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Author Philosophies

Keeble

Split into two parts, that of the free press and that of the fourth estate.

Free Press

This is the media’s role to provide information about the rulers to the ruled—to do this, they need to be able to achieve complete impartiality. This means no influence with respect to power, money, etc.

Press as the Fourth Estate

This is the Press’s ability to act as a check on the other three pillars of society. These other three pillars are:

  1. The Judiciary
  2. The Church
  3. The Legislature/Government (formerly the monarch)

Cannadine

Deals with the way class is structured and how that influences societal interactions between the classes. Breaks classes into three primary categories:

  1. Triadic
    • Society is composed of the upper, middle, and working classes
    • Classes are inherently competitive and opposed, and combative towards one another
  2. Hierarchical
    • There’s a distinct hierarchy in society, from upper class to working class (and above that if you want to include monarchy/elite as higher than higher class and extreme poverty as lower than low, etc.)
  3. Dichotomous
    • Pull and push between the upper and working class
      • Kind of eliminates the middle class
    • Portrays the struggle between the upper and working class, and casts them as inherently opposed
      • The upper class will always look down at the lower class and the lower class will always feel disdainfully towards the rich and elite

Murdock

Pitches seven key attributes to describe how society affects us. According to Murdock, culture is:

  1. Learned
    • Culture isn’t inherent, we learn by growing up in society what social norms are
  2. Inculcated
    • Culture is passed on from parents to children who learn habits and in turn spread culture to their offspring
  3. Social
    • Participatory experience dependent on the members of society
  4. Ideational
    • Consists of ideal norms agreed upon by members of society
  5. Gratifying
    • Always satisfies basic needs of the members of society
  6. Adaptive
    • Changes with the times
  7. Integrative
    • Incorporates members and ideas of society, is all-encompassing

Hall

Deals with theories of representation—how does language work in our minds, and what is it achieving in formats which influence our perceptions about people and things. Hall creates three primary forms language can assume:

  1. Reflective → Language reflects real life
    • Language acts as a direct mirror to whatever is happening in real life
    • There is no external intention or implicit meaning to the words on the paper; what you see is what you get. For example, “Dog bites man” is a factual assertion. In most contexts, it doesn’t convey bias or ill intention to dogs
  2. Intentional Approach → Language is used to convey an intended message
    • The author has a definite and purposeful intent for the language. This can be to carry bias and influence the reader
    • The meaning beneath the meaning sort of approach to language. If the author is trying to say something without directly saying it, they’re likely using an intentional approach to language
  3. Constructivist/Constructionist Approach → There is an agreed-upon meaning for certain words, and the author is using this agreed-upon meaning for those words to convey a message other than what is written
    • For certain references to politics and culture, if one is excluded from the community of people who understand that reference, they cannot understand what the author is trying to say
    • For example, in U.S. politics, to “bork” someone is a reference to Ronald Reagan’s 1987 Supreme Court Nominee whom the Democratic party eviscerated politically to avoid the confirmation. Since then, the word “Bork” has come to mean “To defame or vilify (a person) systematically, esp. in the mass media, usually with the aim of preventing his or her appointment to public office; to obstruct or thwart (a person) in this way”
      • Without a knowledge of that history, the word “Bork” doesn’t have the same meaning. It might, in fact, mean something entirely different to someone who has a different definition of the word “Bork” in their culture or community

Dyer

Mostly deals with stereotyping: how does stereotyping happen, and what affects the way we stereotype individuals? Dyer breaks this down into four key ways we make “snap judgments” that affect our biases:

  1. Role - the role of a person at the current moment
    • This could be their current function or job
    • We look at a butler differently than we look at a cashier, whom we look at differently than a businessperson
  2. Individual - what sets this person apart from others
    • Could be a particular hairstyle, clothing, or other attributes
    • A businessperson with a septum piercing, tattoos, dyed hair, and gauges might be looked at differently than someone with no body modifications
  3. Type - what the person does that makes them different
    • What mannerisms, attitudes, or characteristics make us look at them differently
    • A student who sits up straight and takes notes vs. one who sleeps in class
  4. Member - what groups does that person identify with
    • A person can identify with many identities that affect how we perceive them, such as gender, race, even what “scene” they belong to
      • “Punk rockers are different than people who listen to rap” sort of attitude

Said

Theory of Orientalism

Demonstrates how representations of non-Western countries are mostly conceived and agreed upon by Westerners. Said believes that the “West vs the Rest” world view is one of the “deepest recurring images of the Other.” In other words, by Said’s theory, Orientalism characterizes the way Westerners view the Orient (eastern countries, specifically the Middle East and far-East Asia).

