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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

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.