Kevin Wang
Thurtle
AP Literature
August 25, 2014
Fox News Equals Media Equals Fear of Death Equals Adultery Malcolm X once said “The media 's the most powerful entity on earth. They have the power to make the innocent guilty and to make the guilty innocent, and that 's power. Because they control the minds of the masses.” The media reaches out to all places and affects everyone. It changes how we think and what we do. In the novel White Noise, Don Delillo uses Babette’s moral ambiguity, conveyed through her decisions and actions, to reveal the influence that media has on the internal conflict between one’s self interest and morality.
Within everyone, there exists a constant friction between one’s self interest and morality. At first, Babette emerges as a caring and honest character. Described by Jack as “a gift-bearer of great things as the world generally reckons them” (5), Babette does acts of charity in her free time. A few of her pastimes are “[gathering] and [tending] the children, [teaching] a course in an adult education program” (5) and she also “reads to an elderly [blind] man… from the [tabloids]” (5). Babette’s honesty and sincerity is made more apparent by her foils, Jack Gladney’s past wives. Her physique, described as being slightly overweight with a head full of messy hair, further helps her appear amiable and likeable. However, a closer look at Babette’s intentions reveals her neutral personality. She “reads to [the] elderly man” because “why deny him?”. In
The media is the most powerful entity on earth. They have the power to make the innocent guilty and to make the guilty innocent, and that 's power. The article “Reality TV Goes Where Football Meets the Hijab”, published in the New York Times in November 2011, introduces how the media controls the minds of the masses. Media has become a major issue in our daily lives. We live in a world that we cannot have access to what is going around us, unless we refer to the media. For instance, in our daily routine we usually listen to the news in the morning or at night before we sleep. The news has already been reported and its being delivered to us that fast, but how do we know if what is being said is what is actually happening or if it has been manipulated for political/social reasons? In the beginning of the article, Porochista Khakpour the author of the article, Iranian born American reared, mentions: “If anything made me, an American, it was televisions.” TV, especially the reality TV, resembles the characters and movie stars the way they want to not the way they are. Khakpour said, "Darkness-dark hair, dark eyes, dark skin-always equaled trouble, as if it actually implied a dark side". When we watch TV, most of the movie characters are labeled, either by their gender, religion, or color. Khakpour reaches out to the "outcasts", to prove her point on reality TV shows shaping our beliefs towards each other, especially the "freaks”.
In the mean world syndrome video, several points are discussed about how violence in the media affects viewers. Although violent crimes has decreased over the years, the media has been showing more violent acts than before. Children have been affected by this phenomenon and it has had a disturbing effect on them too. The media should be more proactive with being fair and less damaging in the future.
Today’s media (news) plays an enormous role in the lives of people in directing a specific perception of the world around them. Most often media conduct's a subconscious effect upon its spectators in which the upshots are deliberately or illdeliberatly towards a particular topic.
In “ ‘A Steep Price…’” it analyzed the opinions of the public, media, victim, and aggressor in defending their particular take on the case. The article offers mild bias, so it does not completely report the events of the case, because it mostly focuses on the opinionated effects and not so much the facts. In “Feminist Put Judge...”, major bias is introduced by claiming to be in support of the feminist cause; however, the article uses a stronger ethical appeal to attract a broader, more unified audience. In “Here’s the Powerful Letter…”, the author recants the letter the victim wrote to her attacker, Brock Turner. She not only aims for the audience to feel the distress and havoc the case has relinquished on her life, but also a chance to spread a more positive message to thank her supporters while encouraging her audience to stand up for themselves and their self worth. The overall purpose of analyzing all these different media sources is to be able to recognize how the multiple points of view that a story can be told from will alter the objectivity of the event. A society’s culture will emphasis bias or certain point of views to get the public to believe one interpretation of the story based on the
Mrs. Hopewell is a hard working widow who assumes the male role by being the primary care-giver and supporter to her special needs daughter. Hulga, despite her independence streak is determined to make a life on her own; she gives almost a reversed protest against her mother despite the care she receives. Her education does not lead her to live a more successful life, she fails to live up to her mother’s example and expectation that Hulga’s sisters, Glynese and Carramae, have already successfully copied. O’Connor writes that “Glynese, a redhead, was eighteen and had many admirers; Carramae, a blonde, was only fifteen but already married and pregnant” (151).
Assignment: As the documentary Miss Representation explains, “The media is now the message and the messenger.” Every day, we take in countless hours of media that influence how we view others and in turn how we view ourselves. It is our responsibility to consume media in an intelligent way AND fight back against negative messages put forth by the media.
