Who Decides

Who Decides?

(b/4 reading this please excuse my poor grammar)

I despise O’Reilly to the point that when I watch his show I feel the need to strangle him, and I have been watching Fox News’s claim of “we report you decide” for years and would like to finally put what I think about it in writing. Adding all this up I came to create my own mutant topic. The rhetoric and propaganda of Fox News displayed through Bill O’Reilly.
The famous slogan of Fox News is “we report you decide”. This in my opinion means that media should just state the facts and nothing else with them, after the people read the facts they should be able to come to sensible conclusion on their own. However, an objective form of media like this leaves too much up to the consumer and the consumer in general does not want to seek out an opinion, he/she would rather have the opinions told to them and then they could just choose one. In order for this form of media to be proper, both sides of the story would have to be said without any particular bias on either side.
According to Fox News this is how they run, they state both sides and then let you decide. However, they completely ignore the importance of stating both sides without bias towards either one, as it says to in the fairness doctrine. The fairness doctrine was created in 1949 by the FCC, it said that news corporation must devote a certain amount of time to public issues and must state contrasting views. Fox News has taken this doctrine and claim this is how they relay their news, unfortunately, they take this with a grain of salt. Fox News’ soul intention of giving the democratic view is to shoot it down and legitimize the republican view.
Rupert Murdoch is the owner of Fox News, why is this important? Rupert Murdoch is famously a strong right wing conservative Christian, who is very active in politics, and he also is very interested in profit. These two facts explain why Fox News gives us the news the way they do.
Fox News is famous for being absurdly bias to the current party that their shareholders request them to be, this is a result of its owner demanding that his company not say anything against the government. They also will do anything to gain viewers, this why you will see Fox News tend to stick to the cheap stories that give a kind of a gut check reaction rather then a well-researched objective story, which lets you come to your own conclusion. For example, they would give a story about the Jennifer Aniston break up over a government policy issue.
What does this make Fox News? A giant propagandist profit seeker, when one watches Fox News it is very rare they will see a negative story on Bush. Fox News will use its best efforts through rhetoric to bring up the republican party. For example, they will cut into a democrat’s speech, say “Breaking News”, and then show a speech by Bush.
This was showed best during Bush’s re-election campaign and the throughout the war on terror.
Fox would have a count down of the days until Bush was re-elected, this would have been a problem if they were saying “204 days until the election” but when a news corporation that’s slogan is “we report you decide” counts down the days till a partisan party is re-elected it looks like they have done the deciding for us. They would also constantly bash Bush’s opponent John Kerry. Fox News spent three weeks on his flip-flop ordeal; they made the fact that he threw out his Viet Nam medals away into a scandal. When Kerry went on a skiing vacation Fox made it seem as if he was having an affair, and they even said that Kerry looks French and someone who looks French should not be our president. During the election, Fox News gave people decisions before they could decide. Fox News became a source of attack politics, which I thought was a job that was only done by politicians.
Even worse then this was the creation of fear and creation of an enemy almost immediately after 9/11. Two things that stuck out in my head were the anthrax scare and the weapons of mass destruction/ Osama and Saddam connection.
The anthrax scare was a brilliant form of propaganda, four people in total were affected by it, but fox made it seem as a threat to all of America. Fox would have constant coverage of the anthrax scare that they created, and they would say the best advice we can give is to stay inside and do not check your mail or anything sent to you. This created a major fear for the people and who else can save them from this fear than the mighty government.
The next thing they did also a classic propaganda tactic (most famously used by Hitler) was the creation of an enemy, since Osama was no were to be found going after him was impossible, but not doing anything after a tragedy such as 9/11 is unacceptable thought Bush. This is how the Osama and Saddam connection was created, and when the weapons of mass destruction. Fox News led the coverage on this, they served as the puppet of Bush here, and Fox did not even entertain the idea of this connection or claim being false. The psychology that Fox created here went this, that if you are not supporting America your supporting terrorism, because this is in fact a war on terror and if your not for it you must be against it. This played a major role in America believing the false connection and claim that were the reasons why we needed to go to war with Iraq.
These are just some of the propaganda tactics that Fox uses on a daily basis to support their party; however, their biggest strength is their mass audience. Rupert Murdoch owns News Corporation, which owns many cable and satellite televisions, newspapers magazines, and internet companies ect. This mass audience equals up to an approximate 4 billion viewers. Rupert Murdoch gives every news outlet he owns talking points for the day, an example of this would be “Today Bush is having a debate with Kerry; a main topic will be abortion, so lets legitimize Bush’s views on abortion.” This conservative opinion is now brought to billions of viewers, which is a major display of a lack of deciding and in my opinion is very scary.
The biggest problem is the result of all this is a severe loss of democracy. In my opinion, one of the great things about our democracy is that it is a society in which people formulate their own opinions and this diversity of opinions should shape our government. Since we run under such an institution, we do not expect to be affected by political propaganda because it should not exist in our realm.
That is why Americans are blind sided everyday Fox News, their slogan says, “we report you decide” which gives you the impression that you are getting a clean story and to clean opinions that are equally covered. This is the expectation that the average American goes into before he reads the news, so when Fox News blatantly advocates for the republicans most people don’t think that’s what is happening because the expect to receive the news in the way that their slogan says its should be delivered.
Fox News’ goal is not that their viewer will be knowledgeable citizen rather their goal is that the citizen watching will become a supporter of the government. Their replacement of substance with advocacy is a major tragedy in journalism and in democracy. I hope that someday this news giant will fall and it will not take a discovered lie about the government to wake up the democracy.
A great example of Fox’s bias is the O’reilly factor. O’reilly has a show on Fox in which he represents his and fox’s strong righty pro-bush opinion against who ever he is interviewing. O’reilly has gained a reputation of being loud provocative and not afraid to say what is on his mind. This is what made him famous and he is become a public icon because of it. He is looked at as a very smart man because in most of his interviews he totally destroys his opponent.
However, his critics (such as myself) have different things to say about him. First of all the majority of “liberals” he goes against are either very week liberals who cant hold their argument well or are friendly “liberals” who agree with many things that Bush said and just argue on a couple of issues. Fox’s goal of any debate on their show is for the conservative to look good and the liberal to look bad. For example Hannity and Colmes, just their sheer appearance portray what Fox wants one to think of the two opinions, Hannity is the conservative who is relatively good looking and is a presence when he speaks is with a certain authority, Colmes is the liberal who is a smaller soft spoken guy and usually loses his arguments. This is form in which fox tries have for all their debates, especially with O’reilly.

When I watch O’reilly I usually tear my hair out for several reasons, two of the many reasons are his rhetoric and his and Fox’s g-d like perception of Bush (its amazing how everyday they find new ways to glorify him). The reason why these two bother me is because he always uses the rhetoric to help bush come out on top, and many of his arguments are won because he creates facts or cuts off his opponent in the middle of a statement. Another major tactics he uses is emotion, which is a major player in rhetoric; he says an outlandish thing when he is losing an argument to distract his opponent. The most famous from of rhetoric he uses is his shut up tactic (very professional), when he does not like what he is being said he tell the guest to shut up.
In short, when you are a liberal going against O’Reilly usually you will endure a lot of yelling, abuse, and a lack of opportunity to make your point. Even if you do make your point after you leave the show he will make his point at the end of the show so it will be the last thing the viewer hears
Here are some classic examples of the typical O’Reilly factor and what happens when its not the typical O’Reilly Factor
The first one is the story of Jeremy Glick. Jeremy Glick’s father died on 9/11, but he took a different approach to his loss rather then participates in this blind blame game created by our fine government. Instead, he participated in the signing of an anti-war petition, which was put in as a full-page ad in the New York Times; in this ad, they compared innocent deaths in 9/11 with the innocent deaths in Viet Nam, Baghdad, and Panama City.

This was obviously a shock to O’Reilly since a family who lost a member was not pro-war. The first point he made was a guess which if was right he would have treated like a fact. He said to Glick “I'm surprised you signed this. You were the only one of all of the families who signed”, this was a guess and nothing else, and many times O’reilly will make something up and use it for his argument, luckily here that did not work. Glick said in response to this that here were many families of the 9/11 victims who signed this advertisement. The part that really started the heavy battle was when Glick rightfully accused O’reilly; “You evoke 9-11 to rationalize everything from domestic plunder to imperialist aggression worldwide.” This was the main issue he wanted to bring up on the show and he succeeded in getting his point across which most O’Reilly guests do not, so it became very interesting to see the rhetoric O’Reilly used while he was under attack.
Then his response to this was “I support the 9/11 families!” and “That’s a bunch of crap!” (very professional). Then when Glick tried to explain himself by making a parallel to an experience of September 14, unfortunately this parallel was never heard because O’Reilly used his famous cut off tactic. First O’Reilly said, “I’m not going to debate this with you”, which is very interesting because that is the whole point of his show, to debate!
He then tried changing the topic by saying “For the Record” “You didn't support the action against Afghanistan to remove the Taliban. You were against it, OK.” Glick said in response to this “Why would I want to brutalize and further punish the people in Afghanistan”

