This week we began to discuss news media in relation to our culture. As society has become modernized, news has become easier and quicker than ever to deliver. We no longer have to wait for a newspaper or a scheduled news segment on television to hear what is occurring. It’s as simple as keeping up with social media to keep track of the news. Creators of media, especially the news, do all they can in their power to capture the attention of consumers. As Coonfield and Huxford discuss in their article, “News Images as Lived Images: Media Ritual, Cultural Performance and Public Truama”, specific images are selected to use for news segments and those pictures resonate with us. Most of those images are purposely used to capture our attention, which encodes those images in association with that news story. Coonfield and Huxford use September 11th as an example in their article. When we now think of the tragedy we think of the images of the towers on the cover of newspapers and on the news. We think of the planes crashing through with clouds of smoke. We think of firefighters raising the American flag over the ruble. Media cultivated us to think this way.
After reading this article and discussing news media in class I found the theory of the spectacle to be very influential. The theory of the spectacle is the use of images showing chaos to gain the audiences attention. These images we see not only obtain our attention but they automatically become something we associate with the occurrences. An example of this is the Ferguson riots. The news was only reporting on the destruction and pandemonium of the town. We were shown images of buildings on fire, looting, and swat teams barricading the streets. When most people think of the Ferguson riots those are the descriptions that come to mind.
News media has such an influence on lives around the world. Images captured and distributed become iconic. These images can represent positivity or negativity. Either way, they become popular because of how we first encoded them when we were exposed to us. Our own meaning of these images is how we will remember and feel when viewing them again. Iconic news images are often replicated, raising the same emotions the original images could have provided. Our exposure to media shapes the way we think. It provides us with memories and ideas. Our cultural performance takes form from the media we come in contact with.
Coonfield, G., & Huxford, J. (n.d.). News Images as Lived Images: Media Ritual, Cultural Performance, and Public Trauma. Critical Studies in Media Communication, 457-479.
Erin M Ford says
You bring up a good point that the media uses chaos to gain audience attention and in turn earn profits. News media at times has the tendency to sensationalize the news, which can make it inaccurate. As Penn State students we saw this firsthand in 2011 when the scandal broke. News sources came into State College and, when choosing what to film and write about, focused almost all of their attention on the riot that occurred downtown. Meanwhile, there was a calm, peaceful candlelight vigil on Old Main Lawn with victims of sexual abuse spoke. Barely anyone reported this. There was also a gathering around the Joe Paterno statue where people left flowers. Barely anyone reported on this either.
More recently, the riots in Ferguson were highlighted in news media, while there were many other peaceful protests going on. This all relates back to framing and agenda setting. Certain occurrences are framed in a way that makes the entire story inaccurate. Sure, all these riots did indeed happen, but with more media attention given to them, it’s made to seem that they were the only response that people had.
xxk5010 says
i strongly agree with your opinion. nowadays news are very familiar with everyone. we take look at and hear news everyday. sometimes the news quality is really needed us to think about. Even one picture or one word can be very influential for the society. some news in order to catch people’s eyes, the news company put vivid pictures on the news, which may bother the real issue in the reality. because different people understand the picture’s meaning on different ways . as you said focus on the real thing is very important for nowadays news report! like your post very much
Kristin Maria Cerda-Womack says
I found this article very interesting and relevant to the way our society absorbs media today. I agree with your observation that news media is delivered to be as engaging and interesting to the readers as made possible by journalist. Of course, the question, Are journalistic ethics being used in the creation of these photos? comes to play in my mind. Objectivity is the main goal when photographing incidents, but if a journalist chooses to get involved and alters the image rather than separating themselves from the events they are documenting. The news industry has faced some hard times with cutting a good portion of their employees. It makes sense why we are seeing such an increase in attention grabbing articles, but its so influential to the way readers formulate opinions on current events through the media that its important to be as honest and objective as possible.