Said sets up a chart of 7 exemplary linguistic comparisons that characterize how Westerns frame the Orient:

The West (us) The Orient (rest)
Modern/Developed Primitive
Rational Emotional
Cultivated Natural
Masculine/Powerful Feminine/Vulnerable
White/Pure Coloured/Stained
Civilised Barbaric


Said believes these “man-made” and often racist and imperialist ideological biases have materialised into objective truths.

Postcolonial Theory

Colonial theory refers to a hegemonic, militaristic occupation of another nation. Postcolonialism is a “more covert occupation” that looks instead at media and cultural imperialist links between nations. There are two parts to the bulk of this theory, the grammar of race and the four themes in media representations of race.

Grammar of Race:

Reproduces consistent images of minority races as “the Other” in society. This theory distinguishes between overt and more “inferential” racism. This theory breaks race representations into three example category.

  1. The ‘slave figure’ - Appears to be devoted to their white master but is seen as a threat to civilised white manners and decorum. Examples: Gone with the Wind.
  2. The ‘native figure’ - Dignified, but ultimately connotes barbarism and savagery. Example: Black ghetto gangsters in New Jack City.
  3. The ‘clown or entertainer’ - Figure who jokes about ethnic peculiarities, but it is “never quite clear if we are laughing with or at this figure.” Example: Charlie Williams, one of the first successful black comedians, characterized inequity in comedy at the time by shouting down to white hecklers “If you don’t shut up I’ll come and move next door to you”

Themes in Media Representations:

Theory of representation in media from white perspective.

  1. The exotic (Aladdin and his magic lamp)
  2. The Damgerous (Osama Bin Ladin)
  3. The Humerous (minstrel performers)
  4. The pitied (starving refugees)

Pilger

Terrorism in Media

According to Pilger, Western media portrays terrorists exclusively as Middle-Eastern who fit the media narrative of the “Muslim fanatic.” Muslims have only contributed to a tiny portion of the overall death count by religious fanaticism, but this is a narrative shifted by the media. “Terrorists…become any foreign people you don’t like.” The media’s fixation with “demographic themes” creates a panic, and even though we’ve invaded Eastern territories, we become the recipient of an Eastern invasion of migrants.

Second Reading

The second reading concerns the media’s narrative regarding occupation and influence in imperialized territories. The West has a conventional narrative that the was no invasion or occupation. Pilger reasserts the Western narrative that “the West itself is never a terrorist.” They cannot be the aggressor, as the invaded people “have practically no social conscious”.

Cohen

Deviance and Moral Panic

This theory sets up a cyclical progression of moral panic that goes something like this:

  1. A moral issue, a “condition, episode, person or group of persons,” emerges in society
  2. The mass media take a stance on it and presents it to the masses in a “stylized” fashion
  3. Society sets up “moral barricades” by turning to moral leaders such as editors, bishops, politicians, and other “right-thinking people” for guidance
  4. Accredited experts prescribe diagnoses and solutions
  5. Ways of coping evolve 6.”The condition then disappears, submerges, or deteriorates and becomes more visible”

This progression defines how society has treated a handful of social situations. In the UK, the authors cite hooliganism among the youth as a primary example, pointing to The Teddy Boys, the Mods, the Rockers, the Hells Angels, the skinheads, and the hippies. Recently, they say, the same attitude has been conveyed over football hooliganism, the drug problem, student militancy, poitical demonstrations, and violence in general.