This, however, only led to more violations of privacy. According to Bentham, publicity had the power to “educate the public… [and] improve the nature of political conversation” (Lepore, 4). The means by which this was accomplished was entirely through the media and technology. Although the media was only made to enlighten the general public, it overstepped its boundaries and often infringed on people’s personal space. For instance, when many articles were published in the newspapers spreading rumors about the Warren-Bayard family, Samuel Warren felt that the media had encroached on his family’s privacy. Therefore, forming a society on the notion of publicity has led the media to feel justified to invade other people’s
The media can persuade and influence biased opinions based on point of view. This can significantly influence what the public thinks of certain situations and events. In the novel after Tom was killed, Mr. Underwood wrote a opinionated article in The Maycomb Tribune. For example, the novel declared, “He likened Tom’s death to a senseless slaughter” (323). Mr. Underwood believed that it was a senseless killing.
The article "Mind Over Mass Media" by Steven Pinker uses logos, ethos, pathos, and other rhetorical elements to effectively communicate that mass media is a positive development and is not a reason for panic. The first noticeable rhetorical element in Pinker’s essay is the presence of a rhetorical triangle. A rhetorical triangle is made up of a rhetor, the audience, and the rhetor’s purpose. In this essay Steven Pinker is the rhetor because is the one trying to make a point to the audience. The audience is the reader of the article who is listening to the rhetor. Finally, the text or point the rhetor is trying to make is that e effects of mass media are not a cause for panic. In fact mass media is an effective way for humans to keep up with the modern age. The clearly defined rhetorical triangle in Steven Pinker’s essay is a surface level example of rhetorical elements in the text.
The media has intensely affected society, an effect so immense that people don’t notice its presence sometimes. Individuals become solely
While those of the Victorian upper class were usually the most refined and intelligent, Wilde portrays them as ignorant and dense. One of the most well described ladies, Miss Prism, is shown to be the least aware. “The most cultivated of ladies, and the very picture of respectability”(63). She is ultimately the most absent minded and leaves baby Jack in a handbag in a cloak room of a major railway station. Through Miss Prism, Wilde is able to propagandize the intelligence the aristocrats usually embody. In addition to this, Wilde refutes the morality of the Victorian elite. The main two characters, Jack and Algernon, are deceptive and are rarely seen to have any morals. Reviewing this play with a sociological/Marxist perspective provides insight on how Wilde wants others to perceive the elite of
“The media's the most powerful entity on earth. They have the power to make the innocent guilty and to make the guilty innocent, and that's power. Because they control the minds of the masses.” This quote is from a speech in 1963 from Malcolm X and the media’s effect against the progression of civil rights.. Just a simple news article has the power to change laws, the way people think and possibly change the world. People may not even believe what the media tells us is true but in some way, shape or form, it's slowly sculpting our brains into a robotic program that can not tell the difference between right and wrong. Because of this many serious issues that may turn out to be good have a bad reputation due to negative media stories about the
As discussed in class, one of the most influential agencies of socialization is the media. The way we see ourselves or the way other people see us come from what we are told by others and what we tell ourselves. In the Better world handbook, the chapter on media states that “the way we think and act in our daily lives is inextricably linked to the information we receive about the world” (Jones, Haenfler and Johnson). The chapter continues to discus how information delivered to us can be bias and this raises the issue on who controls the media and what we see through it. The problem with this could be that that whoever controls the media does not necessary have our best interest in mind and the content that is transmitted through the media is profit driven. . In the article “Lies my teacher told me: Everything your American history textbook got wrong” gives a perfect accept of how easy it is for information to get omitted based on what people what you to know and what they don’t want you to know. From a young age, people decide what they want you to know, so that they can decide on what they want you to think about certain topics whether its American history or something else, its like the
A psychoanalytical model of media analysis focuses on the conscious and unconscious processes of social interactions (Berger 69). An individual’s mind can be compared to an iceberg. The visible part of the iceberg, the tip, is what a person is conscious of, while the larger part of the iceberg, which is hidden under the water, is what a person is unconscious of. Sigmund Freud once stated that “what is in your mind is not identical with what you are conscious of, whether something is going on in your mind and whether you hear of it, are two different things” (Berger 70). Freud is saying that we are not always in complete control of our actions.
We live in a society in which media has such a great influence on us, yet the influence is only in certain aspects and on certain people. “Mass media is arguably the most influential in molding public consciousness” (562). People might think that media is managed by a combination of different people but in reality, since the number of media companies is decreasing, only certain people control the industry and what gets to be put out to light. Since media is mostly controlled by a few people who belong to the 1%, the information that goes into the media is influenced by their beliefs as well as race, class, and even gender. Media influences every aspect of our lives since “media plays a key role in defining our cultural tastes, helping us locate