Martin

Martin

What I enjoyed the most was reading the chapter “Fears about political use of the media”.

What do we look at first?

Every generation in contemporary society has a set of images and words associated with defining political moments, from the assassination of John F. Kennedy in 1963, to the images of the planes hitting the World Trade Center on 9/11, to the sight of Western soldiers on the streets of Baghdad. As societies, we communicate, share, and attempt to come to terms with political events through the mass media, so it is from crucial importance to understand how they relate with each other.

Things I found interesting:


 * The fears about the political ends to which the media can be put relate to the way the media can be used by political parties to control people.
 * Political uses of the media also occur in democratic societies, where advertising can be seen as a form of propaganda and brainwashing.

"//This is, in theory, still a free country, but our politically correct, censorious times are such that many of us tremble to give vent to perfectly acceptable views for fear of condemnation. Freedom of speech is thereby imperiled, big questions go undebated, and great lies become accepted, unequivocally as great truths."//

// “All of the American broadcast media, and most of the print media as well, are owned primarily by wealthy individuals. Direct ties to the biggest of big businesses are almost unbelievably extensive (see our analysis __below__), and, we believe, these ties cannot help but seriously bias and compromise news coverage. Moreover, the media empires are, first and foremost, profit-making corporations that conduct themselves like other corporations when it comes to corrupting American politics. That is, the parent corporations of many make so-called "campaign contributions" and also act against the public interest in other ways. As big winners in the corruption game, they show no signs of serious interest in political reform. (As large corporations themselves, the mass media want the same preferential treatment, and have the same desire to grow without bounds, as all other corporations.)” //
 * The media practitioners often see themselves as political watch-dogs and in this respect are referred to as the ‘fourth estate’.


 * The media are a body who can comment on, criticize, and investigate, through free speech, what these other institutions do. This is why ‘freedom of press’ is so important.

// “Freedom of the press, or, to be more precise, the benefit of freedom of the press, belongs to everyone - to the citizen as well as the publisher... The crux is not the publisher's 'freedom to print'; it is, rather, the citizen's 'right to know. " //

Questions:

Should the government own and/or control the media?

“The cynicism of tabloid technique is well understood: Splash a rumor as news on the front page, then print a one-line retraction on an inside page two weeks later. By then, the victim has been thoroughly damaged, with other papers, and the graffiti wall of blogs and Twitter, transmitting the allegations globally.” New York Times about News Corporation

Is/Should ‘freedom of press’ be treated exactly as ‘freedom of speech’?

Halfdan:

> > Martin, in my opinion, I strongly disagree to the idea of government owning or controlling the media. There is this example in Hong Kong: unlike some other very well-established public broadcasters like BBC, which are primarily funded via a license fee system, RTHK (Radio Television Hong Kong) is directly funded by an annual government allocation, and operates as a department of the government. The Hong Kong government has expressed that it would like RTHK to help in sending the government's messages, which causes a lot of citizens to doubt RTHK's credibility, whether it reports purely in the public's interest. If the government owns or controls the media, I would certainly think that the media lacks some sort of editorial independence. > -Michelle > > Maxim: > > I agree with the opinion that the media should not be owned by the government nor should it subsidize it. When we talk about the financing the media, we should not forget that the television, radio or newspapers are not the only source of information - nowadays, and especially here in LPC, we get our daily news from the Internet. There are lots of newspapers that publish only in the Internet, which do not receive any financing from the government - //The Huffington Post// is probably the most famous of them. So what is my point? When we, or in this case, the government, spend money on something - we make choice, we vote with out money. And by government's subsidizes we are //**voting**// for things that we do not want to be produced - everything is worth what its purchaser will pay for it. > > Nowadays, people do not want to newspapers to be their source of information. They are willing to give the power to the Internet media's - which of course, have to figure out the most suitable payment method, whatever it will be advertisements, subscriptions or something else.
 * I do not believe the media should be owned nor controlled by the government. Public broadcasting should not be controlled by the government, but merely funded through taxes. This prevents private interests from taking over instead of public interests.
 * They should not be treated exactly alike, but they are basically very similar: The content should not be censored by an overreaching state. The individual will often use the press when publishing ideas. In the press there will always be another kind of censorship though, because a (censoring) authority (not state) will influence the publications.