Levy

There is a difference between the way we treat masculine and feminine expressions of sexuality. Levy refers to this as the male and female “chauvinist pig”. The male chauvinist is a crass, profane, and generically frowned upon character; the female chauvinist is post-feminist and more equal expression of sexuality.

Editor’s Codes of Conduct

Lays out the self-placed regulations put on the media by the media, and enforced by IPSO.

The Editor’s Code of Conduct doesn’t, itself, have any power. The only way newspapers can be held accountable to the standards within is through contracts some have signed with IPSO to follow the regulations. Some newspapers, though, like The Guardian, have not signed contracts with IPSO, and are therefore entirely self-regulated and not held to any standards other than legal ones set forth by the government.

COC Sections:

Problems with the Codes of Conduct:

It’s pretty toothless and vague. Journalists still take nudes through windows. IPSO has a standards board but they’ve never actually filed and charged a complaint, no newspapers have ever been sued, and participation with IPSO is entirely voluntary.

Nameplates

The Times

The Times is geared to an upper-middle class audience; it therefore contains a lot of information about business, politics, etc. The Times is a right-leaning paper and considered “Britain’s most trusted newspaper.” It uses nuance to talk about delicate issues like race, gender, etc., unlike some other publications which pride themselves on a “brutal honesty” sort of attitude. The Times tends to be a little elitist, pandering to its upper-middle class audience.

The Sunday times

The Sunday version of the Times.

The Daily Telegraph

Not a red-top paper (tabloid press), it is a broadsheet. It has a lot of political stances, and supports the Tories in a lot of those. It is a centre right-leaning paper. Its tone tends to be a little divisive, and often it pits liberals against conservatives when talking about politics. Its tone can be a little condescending to those whom it disagrees with.

The Sunday Telegraph

The Sunday version of The Daily Telegraph.

The Guardian

The Guardian is a historically broadsheet paper. Its target audience is an educated population, and its political affiliation tends to be centre-left. It tends to write to an upper-middle class audience, and focuses on a metropolitan, very London-specific audience.

The Observer

The Sunday version of The Guardian.

The Independent

The Independent On Sunday

The Sunday version of the Independent.

I

Used to be the cheaper version of the Independent, but is now the only print version of the two.

Daily Express

The Daily Express seeks to act as both the fourth estate and the free press, but it does both pretty poorly. To accomplish either of these things, a paper must be impartial. The Daily Express is a far, far right-leaning paper, and its readership supports nearly unequivocally a conservative government. It has nearly nothing positive to say about Labour, and nearly nothing negative to say about the Tories or UKIP.

There is a lot of celebrity news about royalty, politicians, and other famous and influential people. The Daily Express takes a dichotomous approach to portraying class: it pits the upper and working classes against each other with divisive and inflammatory rhetoric.

According to Dyer’s theory of representation, there is a lot of member-group stereotyping: Tories are this way, Labour is this way, “youngsters” are this way.

Sunday Express

The Sunday version of the Daily Express.

The Sun

The sun is a red-top tabloid paper. Monday-Saturday, the Sun is the best-selling paper in the UK. There is an emphasis on exclusion with humor; lots of constructivist in-groups. The coverage of classes tends to be dichotomous. It is a right-leaning paper, often supporting May and it appeals to a specific kind of Conservative.

News of the World

The Sun Sunday

The Sunday version of The Sun.

Daily Mirror

This paper is a heavily biased left-leaning paper, kind of the Daily Express equivalent for liberals. The audience tends to be younger for this paper than for most of the other papers. It is a red-top tabloid paper.

Sunday Mirror

The Sunday version of the Daily Mirror.

The People

Daily Mail

The Daily Mail is the second-best selling paper in the UK. It is a right-leaning paper that tends to side with May. Its coverage is often elitist. It tends not to really watch the rulers very well, hence not acting as a free press. Its coverage is often constructivist and intentional.

The Mail On Sunday

The Sunday version of the Daily Mail.

Daily Star

This is a cheaper derivative of The Sun.

Daily Star Sunday

The Sunday version of the Daily Star.

Significant Dates

Important Dates for Race

Other important dates