There are several forms of favorable and unfavorable bias affecting public perception of the media in terms of digital manipulation. Here's a chart illustrating the possibilities of explicit and implicit bias in attitudes toward photojournalism.
Not Funny: Newsweek Attacks Romney's Faith
The media doesn't give the public enough credit. It's got a chip on its shoulder when it comes to politics and religion: the public gets treated like idiots.
It's easy to poke fun of politicians and religion -- some news outlets excel at it. In the end, though, cheap shot journalism -- one that is not fair-minded, balanced, or honest -- represents the crumbling of a vital relationship between freedom of expression and democratic civics.
Surveys tell us that distrust of mainstream media remains at the bottom of respectability.
Now, instread of taking the high ground, and treating the public seriously, much of the media stands around wringing its hands. It's business as usual. But making fun of someone's faith is hitting below the belt. In the end, taking on a person's belief system distracts from electing a president with integrity and vision. In the Newsweek article that accompanies the image, the writer even asks if Mormonism is a Christian faith. There is an assumption here based on the image as well as in the reportage that Romney's faith makes him unfit to govern.
The media, like a school yard bully, plays a critical role in giving this nation a president "it" thinks it deserves. Bombast and senstationalism appear tools of the trade.
Trying to understand a complex issue is never easy, but there is no excuse for not giving a candidate a chance to defend themselves. . Not a lot of people understand Mormonism, maye they understand the faith less than they do Islam. Religion is often the target of satire because it is based on differing belief systems. Connecting Romney's faith to his ability to govern undermines the public's ability to assess his competency as a future president.
As many public relations specialists will say, negative press is better than no press at all. But there is something inexpliably wrong here. The digitally altered image of Mitt Romney dancing around is a spin on the current Broadway play "The Book of Mormon." The mash up is supposed to be satrical, and suppose it is. But there is something else at work here. How is possible to make an informed decision about a candidate when the media has already visually defamed them? Yes, it's funny, but selecting a U.S. president is not. The Newsweek cover featuring Romney, the dancing Mormon, deflects from a larger and more critical debate about religion and politics in this country. For decades the media has treated the two forces as separate, but politics and religion are hard wired into our system of discourse and governance.
The first repsonse to a critique such as this one is that wouldn't be the first time politicians have been accosted verbally or visually through media satire. During Obama's campaign he was attacked by the right-wing press as being a Muslim. The smear campaign was aimed planting a seed of doubt -- The attacked attempted to make a connection between the candidate and extremists. Now, Romney's faith is under attack because Mormonism is a mystery for many Americans. When we don't understand something, we make fun of it. That's the way it works. Guilt by association, or in this case faith.
In the line of fire: Military wants photojournalist to be tried in Iraq
For nearly 19 months, the U.S. military has held Bilal Hussein, right, an Iraqi Associated Press photographer, in detention for allededly taking part in insurgent activities, including making bombs.
Hussein, who was seized by the military in April of 2006, is now caught in a battle not only for his freedom, but for the rights of a free press. The government alleges that Hussein had links to terrorists and that an Iraqi court to decide his fate. AP, meanwhile, feels they have sufficient evidence to counter the allegations.
The ramifications of Hussein's trial will be far-reaching. At issue here, beyond the photographer's life and livelihood, is how the U.S. press has become so extraordinarily dependent upon native in-country staffers and stringers for its news. It's not clear how well Americans really understand how much of the news is actually produced by foreign journalists. Typically, wire services, in places like Iraq, have to outsource their news gathering capabilities, especially photojournalism, to people with better command of the language and the culture.
The at the core of this issue is one of trust and credibility. In August 2006, for instance, Reuters discovered that one of its stringers, Adnan Hajj, had manipulated images during the Israeli-Hezbollah conflict in Lebannon. The Hajj incident has had the effect of placing doubt in the minds of an already skeptical public about the authenticity and credibility of the news we receive from overseas. Utlimately, it is hoped that justice and truth will prevail -- however, in times of war -- both of these ideals are at risk when power and politics are at stake.
Is this the future of journalism?: Associated Press to collaborate with citizen journalism Website
On Friday, the Associated Press announced it will be working with PublicNow.com to expand access to news as it happens. PublicNow has a membership base of more than 60,000 citizen journalists in 140 countries, while the AP remains the world's largest news gathering operation with more than 4,000 employees.