Carter I agree government should not own and control the media as well. The government could fund the media, yet they should not influence the media making use of the funds. For most of the time, media could function as a society watchdog. They keep track with the latest progress of the society, especially that of the government as well as other public institutions. Whenever there is inequality or anything "wrong" (like below the public's expectation", the media will report the fact to the public. Improvement could hence be accelerated. On the other hand, if governments control or restrict the media, they would simply lost their main born-to-so function.

Example: the pro-Bush Fox news

No Logo Response

The documentary focuses on branding, promoting an idea that successful corporations must primarily produce brands, as opposed to products. Throughout the documentary, Klein pays special attention to the deeds and misdeeds of Nike, The Gap, McDonald’s and Microsoft. She discusses how brand names expanded beyond the mere products, boring their names, and how these names and logos began to appear everywhere.

Klein highlights that large multinational corporations consider the marketing of a brand name to be more important than the actual manufacture of products; she constantly repeat, explicitly telling us what the main idea of this documentary is, “They (the companies) are so clearly not selling a product, they are selling an idea, a lifestyle!”.

The documentary increases the tension and emphasis using some mind-blowing statistics that are actually leading the person into a state where he/she is ready to listen to persuasive messages. In addition, this documentary uses many ‘punch words’ that have an emotional impact that deliver a blow to the listener that effectively feels the punch. Those words and phrases are given extra emphasis, such as stressing them, and pausing before them. Examples include: no choice, no space and so on.

Klein, later, discusses how brands use their size and clout to limit the number of choices available to the public - through market dominance.

Furthermore, she also explains that the manufacturing jobs are being moved to places known as export processing zones where there is no labor laws, leading to dire working conditions. Along the way, she argues, the brands attempted to have their names associated with everything from movie stars and athletes to social movements.

What I found depressing is the linkage between two topics mentioned above; the idea that profits are used for promoting brand over worker, not only offering low wages with no benefits, but often –in times of profit- laying off workers to keep a steady stream of income flowing into the marketing department.

// No Logo's // analysis of our corporate and branded world is really informative and persuasive.


 * __ Response to the last lesson (14 October, 2011) __**

The reflections of growing right wing extremism, tensions in society due to multiculturalism, violations of human rights in a globalized thus deeply interlinked world and overall passivism for reacting on these issues, call for action from people to be tolerant.

Action from people to understand each other; clearly not an action of victimizing the victims, saying that they are, in all cases, the perpetrators. Muslim are, undeniably, being discriminated. But, at the same time, we forget to acknowledge that Christians are also being discriminated.

In addition, attacks against Egyptian Christian in 2011 include, but are not limited to:
 * The bombing outside the Church of the Two Saints on New Year’s morning that killed 23 worshippers leaving a midnight mass celebration in Alexandria.
 * The destruction of a church by a Muslim mob following reports of a romantic relationship between a Christian man and a Muslim woman in the village of Sol on March 5.
 * The killing of nine Coptic Christians by a radical mob and the Egyptian military while Copts were protesting in the Mokattam Hills in Cairo on March 9.
 * The killing of 12 Christians and Muslims by an Islamist group that attacked St. Mina Church and Virgin Mary Church in the Imbaba district of Cairo on May 7. One church was burned to the ground and numerous Christian-owned apartments and shops were vandalized and looted.

Further more, The Muslim Brotherhood’s Freedom and Justice Party is the most organized and financed contender in the upcoming elections and has publicly stated their intention to institute forms of Sharia (Islamic law) in the country.

The video that Linda played shows a protest organized by some extremist groups. Furthermore it shows that many people do not understand that in order to get a culture that is rich and that binds us together, we should include everyone. We must not neglect these facts! On our next English class, we should not only cry “Islamophobia”, but acknowledge that there also is “Christianophobia”, and treat it as we treat “Islamophobia”. We should acknowledge that there is a problem! Followers of Islam are slaughtering Christians in Somalia and it is only the Islamic faith which continues to kill apostates. Therefore, you had mass coverage about a pastor who was going to burn the Koran but you have a virtual silence about the annihilation of Christianity in Somalia and the burning of Bibles in Pakistan. In addition, how much do we know about the ongoing witch-hunt in Somalia where the Sunni Islamic al-Shabaab (al-Shabab) desire to kill all Christians; does this count?