After this, O’Reilly used the misconnection of every person in Afghanistan to the Taliban for the famous propaganda tactic of creating the enemy. If your not with us your with them. When this came up O’Reilly said that the Afghan people killed Glick’s father, and that it was horrible that O’Reilly cared more about this than his own son. Glick quickly answered back that Al Qaeda killed his father not Afghanistan, and that there is no reason to kill everyone there for an act of a group.
Then Glick Tried to state what he said at the very beginning of the interview that Bush Sr. with the CIA and the trained hundred thousand radical Mujahadeen trainees, to combat and to overthrow the democratic government in Afghanistan, and how this can be equated with his father’s death.
However, O’Reilly was quick to shoot this down; his response to this was “I hope your mother is not watching this because you — that's it. I'm not going to say anymore”, after this anything else Glick tried to say O’Reilly said his favorite 5 words “Shut Up” Cut The Mike”. O’reilly said that out of respect for Glick’s father he is not going to “dress you down anymore”.
O’Reilly here showed a serious lack of professionalism, a complete mental breakdown, and his classic uses of rhetoric. The bottom line is that he did not actually expect Glick to be the opponent he was, since O’Reilly cant be the weaker one he had to cajole himself out of this situation. Therefore he first yelled which form my experience is the first sign that one is wrong because whenever someone is right they don’t need to prove their point by yelling shut up, it is common knowledge in psychology that when someone yells in a argument they are angry because they don’t have a point.
The lowest point of this argument was when O’Reilly started using Glick’s dead father to defend himself; it was completely insensitive and really served no purpose in the argument. It makes you think that if O’Reilly claims that he has helped the 9/11 victims’ families so much than wouldn’t he understand that bringing in Glick’s dead father to the argument for no real reason other than to change the topic is a little insensitive?
What bothered me more than anything was what O’Reilly said after the interview. He said, "Jeremy Glick came on this program and accused the president of the United States of orchestrating 9-11.” He completely distorted what Glick said, in fact Glick wanted to sue but he looked into it and his legal advisor told him that since O’Reilly lies so much he can be declared a pathological liar, and he doesn’t know when he is lying therefore he wouldn’t be responsible.
The slogan says “we report you decide” then it should be applied to interviews too. If you at the end of debate you, say which side is right and wrong then the whole purpose of it is defeated. The point of a debate on a news channel should be to show the two sides of an argument and let the viewer decide which one he/she likes. When O’Reilly talks about the interview afterwards and says he is right then the whole point of the debate was pointless! However, this is something I have become accustomed to when I watch Fox News, which is that they report and tell you what to decide.
The next two examples are just one of the many examples of O’reilly using senseless equations, absurd rhetoric, and false facts to prove his point .O’Reilly said during a gay marriage dispute that he couldn’t care less what gay’s do and if they want to get married they should head up to Canada were it is legal. The gay rights person he was interviewing said that homosexual love is just as meaningful as heterosexual love, and if a gay couple wants to get married, the court should allow it. Although O’Reilly said he did not care about the issue, he said that if the courts let gay marriage happen then what stop someone form polygamy or “marrying a duck”.
What O’Reilly did here was very interesting, he said he did not care but then he said the courts should not allow it. Why did he do this? First, you can never be pro gay anything on the Fox Network. Since Fox is controlled by Rupert Murdoch who is a devout Christian and major Bush supporter, so being pro gay anything aside for there banishment from America would go against the views of the owner, and if you want to keep your job you better watch what you say on a Christian network. Secondly, Fox is constantly accused with good reason of being conservative, so when O’Reilly said he is could not care less what gays do it was the closest thing to a Fox anchor having a liberal view.
I also found the wording O’Reilly used to be very interesting, He said if gays could legally get married then what has to stop someone from polygamy or marrying a duck. Now why did he say polygamy or marry a duck, since he said polygamy he should have said bestiality to be consistent. This answer is very simple; rhetoric is the ability to use language effectively and is often used in propaganda. When O’Reilly says polygamy it doesn’t really stick in person’s head because most people don’t know what it means and its not looked at as such bad thing in country that has many people having affairs. However, when he said duck what was the first reaction someone has to that? I would assume nausea that is why it sticks in the viewers head after the debate. Now every time they see a duck they will think about how absurd it would be to marry it, and then they will think that gay marriage shares the same absurdity.

He then said this in a gay parenting dispute. The woman he was interviewing said that statistics show that a gay couple can parent a child just as well as a heterosexual couple; she had her proof on paper right in front of O’Reilly. However, O’Reilly had a better proof (that was sarcastic): Mother Nature. He said that it is not natural for a child not to have a male parent and a female parent; it is not what mother nature intended for the world. He said that the first two parents were a man and a woman, and that was to be parent mold forever. It is not the norm of society to no not have a male and female figure in their life, therefore this must mean that gays would be worst parents then heterosexuals

This made no sense at all, but it does again show how Fox News is a blatant Christian news network. Now let us look into what he said. He says that it is not what Mother Nature intended, and it is not the norm of society. Well lets first acknowledge the brilliant conclusion and reasoning he brought up, according to him that since something that was not done at the beginning of time isn’t what mother nature intended for.
The conclusion he drew form this was that since the first parents were man and a woman all must be man and woman otherwise they would not be good parents. I found this very hard to understand because there are millions of single parents and millions of what O’Reilly would call “normal parents” who are terrible parents. O’Reilly did not seem to address this whatsoever, but then again when you make up a fact its little hard to prove it. The thing that bothered me most was what I said at the beginning of this paragraph. Who are O’Reilly and Fox News to declare what the normative mold of parenting should be? If they read the bible that is fine but it should not be brought to define what is normal for society. America is a diversified country in their religious beliefs, this is why we have separation of church and state, because it s not fair that a country should decide for its people what their belief in g-d should be. The wonderful results in this are that there is no religious persecution; a person cannot be punished if he goes against his fellow Americans religion, and my favorite is that that our country is run as a secular society. When Fox News or O’Reilly declares a norm of society from the bible, it kills one of the great benefits of the separation of church and state. If the world was, a place was everyone would despise his fellow because his fellow goes against his religious beliefs we would not have a functionally democracy or society. However this is not the concern of the Fox News network, they go by their Christian theory of we are right you are wrong and nothing else, they are slowly killing what was once a fine democracy and it is a horrible thing to watch.
My last example is of when O’Reilly interviewed Michael Moore who was the producer of the documentary Fahrenheit 9/11, among many things in the documentary Michael Moore said that called Bush a lair because there were no weapons of mass destructions found in Iraq. When Moore went on the show the first question O’reilly asked him was that, “You in your movie call Bush a lair, do you think you owe our president an apology?” Moore’s obvious response to this partisan questions was no. He said that Bush said that there were weapons of mass destruction and there no weapons of weapons mass destruction, so we see that bush said something was true and turned out to be untrue, this is a lie.
O’reilly however had a different view on the situation he said that Bush was misinformed so that is not a lie, he then said that since bush didn’t know he was lying it is not a lie, which in Moore responded to as pathological. Then Moore asked O’Reilly his question which was what would you answer to the parents who had their children killed in this war of a lie? O’Reilly said that he would tell them that they died bringing down a dictatorship, but Moore says that is not why we went to war this went back and forth for a while. The last thing they argued about was when Moore asked him if he O’Reilly would sacrifice his children to America for this war, he responded in saying I would sacrifice myself, Moore kept on asking of he would sacrifice his children and O’Reilly said he would sacrifice himself. O’Reilly ended the interview by saying this just shows you that there are two sides to every story, I have my side, you have your side, and we leave it up to the viewers to decide.
Although many things in this interview bothered me such as the evasive answering O’Reilly did and his suggestion that Moore should apologize to the president, one thing particularly wanted me to go to the Fox News station and tell O’Reilly in his famous words to “Shut Up!”
At the end of the interview, he says, “this just shows you that I see the world my way and your see the world your way and we let the audience decide, and that’s the fair way to do it. This as I said earlier is a great way to end it and this is a model in which I think the media should run by, however O’Reilly severely tarnished the deciding part when he commented on the interview.
He said that no matter how good the evidence was that Bush did not lie Moore failed to acknowledge it. He said Moore is a “Bush Hater” and you can never get a “Bush Hater” to admit that Bush did not lie; he says that that is “blind ideology” and blind ideology is never good on either side.

What O’Reilly does here is equal to punching a blind person in the face (good rhetoric? See I did gain form O’Reilly). O’Reilly continued an argument when his opposition was not there, this is completely unfair to his opposition because he cant defend his view if he is not there and it is even more unfair to the viewers of Fox News who’s ability to decide was revoked once O’Reilly re-stated his argument after his opponent was gone.
As O’Reilly said “this just shows you that I see the world my way and your see the world your way and we let the audience decide, and that’s the fair way to do it” When one side is missing and the other side is still said the ability to decide is gone, because you are only being told one thing. Again, this has become the norm of Fox News; they tell you the news and then tell you what they think about it, leaving you with only with their opinion after the broadcast.
Through four examples I gave on the O’Reilly show we can see the failure of Fox News to deliver their slogan and their failure as journalists. Fox News is an advocate of the Republican Party and will use as much propaganda and rhetoric as possible to shape the opinions of their viewers. They pull you in with the cheap gossip stories and then will give you a breaking news story about a Bush speech. As a result of their profit, they cause other networks to imitate their cheap news. Fox News is slowly killing democracy and journalism as we know it and if nothing is done soon by the citizens this problem will grow into one that will not be fixed.

