Can we trust these citizens? Are they media literate?

Chapter 7 of Potter’s Media Literacy describes that news for television programs and in newspapers comes from within the scope of the media and that the media are under their own frame of reference as well as at the mercy of others’ opinions.

A Web site blog, “the mcgill report” emphasizes the importance of global citizenship and that the vitally important practice of journalism has become endangered. The site has a linked article “5 Questions”, written by "local man". One of the questions regards the reliability of citizen journalism and gives eight reasons to place trust in citizen journalism.

His philosophy coincides with becoming media literate because he believes the core of journalism is similar to constitutional rights of freedom of speech and freedom of the press. Chapter 7 stresses the importance of having a vast assortment of media sources. Part of those sources can come from people without formal journalism training. However, Potter warns to be skeptical of public opinion that is ambivalent, as he believes it is difficult to differentiate between deep seeded opinion and opinion passionately formulated in order to respond when asked one’s opinion.

Potter’s warning interests me because I had not viewed ambivalence as a dilemma. I had found it surprising that Potter failed to address the issue of bias within citizen journalism, because an opinion or editorial piece is labeled as such, whereas citizen journalism does not have labels. While it can be understood all journalism has bias, it is more difficult to determine the extent to which the citizen journalism is biased.

Although we must discern all media we digest, part of becoming media literate is experiencing a variety of types and sources of media. What better way to understand the ins and outs of journalism that to practice it?

Postman

AGREE

"You cannot use smoke to do philosophy. Its form excludes the content." (Postman 7.) Postman's statement supports the two-way communication model. When decoding messages, part of the message is the form in which it is sent. Smoke does not work as a
effective means of communication for philosophy as it is not easily conducive for communicating details.

DISAGREE

"People like ourselves may see nothing wondrous in writing, but our anthropologists know how strange and magical it (writing) appears to a purely oral people, (Postman 13). Postman then states on the same page, that this book is about "our own tribe undergoing a a vast and trembling shift from the magic of writing to the magic of electronics". When we are capable of understanding when we are repeating ourselves by removing ourselves from the situation, the comparison of these statements seem contradictory because sometimes we can learn from the past if we study it and consciously realize the similarity of these situations. However, history tends to repeat itself when we do not remove ourselves from the situations around us, and compare present day to times of the past. A problem with comparing the situations of going from spoken traditions to print and from print to electronic archives is that people have not experienced both. So they must rely on documentation of others experiences of this transition.

An interesting question to pose to this argument is whether or not print is viewed as the most trustworthy of all media. Then the situations could be considered differently as a shift towards print and a shift away from print.

Fans vs. Favorites & Audience vs. Media

With regard to the quotation from Alexis, the realm of mass communication within the scope of this course is a competition between the fans and the favorites.

The fans (or audience) may have a larger picture of previous competitors playing styles and habits, but if they take the message as given, they are not perceiving the whole picture. Their impressions must be deciphered as they have been viewed through the media’s spin. The media manipulates the message the audience receives through editing hours of film into an episode which includes the dramatic parts and few, if any of the mundane scenes in order to entertain viewers.

The favorites (or media) are the voice of experience. They have a better understanding from the media’s perspective as they understand firsthand the reality transformed into episodes. This point of view has the advantage of understanding why and how to edit parts together to convey a story message which is compelling to the audience. This behind the scenes view works only when they understand the functions of combining various tools and tactics to have an impact on the audience’s reactions.

Max Headroom

By having everything in Max Headroom reported twenty minutes into the future, it sends the message that society is on the cusp of the dessolate state depicted in the show. The show's setting is deprived of an outdoor setting with vegitation because the natural materials have been neglected because people are too occupied being inundated with media. The media don't care if people are exploding from their masses of information as long as their messages are resulting in money from automatistic drones.