies of mass communication show hospitality to ideas which their owners do not share. Otherwise, these ideas will not have a fair chance.”[15]

The commission said freedom of the press in 1946 was in danger for three reasons. First, the press’s importance to society had increased with its capacity to communicate to mass audiences; at the same time, however, the proportion of people able to communicate their opinions and ideas through the press had decreased. Second, those with access to the press “have not provided a service adequate to the needs of society,” the commission said. Third, press performance had so outraged some segments of society in the 1940s that threats of regulation had surfaced.[16] The commission said:

When an instrument of prime importance to all the people is available to a small minority of the people only, and when it is employed by that small minority in such a way as not to supply the people with the service they require, the freedom of the minority in employment of that instrument is in danger.[17]

More precisely, Gerald wrote, as the press evolved into big business, its priorities also shifted, from dissemination of diverse ideas to bottom-line economic issues. The Hutchins Commission concluded that such emphasis on profits threatened the media’s likelihood of providing “the variety of information and debate that the people need for self-government,” he said. Further, he said,

[i]n such media, entertainment takes precedence over matters of importance to social understanding and self-government. The urgencies of conciliation between nations and between racial and religious groups at home are minimized or overlooked by media with such a distributive goal. Salestalk through advertising and propaganda in the news constitutes a hazard to clear description and understanding of human problems.[18]

Press barons for years had recognized that shift themselves. E.W. Scripps, for instance, who never was shy about making a buck, wrote a year before his death in 1926:

There was a time in this country when newspapers were run for the purpose of moulding public opinion and their owners were deemed lucky if they gained an incidental profit. Now newspapers are run for profit and only incidentally are moulders of public opinion, leaders of the people in politics, and teachers.[19]

The Hutchins Commission considered free expression the central freedom of American democracy, but feared that a press seen by public and government as both unfettered and irresponsible risked losing its First Amendment franchise. To preserve its freedom, the report concluded, the press must serve the society that has accorded it that freedom. “The freedom of the press can remain a right of those who publish only if it incorporates into itself the right of the citizen and the public interest,” the commission wrote.[20] After four years of hearings, the Hutchins Commission released a five-point guideline for press performance that represented a new view of the relationship between the mass media and society. The American press should provide

1) a truthful, comprehensive and intelligent account of the day’s events in a context which gives them meaning;

2) a forum for the exchange of comment and criticism;

3) a representative picture of the constituent groups in the society;

4) presentation and clarification of the goals and values of the society; and

5) full access to the day’s intelligence.[21]

Consistent with the thinking of some newspaper leaders, as indicated by the statements of Ochs, Scripps and Pulitzer, the recommendations outlining changes in the way journalists should look at their jobs and at the media’s role in society. The five points also provide the first of two frameworks here for evaluating press practices and performance.

The Hutchins Commission Charge to the Press

The Hutchins Commission’s guidelines were, on the one hand, direct, straight-forward and commonsensical. At the same time, they enunciated a press function from which the media had sometimes strayed: “The first requirement is that the media should be truthful. They should not lie,” the commission report said.[22] The commission also cautioned the press to separate fact from opinion, while acknowledging that that requirement cannot be absolute: “There is no fact without context and no factual report which is uncolored by the opinions of the reporter.”[23]

The second recommendation, that the press provide “a forum for the exchange of comment and criticism,” underscored the commission’s view of the media’s responsibility as “common carriers of public discussion.”[24] These public discussions should include even – perhaps especially – ideas with which the media owners might not agree. “Their control over the various ways of reaching the ear of America is such that, of they do not publish ideas which differ from their own, those ideas will never reach the ear of America,” the report said.[25]

The third recommendation, particularly relevant to the issue of minorities and the media, underlined the media’s responsibility to present “a representative picture of the constituent groups in the society.”[26] “People make decisions in large part in terms of favorable or unfavorable images,” the report said. “They relate fact and opinion to stereotypes. [The media] are principal agents in creating and perpetuating these conventional conceptions. When the images they portray fail to present the social group truly, they tend to pervert judgment.”[27] Such representations of all segments of the American society was seen as a means toward greater understanding and harmony: “The Commission holds to the faith that if people are exposed to the inner truth of the life of a particular group, they will gradually build up respect for and understanding of it.”[28]

The fourth press function, as the Hutchins Commission saw it, was one of education, “the presentation and clarification of the goals and values of the society.”[29] The press had both an opportunity and a responsibility to help maintain community standards and preserve the society’s values. Finally, the commission said, the press must provide the public with “full access to the day’s intelligence,” something with which no journalist would disagree. “We do not assume that all citizens at all times will actually use all the material they receive. ... But [that] does not alter the need for wide distribution of news and opinion,” the report said. The press must provide the public with enough complete and truthful information that citizens can, “by the exercise of reason and of conscience,” make the decisions necessary to maintain an orderly society, the commission concluded.[30]

