Todays Culture and the Media

In the Article All News That Fits it discusses our overall economic framework today and how with growing social inequities, the American electorate remains overwhelmingly pro-Establishment- in favor of "keeping our social and economic frameworks essentially unchanged". Overall propaganda in our society in advertisements have also shifted to even our 'news' as well. As the article states that today, "Television news promotes the status quo by directing our attention toward a daily series of diverting but unrelated events, and away from deeper social problems that might lead up to challenge the current system. The common role of many news anchorman is to distract viewers from the disturbing parade of images that constitutes the news, and to assure that 'all is well'. with attractive women and flashy news reporters 'anchoring' the sway of the content in their show, it its those anchor men and women that become the show, not the news they are reporting.

 

People today need to realize the importance of the information that is being unrecognized, The viewers of many shows are denied information if it doesn't meet entertainment standards, there is no attention given to stories that are lacking strong visual appeal for the viewer.
The general goal of all TV with both news, others and commercials is to go after the human interest in the "story" or "advertisement"

Interestingly in the end of the first article it states that "our survival of a species may well depend on the nature of the information we get from our news media. of these, none is more important than television news, which reaches all social classes, all educational levels, and influences the thinking of more people than any other single social institution".     

The general commercial world has only grown throughout history and today our minds are constantly aware of the advertisements and the distractions they give us as viewers. "sometimes it seems as if the whole world is not just filled with advertising but dominated by it. Being dominated by money, advertisers are willing to pay a lot of money, for television remains the most important, the most dominant and influential product sold today.  Corporations wouldn't waste billions of dollars if their advertisements didn't work, and the truth is that when someone is actually shopping for products, the only given information they have about them is the one from an ad, so they go with what they are most informed about. 

An itresting fact is that "advertisments do not have to be literally true, "puffing" the product is perfectly legal. what is "puffing"? puffing is an exaggeration about the product that is so obvious just about anyone is cabable of recognizing the claim as an exaggeration.
The rule of advertising it that "nothing is what it seems, which brings up the rule of parity.
the rule states that when their are brands of the same kind of product that are practically the same, it can turn advertisements into being competitive with one another, any product can claim to have to "best" of the brands without any proof. the only proof is for if they claim to have a "better" kind. advertisers need other ways to make similar products seem unlike each other - even unique and special. An example of this is a weasel word, for medicine such as acne or cold medicine, such as "help", it is a claim that doesn't need to be proven at all, it doesn't say cure, or fix, only that it will "help", with not guarantee such as "help stop, help overcome, help you look etc..".  

something that people need to regain is a sense to develop and use critical thinking, reading, listening and looking ability, something that TV in general has taken away from the common person.

About Net Neutrality

What does it mean and what is the importance of net neutrality?

 To begin..

How would you feel if major phone and cable companies controlled and limited what we can and cannot use on the internet, as well as charge for certain services. This is the broad idea of the threat that could put free internet if net neutrality is destroyed. 

So what is net neutrality?

The idea of internet neutrality is for all those participating in the use of it to have equal and free use without any government or corporate restriction or advantage. Net neutrality has not been a issue due to the growth of the internet being not that far away  in history, but more in recent years as broadband providers have become larger and more powerful. There is a hierarchy of power in the world today with those who have money and involved with media,politics,culture and government, when these companies gain the ability to censor and control with charges and connection, net neutrality exists no more.

One question surrounding net neutraility is the reason why it would be closed at all.

The supposed reason for those in control of broadband to cut off net neutrality would be for the profit and control for the content for the internet user. 

 

An important question that is at issue with the discussion net neutrality that is a confusion to many is the role of government vs. phone and cable companies in the controversy.

The distortion by some news media today is that the it is the GOVERNMENT who wants to control and take away the freedom of net neutrality. People need to understand that it was what we already have that needs to be protected, that any kind of change of freedom would change net neutrality. Here is an example of Fox News,Glenn Beck distorting net neutrality to be in no kind of threat at all, he also criticizes Free Press to be Marxist and that they are the ones that really want to change internet freedom. he also says that there "is no problem if free speech is the goal". He fails to understand that we are not trying to change what freedom we have, but the freedom that is trying to be taking away.