Potentially the partnership could revolutionize mass media by doing away with the boundaries between amateur and professional content production. It will be interesting to see how PublicNow contributors understand and comply with the conventions, standards, and ethics of mainstream journalistic practice.
According to Managing Editor for Multimedia Lou Ferrera:
"In the early stages of the relationship, AP bureaus will work with NowPublic communities in selected locations on ways to enhance regional news coverage. National AP news desks also may tap the network in breaking news situations where citizen contributors may capture critical information and images. NowPublic also will help AP extend its coverage of virtual communities, such as social networks and contributed content sites."
The collaboration, however, seems to signify a trend in the industry to capture competition for content in an already content-saturated media environment. A few months ago, Yahoo and Reuters joined forces by inviting citizen shutterbugs to submit images of breaking news events.
Although the merger of professional and citizen-sourced content is inevitable in an age of instant communication, the road ahead may be a bit bumpy for an industry already struggling to maintain credibility and public trust.
As images and events continue to flood into the newsrooms of AP, Reuters, and other organization from citizen-sources, what is to prevent public relations firms and the government from trying to make propaganda appear more legitimate. If I worked for a company that wanted to get on the news wires to sell a product or brand a name, I would be thinking really hard right now how to take advantage of the collaborative trends.
Already, news seems so saturated with an array of pseudo-events that stretch the definition of what constitutes relevant and significant information.
Ultimately, wire services and Websites will be challenged to ensure that citizen-sourced media is legitimate and credible. At the same time, maybe the prevailing public perception of mass media as a trustworthy source of information is so low, that it won't really make much of a difference.
Michael Tippett founder of PublicNow.com write in a recent post about the Anna Nicole Smith notes that many people are becoming concerned that the news is increasingly sensationalist and celebrity driven.
What really struck home was Tippett's comment on how news has changed in recent years.
"Where news goes wrong is when it goes from being the messenger to being the message. Where people get bored is when news produces celebrity instead of reporting on it."
Tortured realities: The camera phone comes of age
The potential of the camera phone image to speak truth to power cannot be underestimated. As James Fallows observes, "History is driven by ideas and passions, and by unforeseeable events....History is also driven by science and technology."
When technology slams headlong into inhumane and unjustice acts, people begin to take notice. Today, we are on the verge of a digital revolution with the emergence of cell phone technologies -- one that can be seen as a positive force used to promote democracy or one that may eventually be used to destroy it.
Pictures from Abu Ghraib of U.S. soldiers torturing Iraqi prisoners,the tsunami disaster, the subway bombings in London, the execution of Saddam Hussein, the massacre of Iraqi civilians by U.S. Marines in Haditha, and more recently the photographs of Egyptian police torturing suspects suggests the emergence of a hyper-mediated surveillance society.
The motivation to photograph atrocities by the perpetrators, such as in Abu Ghraib prison, Haditha, and in Egypt indicates how people in positions of power and control blindly operate by a code of conduct that is beyond any law -- human or devine. The soldiers and police making these images possess a sense superiority and impunity toward those they deem to be the enemy. The pictures they make may be made as evidence, entertain, or propaganda.
When 21-year-old Egytian minibus driver Imad Kabir was hung upside down and sodomized, his torturers recorded the proceedings with a camera phone and then transmitted the video to the Kabir's co- workers as a warning. The pictures eventually made their way onto the Internet and two police offers were jailed in the incident.
Originally conceived as an act of oppression against those opposing the government's authority, the Egyptian camera phone images reveal the often rumored and insidious truth about the mistreatment of prisoners. It is extremely difficult for any government to deny such cases of abuse when the evidence appears so indisputable.
The camera phone images we have seen in recent years are glimpses of a world we have heard about but have seldom seen. Images of atrocity and abuse, revealing the darkest side of humanity, speak truth to power as history unfolds before our eyes.
A sign for the times
Photo Credit: AP/WTMJ-AM
It shouldn't come as a great surprise that the upcoming midterm election is generating some interesting responses from critics on all sides of the political spectrum. Some U.S. military personnel stationed in Iraq entered the limelight today as they took a swipe at John Kerry's recent criticism of the Bush Administration's policy on the war.
From one perspective, this banner not only represents a form of free expression it is also a political attack advertisement that is sure to be picked up by Republicans as they seek to find further means to discredit Democrats.
It's curious that both military commanders and the media view the soldiers' message as more humor and less about politics. However, if people read behind the joke, the implications are far more serious.
It would be interesting to see how military command as well as the media would react if the soldiers were criticizing George Bush in this way instead of John Kerry. No joke.