Spin

Orwellian Politics of Spin

In our nation’s capital, the expression “what’s in a name” does not just have an answer, it has entire infrastructures of pollsters, researchers, PR experts, and “name mavens” behind it, why? Simple, because in Washington you are only as good as your last bill is, and your last bill is only as good as people (your constituents) think it is. In order for your constituents to think this policy is good, the trick is to make sure they do not think at all.
This is the objective of my thesis; bills good or bad never really are never prone to objection. Most of the time there names back you into a corner to think any opposition to it is incomprehensible. A lot of the times these names can have great laws inside of them, a lot of the them can have laws that have nothing to do with them, and a lot of the time they can have very laws many people wouldn’t be favor if they knew about them. However most don’t know any of this, what they do know is if they oppose this extremely positive named policy they will look like a very bad person, not only that but even contemplation seems to be a negative given the fact this name is so positive any contemplation over it one can assume you favor the negative. The main point I am trying to make is this, one feeling towards a policy usually is not made based on its substance rather its name, and this is what I will try to prove in my paper.
It is a given that we are in a democracy and one of the wonderful things about a democracy is that although the every citizen is not in office, those who are in office must cater to what the citizens want, if they do not accord with the citizens desires than the citizens of that country will not re-elect them. This is a firm belief in our American democracy, and why shouldn’t it be? We live in a democracy.
However, this is a very common and naive belief of the majority opinion in America. This belief is naive because these politicians like anyone else in America need money to get and stay where they are, if they stray away from their big backers than they do not get any campaigning money for the next re-election. Sometimes it is just selfish, a politician may be very much in favor of a policy and needs a way to make everyone else in favor of this policy, either way in both positions these two categories must find a way to please two different peoples with the same thing.
How do they do this? Can politicians survive without catering towards the public? Moreover, even if they do, how do they make sure their constituents like their legislative activities? What if the citizens do not want what his backers or what he wants? How do our politicians choose whom to displease?
Fortunately, for our politicians they have figured out a way to get both. Politicians have realized that if they think of a name that will please the eyes than they can put whatever they want in the policy itself. Using this crafted talk and coercive bill naming, politicians do not need do be controlled by anyone but themselves and there backers. They just need a happy name that will immediately make the common person think of it in terms of good and bad, once this limited thought processes is induced it is very uncommon one will choose the bad.
In his classic book “1984” by George Orwell, he refers/coins a new term called “Doublethink”. “Doublethink” is onomatopoetic linguistics at its finest. “Doublethink” is when one believes two contradictory beliefs for the sake of practicality or sanity. The next famous term he coins is called “Newspeak”, which in short was a new English language that would trim down every word and its synonyms, verbs, nouns, to make it in its simplest form.
In Orwell’s essay, “politics and the English language” he referenced several critiques on politician’s speeches and writings that lead to an ultimate misunderstanding. In the famous critique he said that modern day writers are too lazy to put in the work to provide sufficient understanding, therefore they use metaphors and big words leaving the reader with a distorted simplistic understanding/interpretation of the text.
I have always felt that the term “Doublespeak” stemmed from these ideas mentioned by Orwell, “doublespeak” is the art of making a phrase to hide or misrepresent its real meaning. It is a tool commonly used by governments, militaries, business, even people in normal conversation.
Being the fact that my father worked in advertising I grew up with “Doublespeak”, my father would always be thinking of names and/or a product message that would give it a deceiving edge. After he would come up with the winning name, he would laugh when he heard his friends boasting that they got the “EB Model TV” which only meant extra brightness.
I understood how this kind of system works rather well given my background, but applying it anywhere else was unthinkable. This conviction as many are in life was very off base, through out time there have been many bills passed by politicians that have very unobjectionable policy names that disguise it’s real meaning, the government knows that a good name for a bill means the average citizen will assume the bill is good and emulates its title. Because of this naivety of the American citizens, politicians have special groups to name bills, and have actually gotten very creative with word acronyms too, the result of this are bills such us the “Partial Birth Abortion Act”, “The Patriot Act”, “The No Children Left Behind Act”, “The Clear Skies Initiative” and much more.
In my opinion the greatest strength of these positive policy names is not the way it disguises the policies true meaning, rather it is in limited amount of emotions it evokes, The name of the bill must able to evoke an emotion that is a hundred percent positive or negative. If a policy name fails to do this, than no matter how irrelevant its name is to its content it has failed its purpose.
To reiterate what I said earlier more in depth, the reason why limited emotions towards a policy name are so crucial, is because to have a successful deception of perception, the name must trigger the common citizen to have a simplistic but logical, harsh response to any opposition to the policy. Whether he/she thinks it , is convinced by friend , or merely overhears it in a conversation from far, the immediate thought a constituent must have when hears opposition must be that they are bad and this is good, no middle ground, positive or negative.
Here are some policy names that are great examples of the desired reaction to policies and their oppositions to them, by those who name them.
The first policy example I will give is the ever so famous (another proof to Orwell’s 1984 prophecy: Big Brother!) . “The Patriot Act”, If one opposed this bill which was passed a little over a month after 9/11, they were sure victim to a response along these lines of this, “How could you oppose this bill, Are you not a patriot? If your not a patriot then you must be a terrorist! Another example is the “Clear Skies Act”. If one opposed this policy, a response such as this would be his inevitable destiny, “Do you not want clear skies, this policy is cleaning the pollution in the sky, and how could you oppose this! Another example is the “No Children Left behind Act”, Do you want to leave behind the children, what kind of person are you?
(It very much disturbs me to be able to give the lead in that will end this paragraph of examples, but it’s the best way to do it) There are many other examples I could give (that was the disturbing part) that show this, but the point was proven after the first policy example, the rest were just for emphatic purposes , but just in case I will reiterate this point more simply(if that’s possible). The most important part to this name is emotion it gives off to the common person, the bill is more contingent on the person feeling positive towards the goal of the policy and/or have a negative feeling to what this bill is trying to stop. A “gut-check” reaction is what they want because it lacks any serious thought and has a quick decision.
With names like these, it makes it very easy to get favorable public opinion on any policy because the public does not know enough to realize that the name might not mean the bill. In this paper, I intend to prove this theory, and the reason why its so damaging to our already not so strong democracy.
Not only is it a threat but it salts an already very bad wound in our country; political participation. It is widely known that many Americans know very little or nothing about politics, this is bad because less people participate in a system that is contingent on participation. Nevertheless, it is not so terrible because they don’t know anything and don’t bother anyone, they don’t vote or protest , they know nothing and couldn’t care less, partly because of apathy and partly because it is a major pain to keep up with politics.
However in nowadays with all the technology out there, one can say we live in a heuristic crazed society, everyone ones to know “what’s what” as fast as possible. Now this “uninformed majority” are slowly changing into a misinformed majority, simply because they realize in a society filled with shortcuts how easy it is to “know what’s going on”. This is very scary in my opinion, because it was once that they did not care and were non-factors to politicians. Now politicians take advantage of this heuristic crazed society, and unobjectionable bill names are more common than ever, even for bills that are good. They have make a these name so that citizens can formulate a political opinion with in a matter of seconds, all they have to see the name of the policy and without really even thinking about it they make a strong conviction whether it is good or bad.
Aside for the quick decision policy opinion American’s have grown accustomed to being a major problem, these names are very troublesome to me for another reason. This other reason is an effect of the my first problem but is still a major problem in its own right, when one makes such a quick decision based on a positive or negative name officially its their decision but essentially it is not at all their opinion. Their decision is like a reflex, similar to when the doctor hits you on the knee and your leg pops up. You see the name and given its strong negative/positive rhetoric, that is the one most will align with.
I am not so sure what it means for our democracies future, but I do know that if people do not start actually knowing what they are in favor of one day the repercussions will be significant. In this paper, I will show this problem my giving direct examples from the policy names themselves.
The way I will prove this naming issue is by giving three different policy names , all have obviously have different laws in them, but all three have a common way achieving their goal of favorable public opinion. The first step I will take with each policy is by giving a clear systematic analysis, in this analysis, I will first describe the purpose of the bill, and then I will give its negatives and positives (if there are any). To make it all come together I will end the thorough analysis by explaining how the particular name gives a “knee jerk reaction” to a certain negative or positive emotion and how it hides the negatives that would destroy the policies public perception if widely publicized. After each policy’s analysis, I will present an interview I had with either friends or family. The purpose of this interview is to prove my analysis of the policy I just gave correct, by showing how it affects the common American.
In this interview, I gave them the name of he policy that was previously analyzed and ask them to tell me what is the purpose of this bill and whether or not they approve. After they tell me their perception, I tell them the real meaning of the bill, and the reason for its deceiving name. The results I have to admit were quit funny at first but the humor quickly diminished when I once again realized the eventual consequence of these coercive names that scare me so much, Americans are slowly losing any real say they had in public policy, and don’t even know it.
The first bill I will analyze is “The Partial Birth Abortion Ban”. Before I explain this bill, I feel it is necessary to give a quick overview to the abortion issue in America. Ever since it was put on the table in the early seventies , Abortion has been a hot button issue that has waylaid many a political career.
If this were ever turned into a Broadway musical, the stars would be “Pro-Life” and (actually “versus” is a better description”) “Pro Choice”. “Pro Choice” is called that because that’s precisely what they are about—a woman’s right to chose what happens to her body. Choice is at the very core of our democracy. This country was founded on an electoral process that gives people the right to choose their “rulers”. Given the strong “American” message associated with “Pro Choice”, the immediate question becomes; “What will the right do to counter (spin opinion their way) a message as strong as that? Clearly they can’t call themselves “Anti Choice” or “No Choice”.
Fortunately thanks to their “spin-meisters” working overtime (they actually do have them and it comes out of your tax dollars) they didn’t have to. Anti Choice became “Pro-Life”— the term usually associated with religious extremists or as their also known members of the Republican Party.
As this group feels a baby is its own person, aborting it is prohibited based on the biblical ban on murder. They also leverage this by combining it with their legendary staunch position against contraception. Why? To prohibit pre-marital relations.
“Pro Choice” counter’s this altruistic “Pro life” position by pointing out a baby isn’t until it leaves the womb—especially during the first 2 trimesters when its not even fully formed, In short, “Pro Life’s” baby is “Pro Choice’s” “Fetus”. As this fetus happens to reside in the woman, it should be her choice to determine its “future” as its part of her body. Case in point, if the fetus did somehow detach from the umbilical cord, it would die.
Thanks to the groundbreaking case known as Roe Vs Wade, “Pro Choice” was leading this debate for quite a while, but this was no longer the case with he enactment of this new policy. As a good Christian, Mr. Bush was never a fan of the “Pro-Choice” mindset—as to him its killing and killing is wrong.
With a name like “Partial Birth” it brings to mind images of unborn babies—not developing, often unidentifiable fetuses, but actual babies, and while we American’s may be dubious with regards to killing suspected terrorists and their neighbors, we’re very protective when it comes to our babies.
Now the Republican Religious Conservative right will be quick to point out that the PBAB only takes effect after the second trimester, which begins in the eighteenth week of a pregnancy. If a doctor performs an abortion any time after this point he will be given a jail sentence because it seems that the woman has reached the point of no return with her body. They will also point out that this “protects” the majority of abortions as they take place in the first trimester.
Though they will conveniently neglect to mention that it abandons woman who for whatever reason (economic, psychological, un-educated) missed the first trimester cutoff. Because of this new ban, these women lose the ability to choose to have an abortion.
What would be the public opinion if this bill were called “the second trimester abortion ban” or “The abortion ban of all fetuses’ in their 18th week and on”, would it be as favorable, would the decision be so quick, I seriously doubt. When the “knee jerk reaction” is taken out of the name, it does not necessarily change ones opinion but it defiantly adds a thought process to it deeper then the policy being good or bad.
To prove this I interviewed a friend of mine who happens to be pro-choice, his name is Aaron Konstam. I asked Aaron if he was in favor of this ban, than I asked him what he actually thinks this (partial birth) bill means. Aaron said he was in favor of this bill because the baby is clearly almost alive, he told me partial birth is “like in the last month, what kind of sick person would abort a baby in the ninth month!, I know your liberal but have some limits man!!”.
As Aaron is a very “analytical” type, I pegged him as someone capable of seeing through this “smokescreen”, and while he did not, he did see my point once I explained the reality of the situation to him
First, he apologized for calling me a sick liberal, and then he said, “If I had known that partial birth meant a fetus, of course I would be against it. Why would they call it “partial birth”? When it’s such a loose yet harsh term, nobody would think it means a fetus!” Who is going to think that’s actually a fetus?”
Once I clarified things for Aaron, and he had a better understanding, he was pleased to be enlightened about the specific policy naming, but he told me that he was rather dissatisfied that he cannot just look at bill names anymore and get the same immediate simple understanding. Now if he wants to get a clear understanding of the policy he might have to actually research.
The next bill that I will present is the “No Child Left Behind Act”, what this policy does is stress accountability. The children will be tested in their English and Math skills once every year, these tests will be given to every child in every school. If a school is deemed a failing school certain revisions will be made, if a child is failing in one of these “failing schools “ for two years, then this child’s parents will have the option to send their child to a higher level school in another district, all transportation and tutors will be taken care of by the government. Another addition to this accountability idea is by making reforms on the teachers, this makes the teachers take certain state tests in order to qualify for the job, they also all must have certain masters and BA’s in any topic they teach.
Aside for the fact that very little money has been given to this reform, in my opinion the whole problem started from the name. This Bill was made as a responsive deterrence to the age-old education problem in America, Bush said that it was his greatest priority during his first presidential campaign and was a big plus in his public perception.
I have to honestly say that all in all the whole idea of setting a standard academic level for all states to maintain isn’t the worst idea I have ever heard in my life, but at least give it a name that somewhat resembles the policy. The name “The No Child Left Behind Act” make any incumbent look like a hero for make such a legislation, furthermore can you imagine saying “I don’t support the no child left behind act” its social suicide, people would think you hate children, or don’t care about the underprivileged America ect… Maybe if they looked at the policy and your reasoning based on this policies reforms one would not be subject to such harsh response when opposing such a name, for example if the policy was called the “ Student accountability act”, I don’t think such a quick opinion can formed.
This is best shown in this next interview; I made a call to my Uncle Menachem Ash who is corporate lawyer for a company called IDT. I asked him very simply do you have any idea what this Policy means and are you in favor of it? He said to me “how stupid do you think I am? This bill simply means that the government will give more money to schools so that teachers put an emphasis in children going to college and funding tutors for children who cannot afford them. They will take kids off the streets and put them in classrooms, by making more after school programs and getting involved in the children’s lives who do not have it so easy at home. You thought I didn’t know what this meant, its one of the major reasons why I voted for Bush”. I really could not gloat here because I was fooled the same way as he was maybe worse. When I told him what it does he asked me; “What is so good about that bill, I wouldn’t want it, they should be spending money to create better academic options for underprivileged children who do not excel in school, not give them tests to show that they are failing, I already know this.”
Clearly my uncles feeling towards the bill changed dramatically and maybe it would have effected his voted for, who knows. But I do know that this bill gives off a much better impression of what it is able to do than what it actually does, and that it only gives off one impression, which makes the public think that anything against it is not different but bad.
This next policy I will present is called the “Defending America's Most Vulnerable: Safe Access to Drug Treatment and Child Protection Act of 2005”, it was not passed, but its name is great example for the purposes of this paper. This Bill has so many subsections of law that a paper itself can be written on them, given the fact that this paper is not for a purpose of such I will Highlight a couple of the laws I felt were quit interesting.
The first provision is that if a person is in the observer of drug use and does not report he will be subject to a two-year term in jail. If someone gives drugs to a previous offender even if he is un-aware that this person is a previous offender, he can be subject to a five-year jail sentence. In addition to these laws, the bill lengthens sentences of previous drug restrictions significantly.
On the other hand, it has many obvious positive laws against drug dealers, and even harsher punishments for those who deal in drug free school zones. It also gives elongated sentences to those who deal drugs to minors, or employ them to deal drugs.
Though with a name like this it has a certain defense to its opposition that is so strong that most cannot even thing to utter a word against it, for example; Do you not want to defend Americas most vulnerable? A name like this makes it almost impossible to oppose, therefore only leaving one option, which is to align with the policy, because this is not the kind of name one wants to say he/she opposes.
Now although this policy has many laws that come down very strict on those who deal drugs, it also puts many Americans in a position they would choose not be. I know I would not want to be responsible for reporting a drug user to the authorities, maybe if it was a dealer but even that, it is not my job to catch the bad guys and I not should be penalized for not doing so, however this requirement would be put on many and most with out even knowing.
A better example would be this, lets say a parent catches his child shooting up heroin, I have a very strong conviction this parent would much rather send his child to rehab then to jail, but if he doesn’t he goes to jail, maybe they can go together. I am not saying that these extra requirements would one hundred percent change ones opinion on whether or not they are in favor of this bill, but giving this information certainly gives one more options relative to their previous choice which was; do you want to protect the children from drugs? The answer to this question was either yes or no, and nobody wants to be the “drug dealer” who says no, would all these people say they are in favor of this bill as fast if they actually knew something about the policy other than it protecting children from drugs?
To prove my point I asked someone who cares very much about protecting her children from drugs, my mother. I asked her very simply if she knows the definition of this bill, and if she is in favor of it? She answered “The name is a little unspecific, but I think it means more drug free school zones, and metal detectors in schools, and I certainly want to keep you guys far away from drugs”.
When I told my mother the definition of the bill, and the fact that if she sees someone doing drugs and doesn’t tell she would get arrested, she said “ O wow, a bonus, I should have told on this person, it’s a good thing they add in these kind of things into the bills”, my father quickly interjected “What! I am not going to jail if you smoke! I didn’t do anything!”
As I said before not everybody would change his or her minds, but some definitely would, and that really makes you think. What kind of policies would be made if the majority of the public would actually look beyond the name? What kind of name would they have, what would happen to incumbents who bank on these bill names to make everyone happy?