Another great example of Fox News distorting the idea of net neutrality is with Glenn Beck again, along with Bill O'Reilly. Here they  take the whole idea of it and instead but the blame on the government(the left), and turn it into a political issue involving politics and the white house. What they distort is that it is not the government at all that would be managing these broadband gate way's, but the major cable providing companies.

It is pretty clear who is for net neutrality and who is against it. Those for net neutrality are those in control of the Broadband connections, the major phone and cable companies want it gone so that they can turn it into a monopoly for themselves to gain profit from.

Those that are for the internet are, at least should be, every common person using the internet for buisness, social, entertaining purpose for free speech and action on the Internet. The buisness market, and all kind of music, social and news related content would all be compromised. 

Personally in my opinion this is all to much of a coincidence. As I said before, there is a distortion between the government and Cable companies desires for net neutrality, and it is the cable companies that would be taking away internet freedom.

The issue I see here in general is that the these kind of cable and content providers are some of the largest powers in the country, and them along with all the others, are only getting smaller in number, and bigger in power. Only now The government, media and major corporations are all mutually coming together for a kind of partnership that I see revolving around money and overall control on the peoples content and freedom.

Net neutrality must be saved and maintained by the American public, for it is their right, our right.

Behind TV Analysts, Pentagon’s Hidden Hand

    The article presented brings up issues such as Guantanamo Bay and well as September 11th 2001, and the significance of having the news about them being covered by "military analysts". The important thing to be aware of is the influence these analysts have, as the article states about them, "whose long service has equipped them to give authoritative and unfettered judgments".  The New York Times reports how these kinds of new reporters favor and are biased towards the government administration agenda. Throughout the article are examples and text about the buisness or news, and how good news is bad buisness and poor news is good buisness, and how this ties into the government and military on the news as well.

    In the 21st century to today, it has been brought up through the fog, what the news media is really made of. the question that the article presented is related to is the overall manipulation, control and power there is in the news buisness. When there is a firm and secretive  relationship between media and government. The fewer big news businesses and corporations will only make the ones that remain with more will to broadcast and express what they please. a video that relates to the concern highly is presented by the TV station, Real TV.

Information in today's society in general is so complicated it is becoming more and more complex as people advance in time. with the recent technological advances such as the Internets face book, twitter,you tube and other social networking sites, information is presented from multiple location, from just one source(internet). An example from today would be a news article related to the conflict in Libya and the controversy on the US taking action to "help the situation". http://www.infowars.com/chavez-u-s-distorting-situation-in-libya-to-justify-an-invasion/. The news article is an example the complex confusion from information today, and it all revolves around opinion and judgment. The article exploits two things, a man from Libya warning how the US is manipulating people to accept an invasion on the country, were at the end the author quotes Hilary Clinton expressing that, “nothing is off the table so long as the Libyan government continues to threaten and kill Libyan citizens.”

 People need to be aware that media is the biggest tool for control, censorship and manipulation of the information on TV and the Internet, and when a government has that power, they have that power at their disposal.
 A video example exemplifies the confusion and complication with what news is and what the role of journalism plays into it.  In the "news clip" of FOX, it does not report and important information, rather it is a clip of Bill' o Reilly and Bernie Goldberg arguing on a segment of people protesting about FOX news and how it "lies".

The problem with FOX news's segment is that it does not inform the public of any sort of information or concern, rather just defends itself against protesters who are claiming FOX news isn't actual truthful journalism.
what does these kind of news clips do? nothing important or informative to the American people, just present an issue that never gets resolved in the video that only creates criticism about news channels, not actual news.

However getting back to the issue of military analysts, the problem is that news channels will expose almost anything lower then them with power, but when it comes to hiring of military analyst and their procedures on shows, they cannot expose themselves.when those with highly respected labels with "military" in them, they are to have a much stronger influence on the subject they argue on.

A quote from the article,

"NBC News also declined to discuss its procedures for hiring and monitoring military analyst . The network issued a short statement: “We have clear policies in place to assure that the people who appear on our air have been appropriately vetted and that nothing in their profile would lead to even a perception of a conflict of interest."

- the problem is that "perception of a conflict of interest" is the government and news corporations interests, not the public.