After 1947, the press reassessed its role and responsibilities, increasingly operating from the Hutchins Commission’s vision of a two-way relationship between the press and society, encompassing both the rights of free expression ascribed to Milton and marketplace-of-ideas theory, as well as a new expectation of the media’s responsibility to the social system that had accorded such rights. In one way, however, little had changed, the commission report said: “We need a market place for the exchange of comment and criticism regarding public affairs. We need to reproduce on a gigantic scale the open argument which characterized the village gathering two centuries ago.”[31]

In the Hutchins Commission’s view, press freedom was balanced by the press’s responsibility as a public servant. “We suggest that the press look upon itself as performing a public service of a professional kind. ... that the press must take on the community’s objectives as its own objectives.” [emphasis original][32]

It was with this image of the media-as-public servant that America entered the 1960s and their growing clamor for racial equity. In very many ways, the events of that decade represented the first test of the Hutchins Commission vision of press performance. It was a test the media failed.

• • • • •

NOTES

1. Fred S. Siebert, Theodore Peterson & Wilbur Schramm, Four Theories of the Press. (Champaign: University of Illinois Press, 1956).
2. John Milton, Aeropagitica, 1644.
3. Carl L. Becker, Progress and Power. (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1949), p. 33, as cited in Siebert, op. cit., p. 44.
4. Siebert, op. cit., p. 46.
5. John Stuart Mill, On Liberty, edited by Alburey Castell (New York: F.S. Crofts and Co., 1947), p. 16.
6. Theodore Peterson, Four Theories of the Press, op. cit., p. 93-4.
7. Ibid.
8. J. Edward Gerald, The Social Responsibility of the Press. (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1963), p. 7.
9. Peterson, op. cit., p. 74.
10. Joseph Pulitzer, message to his staff, April 10, 1907, cited in Edward L. Bernays, Public Relations Problems of the American Press. (New York: National Newspaper Promotion Association, 1952).
11. James Scripps, Detroit Evening News, Aug. 23, 1873. Cited in draft of Vance Trimble, The Astonishing Mr. Scripps. (Ames, Iowa: Iowa State University Press), in press.
12. E.W. Scripps, The Cleveland Penny Press, Vol. 1, No. 1, November 2, 1878, p. 1.
13. Adolph S. Ochs, The New York Times, August 18, 1896, cited in Bernays, op. cit.
14. See Peterson, op. cit., p. 78.
15. Robert M. Hutchins, Foreword, in The Commission on Freedom of the Press, A Free and Responsible Press: A General Report on Mass Communication: Newspapers, Radio, Motion Pictures, Magazines and Books. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1947), p. viii.
16. Ibid., p. 1.
17. Ibid., pp.1-2.
18. Gerald, op. cit., p. 104.
19. E.W. Scripps, “The Wisdom of an Old Penman,” June 1, 1925, p. 6. (The Scripps Archive, Alden Library, Ohio University, Athens, Ohio)
20. A Free and Responsible Press, op. cit., p. 18.
21. Ibid., pp. 20-29.
22. Ibid., p. 21.
23. Ibid., p. 22.
24. Ibid., p. 23.
25. Ibid., p. 24.
26. Ibid., p. 26.
27. Ibid.
28. Ibid., pp. 26-27.
29. Ibid., p. 27.
30. Ibid., p. 29. Peterson suggests that this recommendation assisted in the evolution of the principle of freedom of information and the public’s right to know; if the press has a mandate to provide the fullest possible access to the day’s intelligence, it must also possess a right of access to such information. It is the logical underpinning of press demands for free flow of information from the public sector. See Peterson, op. cit., p. 91.
31. A Free and Responsible Press, op. cit., pp. 67-68.
32. Ibid., pp. 92, 126.

Purchasing Detecting Bull

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JCOM 2010 Text

The required “text” for JCOM 2010—Media Smarts is a DVD “book” called Detecting Bull—How to Identify Bias and Junk Journalism in Print, Broadcast and on the Wild Web (2009) by John McManus, who also operates the website GradetheNews.org.

Detecting Bull is a great example of one of the concepts we’ll discuss in Smarts—technological convergence, which means the phenomenon of difference media technologies coming together into single packages incorporating text, video, audio and web resources.

You may purchase Bull either as a download directly to your computer, or as a physical DVD from the Detecting Bull website.

NOTE: The universal player for the online download version of the “book” doesn’t work well on Macintosh, so you’ll have to order a physical DVD.

Got to the Detecting Bull website and then click on “Buy” in the lefthand column. That page will give you information on either downloading the Haihaisoft universal player, required to read the “book” on PC’s with Windows, or for ordering the physical version for Macs.

Because McManus is a longtime educator, he offers his book in this electronic format to keep the prices down, and so he can update the material in the fast-changing world of mass media.

If you have problems obtaining your desired version of Bull, contact either your instructor or John McManus directly (by clicking “Contact” in the lefthand column of the Bull website).

Get Bull, and start getting Media Smart!
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