From these three policies that I have presented, and analysis of the issue, it shows a very clear and scary norm for policy making, which is that the less the public knows and thinks about the policy, the more they likely they are to be in favor of the policy. It is never easy for a politician to list all of his/her incentives in a policy to the public, because they might not approve of it, and not approving of the policy leads to the ultimate consequence of public not approving of them come re-election time, thus resulting in these strong names.
The language of these bills has erased the original norm of democracy, which once meant politicians making policies that are in accordance to that of the public. Now they make policies that accord with them that have names that accord with the public and I don’t want to sound pessimistic, but I don’t believe there is any real solution to this. Other than the public becoming citizens that are more informed, which is unlikely in our heuristic crazed society, Americans have no defense against this. This sheds light onto the tragedy I mentioned in the beginning, which sounds more clear and sensible now. With this recent increase of policy names that give no room for opposition, the only choice is left is to support this bill, and it is just so easy the former uninformed citizen has evolved into a misinformed citizen. The problem with this is that, when the same people are misinforming you, they are essentially controlling you.







Bibliography

While many of these sources were not directly used in a reference way, they all helped me formulate my thesis, my analysis, and my view regarding political spin/rhetoric/propaganda (what is the difference anymore?) as a whole, doing this paper would have been impossible without the way of approaching political spin/rhetoric/propaganda these books gave me, I referred back to many ideas and basics of political spin/rhetoric/propaganda and just rhetoric in general, among other things, so although I may not have directly quoted or referenced these books, they all helped me take the approach I did.
Works Cited
Goodrum, Charles, and Helen Dalrymple. Advertising in America; the First 200 Years:. 1st ed. Vol. 1. New York: Harry N Abrams Inc, 1990. 1-288.
Govtrack. government. 16 Apr. 2007 .
Lippmann, Walter. Public Opinion. 3RD ed. Vol. 1. New York: Free P, 1965. 1-222.
Martin, : David N. Romancing the Brand. 1st ed. Vol. 1. New York: American Management Association, 1989. 1-215.
Orwell, George. 1984. Large Print Edition ed. Vol. 1. New York: Ulverscroft Large Print, 1985. 1-428.
Orwell, George. "George Orwell, "Politics and the English Language," 1946." Mtholyoke. 14 Apr. 2007 .
O’shaughnessy, Nicholas J. Politics and Propaganda:. The University of Michigan Press Edition ed. Vol. 1. Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan P, 2004. 1-264.
Shapiro, Robert Y., and Lawrence R. Jacobs. Politicians Dont Pander: Political Manipulation and the Loss of Democratoc Responsiveness. 1st ed. Vol. 1. Chicago: University of Chicago P, 2000. 1-425.
Yankelovich, Daniel. "Pols and Polls." Editorial. The American Prospect 1 Sept. 2000: 1-4.
Young, Frank H. Technique of Advertising Layout. 2nd ed. Vol. 1. New York: Crown, 1947. 1-185.