Christians burnt alive by Sunni Muslims in Nigeria

P.S.

A year ago, I went to a cultural exchange program in Turkey. My highly educated family (my host mother is a member of the Turkish parliament) and I went to an exclusive restaurant. I expected waiters not to say a word to me except “How can I help you, Sir?” but the waiter started to talk to me, and his second question was what religion I am. After telling him I am a Christian, he kept asking me if I have thought of converting to a Muslim and then why didn’t I think about that? Honestly, I felt not discriminated but offended. So instead of answering him, for third time, why I haven’t thought about converting to Muslim, I answered him question with exactly the same question. My host family realized I felt offended, and told me that he was just testing how strong my believes are. Then, I felt discriminated. Why didn’t he test their believes, questioned myself? Alaa: Let me tackle the last remark first and offer some justification: the man thought he was doing you a favor, and doing his duty by spreading his own Religion Islam and instead of feeling discriminated against have you questioned his intentions? have you thought about an answer to his question? was the hosting family Muslims? You missed the fact that around 97% of the Turks are Muslims that's why the man didn't question their believes.

Now going back to your reflection. You can't hold a nation or a wide group responsible for the act of minority.The list of atrocities against humanity is endless for example the holocaust not all the Germans responsible for Nazi actions just like not all Jews were innocent. The very same Jews who blew up schools not even worship places with innocent children how would you justify that? what about the thousands of Muslims killed in Bosnia, we can't hold all the Christians responsible and we won't. To my knowledge the number of Christians countries are by far more than the number of Muslim countries that's why the issue of Christian discrimination is not as high as Muslim discrimination and I am not undermining the problem and giving reasons as to why. I repeat The list is endless, you have to realize there is Political agendas playing a major role in Egypt, the 25 th of January revolution is the ultimate proof of religious unity in Egypt, the investigations proved that it was a political deploy behind the burning down of churches why? to distract the people and cause tension between Muslims and Christians. During the revolution there was no police on the street and yet not one report of a bombed church you know why because we were standing hand in hand in Liberation square protecting each other This is a picture of Christians protecting Muslims during Friday prayer A priest next to an imam both calling for the same cause. Nothing more to be said the pictures speak for themselves Oh I forgot about the Muslim Brotherhood if they win by fair elections and the people vote for the Muslim shari3a than what's the problem? I thought we lived in the age of democracy and as for the Qur'aan's burning it gained a lot of publicity because it was an act of revenge by a priest which is very contradictory in itself.

Sana: Martin, I think you bring up a good point and I agree that there are many Christians that are also discriminated against. Also, I think that our class discussion was focused on Muslim discrimination because that was the point Alaa was trying to make with the bias in the BBC article, not because we think discrimination only happens against Muslims. In response to both Martin and Alaa I would like to say I think that it is not the number of Muslims versus the number of Christians discriminated against, or the number of Muslim countries compared to the number of Christian countries that matters. What matters is that we acknowledge that discrimination happens on both sides and that the media is often biased towards one or the other. Also, in response to the points made about the man in Turkey: Alaa, I do not think that you can offer justification for what that man was thinking as you do not know. The reality is that none of us know what his intentions may have been and whether he was trying to discriminate against Martin or not. However, it is important to acknowledge that most of Turkey is Muslim and the man may not have encountered many Christians before. At the same time, Martin may not be used to questioning regarding his religion. It is quite possible that it is this difference in culture that caused some tension in this situation.

I first want to say that I totally agree with everything that Sana said. Secondly, when, in maths, you prove that every prime number can be represented as 3k (+-)1, do you actually prove that every number that can be represented as 3k (+-)1 s actually a prime number? Similarly, the fact that not every German, Bosnian, Egyptian is responsible for the Holocaust, Bosnian Massacre, Discrimination against Christians, correspondingly, do you prove that Germany, Bosnia, Egypt are not responsible for those actions as a nation?!

Furthermore, Germany and Bosnia, examples you mentioned, took the responsibility and acknowledged that they, as a nation, did something wrong. They have been, continuously, working on overcoming those problems, and they are no longer to be blamed. It is those who pretend that nothing happens who should be blamed.