Eric W. Rothenbuhler's article "From Media Event to Ritual to Communicative Form" offers an interesting definition of the media event phenomena. He defines a media event as "...an interruption of the normal routine for a live broadcast from a remote location of a pre-planned event organized independently of the media, the tone of the broadcast is more serious, ceremonial, or even reverential than normal, it attracts unusual and attentive audiences, and often has serious political and social consequences". I believe a trivial media event was Alex Rodriguez's press conference on February 18, 2009 about his steroid use that the public already knew about! Not only A-Rod was there to admit what the public already knew about, his fellow teammates such as Jorge Posada, Mariano Rivera, Derek Jeter, CC Sabathia, Mark Teixeira, A.J. Burnett, Joe Giardi also attended to offer their support to A-Rod turning it into a bigger media circus than it already was. Weeks before the scheduled press conference there was so much hype. I personally do not understand what the big deal was. The positive test result for steroids was leaked and confirmed. I didn't need to see A-Rod lie to the nation and claim that he didn't know what "medicine" he was injecting in his body that was from the Dominican Republic. Of course the highest paid player in baseball would be that careless with his body. The public got exactly what Rothenbuhler states what the outcome of a media event is - patterned statements. It annoys me there was so much speculation before the press conference and never-ending coverage of the entire circus while the earthquake that recently happened in Haiti is just a blip on people's radars. The earthquake occurred at 5 pm Tuesday, but did Fox interrupt American Idol to provide coverage? No. It is because Haiti is a poor Caribbean country that Americans cannot relate to. I believe if the earthquake occurred in a developed country, news coverage would interrupt regular television programming.
"Haiti Chef Says Thousands May be Dead" - NY Times
On another note, I wrote my response paper about whether or not Internet access should be a fundamental human right and how countries like China limit internet access to their citizens. I just found this interesting article about how Google is threatening to pull out of China because the government censors websites. Do you feel that Internet access should be a fundamental human right?
Brian,
ReplyDeleteI'd like to comment on your question of Internet access being a fundamental human right. I feel that uninhibited internet access should be everyone's inherent right, I personally see denying internet access to others much like refusing to teach others how to speak or read. Most people probably know this from taking a European history course, but under certain societies such as Feudalism it was encouraged that farmers and peasants not be taught to read and write, and not to learn anymore than how to do their tasks and know who was in charge. Why? So that the "nobles" or whatever elitist category could remain in power, by possessing the ability to create, interpret and disseminate information.
This is all within reason obviously. Government databases and the like deserve certain protection; we don't want people stealing our social security numbers or buying things with our credit cards! However not allowing people to have internet access when it is readily available, or censoring information because it contains one or two words on a block list should be criminal, because this is the first step towards control of information, which leads to governmental control, societal control e.t.c. Bottom line, whoever controls the information, can create it however they want, and this shouldn't be allowed to ever happen if we truly care about ourselves. Good post and good sources!
-Ian
Considering the fact that internet access can result in an agenda setting function in the WWW and international help, and in result CAN save lives.
ReplyDeleteBrian and Ian,
ReplyDeleteWhat you both said are true and I can see why you may argue that Internet access should be given to everyone. However, in my response paper, I argued that there are people in this world who abuse their access to the Internet. They take advantage of the Internet and use it as a tool to scam people, post up illegal pictures, commit crimes, etc. Fraudsters may find this especially easy to do because of the people's increased use of and dependency on the Web.
Here is an article about some of the more common Internet scams people see on the Web and tend to fall for.
http://www.crime-research.org/articles/Internet_fraud_0405/
I have a problem with something that Laura Vilkkonen said in the CNN article on the subject: "We think it's something you cannot live without in modern society. Like banking services or water or electricity, you need Internet connection," Vilkkonen said. I find this to be a ridiculous statement. So much of the world lives in extreme poverty and does not have access to water or electricity. They are much worse off than the people in Finland without access to the internet. I understand that access to the internet provides a huge advantage in industrialized nations, but to compare it to access to water goes to far. I know the internet can be a tool to help fix the extreme level of poverty that still exists in much of the world, and there are many organizations that are working to do that with the help of the internet. I just think we need to remember how widespread poverty and hunger still are before we use the term "human right."
ReplyDeleteBen,
ReplyDeleteI agree with you completely. Having Internet access cannot be equated to the necessities of life, like shelter, food, and water. True, it makes things more convenient and faster, but internet access is not as much of a necessity as food and water. Perhaps instead of focusing on "bridging the global digital divide," we could focus more on helping third-world and developing countries. I'm pretty certain that the last thing on their mind is whether their citizens are able to check their Facebook accounts or chat with their friends online.
Brian, I do agree with you on how coverage isn't as extensive as it should be sometimes. It all goes back to what will attract the most viewers and that determines what gets aired for 5 minutes as opposed to half an hour. Could that be the reason why more and more Americans are becoming naive and ignorant of countries outside of North America? Quite possibly. But do you think most Americans/people knew where Afghanistan was, or that it was even a country? It's sad, but it's the truth.
Good post and good responses,
Karoline Lee
While eliminating hunger and poverty is definitely more important than having Internet access, I do believe that people should be guaranteed access to the Internet. It doesn't mean that they have to use it, but they should have unlimited access to all the information that is out there without countries like China blocking certain information sites. It is like we always heard in school growing up: knowledge is power. The can use the Internet to educate other people about their plights and change their situations instead of relying on other people to speak their causes for them.
ReplyDelete