Outnumbered part 2

Fox News gives their “liberal A “fair fight”

Outnumbered!! Part 1

Fox News gives their “liberal A “fair fight”

My Media (final exam)

The core definition of “Media” stems from the word “medium”. Medium is defined as “the state or condition of being in the middle”.

Based on this, the definition of media should be “a means of unbiased communication”. Ideally, the media should receive its information from a source or sources and relay it to the people. All three elements of this triangle affect each other in an infinite sort of way.

The source, which in this case is the government, depends on the citizens who in this triangle are the people because it is they who choose to be in their position. The government affects the people because they are appointed to by them to govern them. The media effects the government because they choose how they will relay their information, the government affects the media because the government chooses what they will tell them.

The media then affects the people because the media chooses what information, and how to say it. Conversely, the people affect the media because they are the audience and without them, the media would not exist. The news reported by the media depends on what the people want to hear and see. This means that the media has to relay news that will be of interest to its viewers, so in a sense we control what we watch.

This definition and analysis can best explain the six models that were given by Leighley and Tocqueville.

The first model of the media that I would like to talk about is the Profit Seeker model. The Profit Seeker model is to relay news that is of interest to the public, because if the public enjoys what they are watching then the ratings will go up. When the ratings go up, they can charge advertisers to pay more for a commercial on the show.

What does all this mean? The shareholders profit from the money that the advertisers are paying to be on the show and all that money makes a happy shareholder. This is how the Profit Seeker works through the infinite triangle. Since the people are number one on the agenda, the source of the media will be whatever is most interesting to its viewers. If the government is the most interesting topic at the time, then that will be the news for the day. The quote “if it bleeds it leads” is a great example of how this model worked in the nineties. Although crime rates were going down, the media would continue to report on crime and give the audience the impression that the crime problem in America was only getting worse.

The result of this was many excessive police actions (mostly out of paranoia) to calm the public down, such as an increase in security. The triangle here again was quit evident, crime is proven to interest viewers, so now the media has to show crime as often as possible to increase ratings, since crime is so “top of mind” with viewers, the government has to respond with increased security and searches.


The second model of the media is the Propagandist model. The simplistic definition of propaganda is information that is spread to promote a cause, opinion, or goal. The Propagandist model of the media is to be a the puppet of those who are in power, their job is to not only gain profit for their share holders but also to communicate that their political and economic viewpoint(s) are the right one-- at any cost even if it is journalism. This is why Fox News imitates the tactics of the famous Nazi propagandists Goebbels, one of his main ideas was that less substance in order to promote the party, an uninformed citizen is easier to manipulate.

I will explain the issues of Fox News in depth later, but for now, I will use Fox News as an example of the Propaganda model. Fox News’ owner Rupert Murdoch is a huge Republican, and a major supporter of the Bush administration, and many times Fox News serves as a “pulpit” for Bush.

For example during the 2004 elections, Fox News wouldn’t say two hundred days until the election, rather they would say two hundred days until Bush gets re-elected—implying the Bush re-election was a given. Another thing they would do is bas his opponent John Kerry for almost anything, as shown in this video (all though the guy is a conservative he doesn’t realize that a networks aren’t supposed to do negative campaigning)! Fox Prop

In this model the triangle is interesting, because the source and media are not that far apart. The government needs certain messages communicated so that their party will get re-elected. The share shareholders give the media talking points that will make the government look good (what to say ). The media then says what the government “asks” them to in a way that will cause the people to re-elect their party’s candidate. For the media outlet, the payback for this usually comes in the form of preferential access to officials.

The Neutral Adversary is the third model. This is when the media does not take sides but they give the government the feeling that they are being watched. This model presents the story without any bias. As they do give both sides of the story, this can keep the government in check because they know a public who is aware of all the facts, so they had better tell us the truth would look at them. This is extra costly because on top of the research of the story itself, they have to pay for all the extra resources. My fellow classmate Sam Roka (Sam) gave a fine example of this in one of his posts.

He wrote about how a reporter form the Washington post Thomas E Ricks( article ) wrote an article about sending more troops to Iraq, but he didn’t just say that America was going to send more troops he listed three options. The first was to send more troops right away, the second was to send more troops in a long-term fashion, and the third was a complete withdrawal from Iraq.

This was just fine journalism. It gave you the story with enough information for the reader to draw his/her own conclusion from it. The way this works through the infinite triangle is as follows;

The media and the people want the government to tell the truth. The media gets the story from the government, and then presents the story of the government but with enough information to draw their own conclusion from the government; this makes the government extra careful with what they say, because it is easier for people to realize wrongdoing.

The Public Advocate is the third model. This is a step up from the Neutral Adversary, it is similar to the Neutral Adversary in the sense that it wants its audience to be knowledgeable, but it differs in the fact that the Public Advocate counts on the public to respond—not just read..

This model relays both sides of the story. Then they communicate what they think is wrong about it. The Public Advocate model acts as “activist for the people” as Leighley says’ “If the people can’t get their voice heard, then the media will make it be heard. Furthermore since it is a goal to be engaging with the people they will sometimes even use citizens as sources, this way the people feel even more involved and may be sparked to debate or protest “

This media unlike the other models usually must be self-funded, in order not to be influenced by outside agendas. With a freedom, anything can be said or debated because they fund themselves, and are not afraid to offend a sponsor because they do not have any. An example of this form would be from Dan Gillmor’s blog, in one of his introductions (Gillmor ).

In short, Dan Gillmor was reporting an announcement by a Chief Executive of the regional telephone giant Qwest, in the middle of his speech, Gillmor got a piece of news emailed to him by someone who followed his blog. He informed him that this executive had cashed in two hundred million dollars of his company’s stock while it was going down. It is easy to imagine how the press conference went after that.

This really shows us how infinite this triangle really can be. The people told the media the news, then the media asked the source about the news, then the source created updated news and the media relayed this to the public.

The fifth model is The Objective Fact model. This model also stems from its core definition. “Objective” is derived from the word “object”, which when defined as a noun means anything visible or tangible, and is relatively stable in form. Objectives when defined as an adjective, means, “not influenced by anything”.

Your opinion is like an object, and now we can clearly define the Objective Fact model. This model requires your opinion to be unaffected by the news given to you, so that you can form an opinion on your own, in order to have your own opinion the media must give you news that is completely un-tarnished and includes all details of whatever happened.

An example of this would be C-Span, they just state the facts and list all the details. This works through the infinite triangle in the way it’s supposed to. Government provides facts to the media, the media sticks with the facts, and then the audience takes the fact and decides how to react to it-- without the addition of anybody’s agendas and with every detail.


The sixth model is the Alexis de Tocqueville model (Tocqueville). He says that the news should be presented broadly in a form that is accessible to everyone. The news should be put into the simplest explanation possible right on your doorstep. You should be informed with out having to make the news a main part of your life.

Just as the government sends, you tax information they should send you the news everyday. The citizen must be informed and then can choose whether or not he wants to, take action on the news that was just given to him. However, whatever he chooses to do, the stress is on being informed. The reason why the stress is on this is that one the cornerstone’s of a democratic society is that the citizens have the right choose their government.

If the citizen is not informed, then he does not have the opportunity to formulate an opinion. An example of this would be a local newspaper that was given out free, all it says is what happened that day and that’s it, the people know what’s going on and they can decide to decide, but it was available and that’s all that matters.

According to Tocqueville, the triangle needs to be existent in a similar way to that of Objective Fact. Tocqueville says unlike Objective Fact because he says that news must be relayed in a simple to the point form and that it is our duty as citizens to know what is going on. That the requirement of the media is to give us just enough information to make a conscious decision whether or not we want to be involved in politics, but we must get the news given to us in the simplest way possible, so that we can have the ability to make this decision.

All these models have their strong points and their weak points, to choose one that I felt represents the media today, I had to see what I like and disliked about each model, only then could I choose which one should be the model of the media.

The Profit Seeker model is good in the sense that its central motive is to please the people so that ratings will rise and as a result so will profit. Since its main purpose is to make money they must keep its audience happy, the Profit Seeker model is a slave to the people. However, its strength is also its weakness, since its goal is to please the people then once they find out what their consumer prefers they will only give similar news stories to this and never give anything different because of the risk of losing profit. Therefore, I could not choose this Model—even though it is the most “authentic”

The Propagandist model in my opinion has no strong point whatsoever, if the news is trying to convince us to do believe something rather then let us decide on our own, they are taking away our democracy. News opinions should never be forced on to a person, nor should they be distorted when given to the citizen. It should be create by a person. This is why I could not choose this model.

Public Advocate I couldn’t choose either for the same reasons as propaganda. I don’t like that an opinion is being given to a person as the “correct opinion”, and I don’t like that this model sort of gives you the need to react. Although its activism is good and so is its agenda, I think that someone opinion on the government must be formed in his own, and not told to him by someone else. When one has an opinion regarding politics he should be able to explain it and most importantly defend it, forcing an anti Bush opinion is just as bad as forcing a Bush opinion.

This brings me to Objective Fact. At first my ideal model, but I am a realist not an idealist. Would it be nice for a reporter just to say what happened in the news with only the facts and with total objectivity? Yes. Nevertheless, this is impossible, because everyone has their own way of explaining/interpreting something, and it is very hard to say just what happened and without showing a little bias towards a side and it is even harder to include every fact.

The only way to really achieve this Objective Fact goal would be to read the entire transcript on C-Span, which most people today will not do. Objective Fact would be great, if it was available in an easier way but it is not and that is why I did not choose Objective Fact.

This is why I have chosen a “hybrid” of two models. I call this “mutant model” The Tocqueville Neutral Adversary model. What is great about putting these two together is that we can achieve Fox News’ ironic slogan “We Report You Decide” or as Huggy Bear said in Starsky and Hutch “Yo I lay it out for y’all to play it out”.

As I said before, it is impossible to have Objective Fact, but it is not possible for someone to report without being accused of “leaning towards” one side, and lists all the details of it. This is how I came to my “mutant model”. If everyone gets the news with both opinions in a truly “to the point” sort of way, then they can formulate their own opinion on the subject, if they want and if they do not then they do not have to.

The objective problem is gone because although there is a bias towards one side, the reporter lists the other side equally. This way a citizen can be properly informed and then if he/she wants, can formulate their own opinion on the matter. Then chose whether to be a Public Advocate

Today’s Mass Media has in my opinion utterly failed to achieve this standard. To understand this failure, I will have to digress into a brief history lesson that was given in Robert McChesney in his book “The Problem of The Media”.

The Bill of Rights (Bill of Rights ) specifically and un-specifically shape and created a blue print for our media system and its policies. Many politicians understood the importance and potential of the media such as Madison and Jefferson, here are three constitutional provisions that show this.

In Article 1 Section 8 it authorizes Congress to establish the copyright , the reason why the copyright law was established was “To progress of science and useful arts”.



The original fear of a writer was this theory; If I steal your soda then you lose something tangible, but if I copy your writing, what exactly do you lose as I wouldn’t buy it anyways?

The fear of this would have given the writers a lack of motivation to write because everything that they write would be stolen pr plagiarized. This is why it says “for the progress”, because now the writers can give society intellect and different views. McChesney says that it is very hard to imagine how many publishing and media industries would not have existed if it without this copy write protection.

The next one is the First Amendment, which is free speech . This obviously is open for a very wide interpretation. Many people like to live and die by this amendment, and it has struck much controversy in the forming of the media and in today’s mass media and new media culture.

Many people equate free speech with freedom of the press, if the government cannot penalize speech, and then neither should the “speech of the media”. This like everything can be used in a good way and bad way. If free speech would be used in the media to report whatever is happening that day, even if it is a negative issue about the government then that would be proper use.

However if it will be used by the press as an excuse for utter unaccountable freedom which would give them the right to only pose a partisan opinion and then advocate for it, then I would have to say I am not down with that.

Historians say that the first amendment was created because of a popular opposition to the antidemocratic nature of the government at the time. This is why when Jefferson became President he got Samuel Harrison Smith to create a newspaper unlike the present partisan one at the time.

The Right “to establish offices and Post Roads” was another monumental component in establishing the role of the media in the constitution. In 1792, there was a debate about how much to charge newspapers to be sent through the mail. All the parties agreed that the newspapers should be sent at a cost well below that of normal mail and the government should subsidize that it, this was to encourage the production and distribution of newspapers. Because as Tocqueville said’ “An informed citizen is one of the cores of democracy” The debate was whether or not these newspapers should be free of postal charge and not just subsidized. Benjamin Bache said that any postal charges for the newspapers would open the door to commercial pressures. James Madison wrote to Jefferson that even a token fee for postage was a “tax” on newspapers and a forerunner for something worse. When the telegraph was invented ,a similar theory of it being a government monopoly like the postal system was brought up. However, at the end of the Civil War it had become a competitive market. Thus began an age of commercialization, competition, and monopolization of the media

These three excerpts from the Bill of Rights can explain perfectly how media should work through my standard; it should be given to everybody in a tax-free way free of any commercialization, with a detailed report of what happened. The Neutral Adversary part I rather added in through the liberties of “free speech”, but nevertheless we see that the news was meant to be free of any particular partisan opinion in order for a democracy to function.

Unfortunately, the media of today does not value these three in the correct way. The media is not something that is subsidized by the government and works through a few of the models that I have listed, mainly the Profit Seeker and Propagandist models.

Today most news organizations are owned primarily by six corporations(link), this leads to many problems, because in general, a corporation just owns one form of the media but now corporations own many types of media (news papers magazines radio etc….).

When you have this kind ownership of these six corporations in control( the 6), it eliminates a very important thing, diversity in the media. When you have six corporations who monopolize the news industry, it means that you will only really have one different voice in the news. It is nearly impossible for an independent cable company to succeed in this world, to quote Ted Turner, “ the days of starting up a cable television network or trying to do it from outside the media business are over. It’s almost impossible”.

Another disturbing factor in this is Fox News, which is owned by News Corporation. If you add up all the media outlets that News corporations owns (courtesy of “OUTFOXED") their estimated audience is around 4.3 billion, the view of fox news is the same view as the rest of their media outlets. 4.3 billion People all getting the same conservative opinion is very scary and disturbing.

Another problem with today’s media is that they are all Profit Seekers, as most people are who have jobs. The media’s goal is to maximize profits; this makes it a competitive market because who ever gains a better audience gets the big money advertisers, which equals an increase in profits.

There are several consequences in this model, the first one is the substance that is being put on the news and the way that it is being put on. The media’s main interest is to gain a wide audience, how do they gain a wide audience? The definition of news as quoted by Jack Fuller in Leighley is “the reports of what has recently been learned about matters of some significance or interest to the specific community that news organization serves”.

Media has taken tips from television for this, it is widely known that a very popular thing to watch in television in America is violence sex and drama, so the media tries to give the news regarding these interests and putting them in certain forms to gain a greater audience. For example this why you see a headline’s of Lindsay Lohan breaking a nail at night club, rather then a story about social security policy. The media has figured out the publics main interests and have been exploiting them ever since. The little control the people had over the media has evaporated even more and because the media knows what kind of things their public likes, they don’t run anything that won’t gain those ratings.

This also affects the way the news is being presented. For example, today when you watch a news broadcast, many of the stories will be short, there are many graphics used to keep the audience focused, and the media choose the order based on “buzz words” and popularity. This media sets the agenda of what is deemed important and what is not, this is why during the mid-term elections many people did not even know they were going on, however they did know that Britney dumped K-Fed.

Another issue with this Profit Seeker model is that on top of the media already being controlled by the interest of their owner, and all the things that are part of his corporation, their advertisers ultimately control the media.

The media would like to keep their advertisers happy, therefore will do whatever they have to in order to keep them. For example if Coke was one of CNN’s top advertisers, CNN would probably NOT run a hard hitting story on the negative effects of soda to your body, because it would not be of interest to their advertiser.

It gets even worse when sponsors will cancel advertising, if the anchor of a news broadcast is pro-gay marriage, the sponsors product is something wholesome, and “family oriented”

Another issue is one brought up by the Daily show’s John Stewart during his appearance on CNN’s Crossfire (Stewart's plea). John Stewart’s main issue was that this debate on Crossfire was not really a focus on political issues but rather a greater focus on the personalities on the debate show. This is very true, most of the political commentators or debaters on television are more known for their personalities than their views. The reason for this is that the more absurd the personality, the more people hate and the more people want to watch him, so that they can criticize him.

My last two issues with today’s media are with Fox News and the coverage during the War on Terror. Rupert Murdoch, who is known to be a very right wing conservative and has always been a huge fan of Bush, owns Fox News.

This reflects on the broadcasts and content of Fox News in major way. When the war on terror began Fox made the constant connections between Saddam and Osama, they also helped create the anthrax fear. Fox said that the terrorists were sending anthrax in our mail, and that it was no longer safe to go outside, Fox said, “we recommend that you do not leave your house”. This created an environment of fear in America and an enemy which gave the Americans the need for a solution to this threat, and who was their hero? Bush.

Fox would put an emphasis on patriotism , and would say that this is a war on terror so if you don’t support it you are supporting terrorism, Are you a terrorist? They put a flag in their slogan, they gave us the impression that the war on terror was like a basket ball game, first were winning ,then were losing, now were making a comeback. There have been times were I have ask myself how many points do we have!!

This patriotic Propagandist approach that Fox took increased ratings, and then made it known to the rest of the media groups that there is money in the flag. This explains why when Bush initially announced war nobody asked him if there was a direct connection between Osama and Saddam, or if he was positive that there were weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.

An effect of this money in the flag concept was when MSNBC canceled Phil Donahue’s program, the reason for this was that NBC claimed that it put a “difficult public face for NBC at a time of war. He seems to delight guests who are anti-war, anti bush and skeptical of the administrations motives”. The fear was that NBC would get a liberal antiwar face during a time were the big money is in the flag.

The worst part of this is that Thomas Jefferson started his news paper to get away from the partisan paper norm, now what was worked on so hard to not exist, is coming back stronger than ever.

These are just a few of the many reason of why I do not think the media has reached my standard or any other decent standard of how the media should run. The media today is in a state of total control by their sponsors and corporate owners. What the media says must be in favor of the beliefs of their shareholder and must not offend their corporate sponsors. This is in not at all Thomas Jefferson intended for the media to be. Although he did famously say ““Were it left to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers, or newspapers without government, I should not hesitate to choose the latter.” I highly doubt he knew the media would be a puppet of the government and a poison to democracy.

Although in a recent post (How are we?) I said that the lack of public in interest in politics has gone down is because these people simply do not care about politics and have discovered interests that gear towards their personalities, I still do not agree with the media’s actions today. My media model is that government should be required to give us the news with both sides of the story; this is my definition of being properly informed. The job of the media is to relay this information in the way that the reader can if he wants to realize that there is a flaw or a problem with what the government said or did. However, my stress was that we must be properly informed, and then it is our choice to pursue interest in it. When there are six major corporations that all have the same republican view, and gives talking points from the boardroom then the citizen is not being properly informed. The citizen is being lied to, tricked, and manipulated, by mass media and as I said are slowly poisoning the great democracy that what created for America.

Now with all these problems in the media today how do we escape corporate control? Is there any hope for our democratic society? What needs to be done? Is there an alternative? Moreover, how do we do it?

These questions are the first steps one must take into destroying today’s era of corporate and commercialized media. If you have a problem with the media say it. Just like the person from the movie the network so famously said, “its time go to the window and say I’m mad I’m angry and I’m not going to take it anymore!”

The people as I said before have a control over the media; however, they just neglect to use it. The reason why this power is being neglected is that the people believe the media does not affect their views and even if the media did affect their views what can they to about it, the average citizen cannot take down these super corporations.

This theory is what causes America to be victims of today’s news media’s propaganda. The statement that the media does not control what I think is correct, but they are the one who relay it to you, with this power they choose how it will be relayed, once they have communicated it to the viewers in the way that they wanted it to be said, the drill it into the viewers. So yes the media cannot tell you how to think but since the give you what to think about they have a role in how you chose to define it and this is very much taken advantage of by mass media.

The second problem that this theory says is a great lead in for the solution to this problem. The opinion is that one person cannot take down a major corporation is most likely correct, but many people can.

This is how new media comes in to play. Ironically, enough what in my opinion-started commercialization of the news has the ability to end or at least minimize it? In the brief history lesson McChesney gave that, I said over and applied for my benefit. I said that a new form of communication (telegraph) ended the government subsidizing the news and lead us into the age that we are in now of corporate commercialization. The solution to this now is very clear, fight fire with fire. Just like a new technology of communication-started commercialization, it can also end it.

In the first chapter of Dan Gillmor’s book (Gillmor1) he explains how the new technologies of today give the audience a new role. This role is now that everyone has the opportunity to be media, we now cannot only watch news, but we can make it. Here are a couple of examples; the camera phone is a perfect one is a major player in this, pictures are a part of journalism and many journalists have expensive professional photographers. It used to be that a camera was a pain because they are too big to carry around and everyone is too lazy to get them developed, it used to be that the only people who consistently carried around cameras were Chinese tourists. Now in an age of camera phones and tiny digital cameras anyone can make new. A perfect example of this was the recent and over covered story of the Michael Richards Racist tirade (My Plea). A member of the audience taped his racist comments on his phone, put it on the internet and it became a national story all because of a member of the audience.

Another major advance in technology is the RSS (Really simple syndication) feed, which give people the option to choose what they are told in their own order. This completely eliminates the power that the media had of choosing what we watch.(agenda setting, priming, framing)

The last example is one that gives the audience a voice. The new voice of the people are called weblog, a weblog is an online journal that someone put up either containing his own thoughts or commenting on though comments of others or even (gasp) Mass Media. This is the new voice and new community, that can actually fit into the model that our founding father of the constitution hoped that media and democracy. Citizens now have the power to change what they are being told if they don’t like it, they now have a voice that is seen by other. The great thing about blogging is that it’s basically free of the threat of commercialization and corporate control that our media is under today.

The reason why the big boys do not affect blogers is that bloger is not in it for the money. A bloger has an idea and wants to get it across, that I his/hers only motive (unless your me and your forced). He is mad and angry and will not take it anymore, blogers have turned into a community, and not just a fad. The people in this community don’t all agree with each others views but they do agree on want point, journalists aren’t the only ones who can get their voice heard and make a difference the people can too. Democracy is coming back with a force!

But who cares what some guy has to say on his stupid blog! It’s just some angry guy ranting away on the internet!!! Many people would say.

This may be true but there are some defenses against this claim, or stereo type. A blog can make difference in a through a single person or through a group. Blogers are a community therefore is they all agree that something is wrong they can change it. This how the uprising of 2003. The uprising of 2003 in a very short was a result of the potential of media cross ownership, this is when one corporation owns several news outlets in one town, further lessening the little diversity we have now. FCC Chairmen Michael Powel wanted to grant access to grant permission to these corporations to expand there monopolies. Fortunately, the people rose up, although these hearings were not on television, they were on the internet, and all the people who knew about this problem were able to discuss it on the internet. This resulted in the citizens actually taking action, they went to hearings, protested, and publicized this problem and its risks. This new activism was successful in its goal and the corporations seeking leniencies with their monopolies were not granted permission to own an entire news outlet of a town.
This was a great example of how blogers united can change something that thing is wrong with our media.

The next one is an example in Gillmor of another positive way to use new media, as actual media! the coverage came from a blogger named Zeyad, whose “Healing Iraq site181” had become an important channel for anyone who wanted to understand how occupied Iraq was faring. His reports were clear correct and drew a large audience because of it. He told this to Gillmor in an email “I was surprised that people would rely on my blog as a source of information together with news,” he told me in an email. “Many of my readers have confessed to me that they check out my blog even before checking out news sites such as CNN, BBC, etc. What I find people more interested in is firsthand accounts of daily life in Iraq, and coming from an Iraqi they give it more credence than if it were coming from western journalists.”

Up until now, new media has been or blog nation has been a work in progress. The informed citizens are doing their part and are writing about issues with that they feel need to be fixed, and sometimes they make a difference. As we saw that new media can even be used as source of news, instead of mass media, but I think that is thinking way far in advance. New media is still in its growing processes and I can’t make an evaluation of it for this reason, I think it has its good things. However it definitely has its bad things, for example trolling problem Gillmor explains in his book, trolling are people who like to mess with bloggers, they will say an opinion just to get spark out of someone. I think that it will take a blogger nation a couple of more years until they are actually taken seriously.

I think that New Media when it becomes a more important part of our media can play a major role in the model that I think the media should be run. The media can be new neutral adversary to complement the model of Tocqueville that I talked about. The news is given to everybody from the media with both opinions so the public can know that they are getting the truth. New Media can serve as a watchdog to the mass media, this way mass media cannot propagandize, distort, set agendas, or do any of the other terrible things that the do now days. I think that a model like this would be a wonderful form, since both sources of information and communication are affected by the citizens to make sure that the democratic dream that was set out for our country stands.

I would like to bid farwell by ending with this video from Robert McChesney.
McChesney press confrence

What Would Gillmor Think?

What Would Gillmor Think?

a tad Inappropriate and provocative but still very funny

The Real Dennis Miller

Las Vegas Dennis Miller Hollywood Theatre at the MGM Grand

Dennis Miller Died and Went to Fox News

Real Free Speech: Dennis Miller on Defeatism About the War

A couple of months ago I made up a very conservative bush supporter, his name was Chris O’Brien and he loved Bush and irrationally came up with reason’s to defend him. I liked Chris and he was a lot of fun to create, however after going on foxnews.com yesterday I realized that he is a real person. Who is Chris O’Brien in real life? Dennis Miller.

I went on foxnews.com yesterday basically out of boredom and saw a Dennis Miller clip and figured I’d watch because I remembered on Saturday night live and on The Dennis Miller Show he was pretty funny. So when I saw that he was on foxnews.com I said to myself this ought to be interesting.

I was right in a sense but not in the way that I hoped. Dennis Miller actually has a spot on Fox news once a week, I knew about this I just didn’t know what he said, in all honesty after his Monday Night Football stint I sort of said I would never watch him again. But I always said everybody deserves a second chance and I remembered Miller in the nineties being pretty liberal, so adding this up I said to myself this would be interesting.

Unfortunately for myself I forgot for a second that this was foxnews.com and liberals don’t really exist in their realm. Dennis Miller talked about the war on terror, saying how we need to “stop whining” and that if we want to win the war on terror that we have to stop being “soft” and “if we don’t fight back our enemy will destroy us”. He fit the mold Orwell article that we read a couple of months ago being the fact that he used a million metaphors which made it very hard to understand. Despite his excessive use of metaphors Miller made his point loud and clear, we went into Iraq to keep our reputation as the strongest country in the world and if we start to wimp out we won’t win the War on Terror.

I found this statement of “winning the war on terror” to be very troubling. I am a competitive macho kind of guy and look at most things in terms of winning and losing. But the war on terror! Come on! The war on terror is a goal, we want terrorism to end. What happens exactly when we beat terror? Does it die? Do we get their territory? I assure you not. I always thought that the war on terror was to prevent similar tragedies to 9/11. I was not aware that it was in terms of winning and losing, nor was I aware that it was to give us as miller said a “Ronnie Lott status” so nobody will go “up the middle on us.

Dennis Miller basically was unheard of after his stint on Monday Night Football, and Foxnews.com has a stellar reputation for being very conservative. I thought that putting Miller’s segment on was an attempt to show us a glimpse of liberalism on their news broadcast. Unfortunately fox news had just used Miller as their puppet, he only says what they want him to say. If you watch his past Free speech segments you will say that he rarely utters a negative word against the president. I think on this segment that I was talking about he even said that Viet Nam was a good thing.

This particularly angers me because now I am feelings fox news’s full effect on all fronts. I thought that after this class fox news wouldn’t get on my nerve’s as much because I wont be as into politics as I am now. I figured one less thing to stress about, but now they not only distort our news but they ruin my comedians.

As I have said in previous blogs I am a fan of standup comedy and love the fact that they can say whatever they want. Dennis Miller used to be a comedian that I liked, but now fox news has paid their way into his routine.

They took a once funny person and smart person and turned him into someone who just isn’t either. It is very clear that Dennis Miller does this for one reason only; money. If I didn’t know better I would have thought this segment came from good old dubya himself. Dennis Miller went from being someone who’s solution to our Palestinian problem was to send them to Vegas, to someone who says that America should keep our troops in Iraq until we win. All I know is that Dennis Miller of the nineties would not have said that.

One of the things I hate more than anything else in the world is someone who thinks that they are funny when they are not all. Dennis Miller has now become that. He is not saying anything absurd anymore, well nothing he thought of at least. If the Hannity and Colmes think something is funny it is very clear that there is a major problem.

I just hope that fox news doesn’t corrupt any more comedians to show their “liberal” side, because in all honesty I really miss the real Dennis Miller and I am scared that if such a hard core lefty could jump ship for a couple of bucks then who’s next? It may be John Stewart, Colbert, Chris Rock, Bobby Slayton or David Chappelle who knows. But the issue must be addressed, now that fox news isn’t just distorting our new they are changing our comedians too, where will they stop?

The Way We Were or The Way We are?

On Monday while we were discussing the recommended readings for class (that all of us read) a voice from the past came back in my head. At the beginning of the semester we had a question.

Are people born uninterested/interested in a topic or are people just not exposed to this topic and if they were then maybe they would be interested in it?

Much of the class said people choose what they like and aren’t just born with a like or a dislike. I thought to raise my hand in class and say how I disagreed with this but I figured without any support for my argument it wouldn’t really stand, think about it, it’s a tough thing just to BS, especially when its like a fourteen on one . So I put my opinion on the question way in back of my head because at the time I just didn’t have a good enough reason for it.

This question marched back into the front of my head on Monday. Their were two articles explaining why political involvement has been decreasing since the late sixties, one was by Markus Prior and one was by Rodrick Hart, I will some each article up in a sentence or two as the doc would say.

Hart says the involvement has decreased because nowadays with so many sources of information (internet, cable, satellite dish) people replace political activism with political knowledge, they feel that since they know so much then it’s as if they are active.

I would like to change what he says a little bit to sprinkle some optimism on this subject. Maybe back then people were more active because they didn’t know as much and anytime a leader of an anti (fill in the blank you can even choose) organization would say “This is bad lets protest” this person would just say yea this is bad and not really know why its bad or why the people who are doing it think its good, he would just it because just knows what the subject is bad but not why or how.

Now when someone protests they make sure they know everything about it until they know it’s truly wrong, therefore activism isn’t as often, but when it happens it is legitimate protest and has a better chance of making a difference, its not quantity its quality.

So we see this lack of activism could be a good thing, because now maybe these protests make a difference as opposed to back in the day when there so many that people just started to ignore them. That’s just an optimistic thought though, and not my main point.

Prior’s reason is contradictory to this but still drives home the same point, he says that back in the sixties or what I like to call the “olden days” their were no remotes (but there was electricity! unbelievable!) and whatever channel you were watching you were stuck with because you didn’t want to get up, so when something about politics came up you’d be to lazy to get up and change the channel. Back in the day political knowledge was forced down your throat; television stations made you watch it. It wasn’t like nowadays that you have (for example) the choice of “Politics or Sports”, back then it was “politics then sports” but not at the same time. Nowadays if something you don’t like is on you can just change the channel if you don’t like it. In really short they both blame the lack of political activism on technology.

I agree with Hart to a certain extent because in a sense all this knowledge that you have does mislead you to think that you are involved, and I will say a little bit of this is blamed on blogging, because instead of people rallying they will just complain online, but hopefully in the near future blogging will be a way of political activism (In Gillmor’s peachy world). Although I do think when he says more political knowledge=less activism he is sort of right. I will explain as the blog continues why I disagree with him.

However I don’t agree with Prior at all, he makes it seem as if people were never interested in politics at all and they just watched it because nothing else was on. He is saying a little different than Hart too, his argument is that people do not want to follow politics anymore therefore they aren’t active. This is contrary to Hart who says that people have a lot of political knowledge, even more then back then, and are not active because they substitute their political activeness with a in depth knowledge of it.

According to Prior the only reason why people watched politics back in the day was because that was the only thing on. I find that a little far fetched, the sole reason for political inactivity isn’t because people can get off the coach now, and the sole reason for political activity wasn’t because they were to lazy to get off the couch. It doesn’t even make sense, there is no way every one didn’t want to get up back then, when ever someone really doesn’t like something if they have the ability to change it he/she does. According to this current decline in political activism and knowledge people really don’t like politics, don’t you think if they really hated politics that much back then they would have changed the channel?

So what exactly resurrected my little voice in my head from mid September and gave me a support for my answer to the question that was asked? It’s rather complicated to explain my thought process but I will try my hardest. When I was thinking about the difference between these two explanations and my issues with them, my reasoning for my answer to it hit me like a ton of bricks. I realized I can combine the two opinions to give better answer for the decline in political activism and knowledge, and by doing this I can explain why I think that the way we are born is why we like and dislike things and not because you choose it.

As I said before I will explain my issues with Hart later on in my blog, and I am a man of my word. On a more selfish level this will prove my answer to the original question.

Hart says that all this knowledge brought the decline in activism, now people just know a lot and complains more, but they don’t protest in front of the white house anymore. Going by what Hart says, what would he answer to Prior when he proved (with his survey that he took) that people just don’t know anything about politics? Although I don’t agree with his reason the result he is true. Is the reason why the amount of people who have political knowledge has declined because they know too much like Hart says? No, That does not make any sense!
Now I will resolve both of my issues with Hart and Prior as I said before by combining them to prove myself right.

In my opinion I think the reason for the lack of political interest, activism and knowledge nowadays is for one reason, not everybody like the same things because everybody is different. This may seem as a very elementary explanation but it makes a lot of sense. How? I will again have to go back and really make sense of these two (in my opinion) contradicting views.

Although I didn’t agree with what Prior said I do believe in the phrase “take everything with a grain of salt”, if you take a little bit of what he said, sense can be made of it. As prior said politics was one of the only things on back then and people didn’t really have a choice because they wanted to watch television and this is all that was on. Now that other tings are people don’t watch anymore. Hart says that all this knowledge caused a lack of activism because since they know so much they think it’s like being active.

When you combine these two it works perfectly. Back in the day people weren’t given a choice what to watch the television stations in unison dictated what we watched and in a way what we would be interested in. Now we have options so the majority of Americans do not know much about politics because now they see that politics aren’t the only thing one can be interested. If there were all these options of interests back then, the lack of political knowledge would be identical to what it is now. This decline isn’t because of a lack of availability, it’s because now you have the ability to be interested in something that fits your personality.

Nowadays there are loads of fanatics some are political fanatics some are sports fanatics some are celebrity gossip fanatics and some clothing fanatics ect….. People found interest in these things because for whatever reason it fit their personality. Were all of these interests available to them? Of course! Were any of them rammed down their throat or put in front of them consistently? No!

So then how could these people be so interested in these things? Its simple for whatever reasons each specific topic fit each person’s personality. They could have chosen anything, but these things drew an interest to them. If I don’t know anything about cars does that mean that the in depth knowledge of cars is being hidden from me from the government, so that I wont build a car that could survive on something other than oil which would cause gas prices to go down and the government may lose money? Again No! It just means that I don’t care what’s in a car I just care how fast it goes, but the information is still available to me.

Same with politics the government doesn’t make it hard to find or unavailable to us in order so that we wont form contradicting opinions to them. In fact it would be easier for them if more people were interested in politics because then they could shape their opinions to like the government.

People are born with a liking to certain things, in a day and age were any information is a click away it is kind of impossible to say that information is being hidden. When someone doesn’t click on a war in Iraq headline its not because they can’t see it, rather it’s because they are a kind of person who is not interested in that.

A better way to show this is to explain what entertainment is, Encarta says three definitions (http://encarta.msn.com/dictionary_/entertainment%2520.html).
1. art of keeping people entertained: the various ways of amusing people, especially by performing for them
2. enjoyment: the amount of pleasure or amusement somebody gets from something
3. performance or exhibition: something that is produced or performed for an audience

So as we see entertainment is clearly subjective, everybody gets their kicks from different things, one person thinks its hilarious when Colbert tears the Bush administration a new one, and one person will fall a sleep because they don’t find it funny , one person will say “O , My, Gawd” when they hear about the Britney Spears divorce and the other will say who cares, one person will jump out of his seat when they see a slam dunk, the other will just say it’s a ball going in a basket. All these people are entertained in different ways and bored by what others say is entertaining.

Think about what your interests are, and then think about why you are so interested in them. I highly doubt the reason why you are so interested in these things is because it was the first thing you saw and said “hey this must be what I am interested in”. it came about because you saw all the options and for some reason this spoke to you.

So the political knowledge and activism hasn’t declined because political information is hidden, it is as available as any other news in the world if not more. It has declined because people have found things that actually entertain and interest them. Back then there were no options, now there are options so people can pick interest that fits the way they think and what they like.

As I said before, in a day and age were every bit of information is available to you with the click of a button it’s highly impossible to say something so widely known as politics aren’t available to everyone.
Nowadays people do know about politics a little, to quote Tocqueville “You don’t have to stop living life to be an informed citizen” you just need to know what’s going on. Now everybody can know what’s going on with out knowing a lot. Everybody knows there is a war going on and everybody knows who our president is. So we see that people are exposed to politics and if they thought it were interesting they would pursue it as one of their interests’s, but for whatever the reason it doesn’t fit the kind of things that interest them so they don’t pursue it.

Now going back to the question that started this, Are people born uninterested/interested in a topic or are people just not exposed to this topic and if they were then maybe they would be interested in it? After my very long answer I can put it simply now. People are exposed to everything these days; the way we are born causes us to choose what we are interested in.