Bad news for journalism
The International Freedom of Expression eXchange (IFEX) reports that more journalists have been killed in 2006 than in the past decade. Around the world, 78 journalists have been murdered this year -- not very good news for freedom of the press.
The Pentagon's Entertainment Recon: Is "America's Army" at War with Bush's Family Values Agenda?
It is no secret that the Bush Administration has carefully aligned itself to the promotion of so-called “family values.” In defending a strong conservative agenda on an array of causes aimed at protecting what it believes to be “traditional” values, the White House has been undeniably vocal.
For many years violent graphic visual media has been at the center of the “family values” war against mass media. Family Values promoters blame video games, movies and music for everything from school shootings to disobedience at home.
In fact, at the start of his first presidential campaign in 2000, Bush pledged to “empower parents to protect their children….from harmful material on the Internet.”
Ironically, two years after Bush came into power, the Pentagon released its brand new weapon in the war to recruit young people into the military called “America’s Army” an online first-person-shooter computer game, that contains – surprise, surprise – violent graphic content.
A screen shot from the game America's Army.
America’s Army, with more than 5.5 million registered users, boasts that players have logged on as many as 94 million hours of online play. Today, the game remains one of the top five online action games in the country.
America’s Army is a FPS or first-person-shooter game. FPS games, like Doom and Quake have been around since the early 1990s. Since then, the games have become the subject of frequent controversy over graphic violence. According to Wikipedia, a “first-person shooter (FPS) is a combat computer or video game, which is characterized by the player’s on-screen view of the game simulating that of the character or First Person view."
In this fantasy world, according to America’s Army propaganda, “We have virtually taken our players through boot camp, through Ranger and Airborne training, and even introduced them to the Army's Quiet Professionals, the elite Special Forces.” Translation: playing at soldiering can be fun – you too can serve, protect, and kill, kill, kill in this virtual universe.
The Pentagon’s strategy to place “Soldiering” at the forefront of popular culture has been a terrific success. Young people are being exposed, at the taxpayers’ expense, to what the Army does – root out evil and destroy it…click…kill…click…kill…click…kill.
Using popular culture as a recruitment tool also puts the Pentagon in the entertainment business and at odds with the “Family Values” concerns expressed by the Bush administration. In short, America’s Army glorifies killing in an effort to attract recruits. With millions of young people playing the FPS game, I guess we can conclude that our current administration’s promise to “protect our children” from the so-called harms of the Internet is nothing short of shallow campaign rhetoric.
At the heart of this issue is whether you believe what the research is saying. Every day, I walk into classrooms full of young people who have played FPS games for years. Should I live my life in fear that exposure to such games as America’s Army or Grand Theft Auto III will turn my students into rabid killers?
There are many studies exploring the affects of violent graphic visual media on teenagers. Most of the studies, not surprisingly, conclude that exposure to such images make boys more aggressive and less academically inclined.
An empirical review of the last 20 years of research on violence and visual media by researchers Jessica Nicoll, B.A., and Kevin M. Kieffer, Ph.D., of Saint Leo University showed that violent video games can increase aggressive behavior in children and adolescents, both in the short- and long-term. According to the report:
“One study showed participants who played a violent game for less than 10 minutes rate themselves with aggressive traits and aggressive actions shortly after playing. In another study of over 600 8th and 9th graders, the children who spent more time playing violent video games were rated by their teachers as more hostile than other children in the study. The children who played more violent video games had more arguments with authority figures and were more likely to be involved in physical altercations with other students. They also performed more poorly on academic tasks.”
However, in his testimony before Congress following the Columbine High School shootings in Littleton, Colorado, Henry Jenkins, director of the Comparative Media Studies Program at MIT, suggested that tracing explicit acts of violence to the visual media people consume can be problematic.
“The tangled relationship between these various forms of popular culture makes it impossible for us to determine a single cause for their actions. Culture doesn't work that way.”
Jenkins continued:
“Cultural artifacts are not simple chemical agents like carcinogens that produce predictable results upon those who consume them. They are complex bundles of often contradictory meanings that can yield an enormous range of different responses from the people who consume them.”
What are the cultural implications signified by the symbolic depictions of violence in first-person-shooter games?
It is interesting to note that journalists have not yet made the connection between the government's development of a violent computer game aimed at young people and Bush’s family values agenda.
I have mixed feelings about FPS games but have been on alert as new studies come out.
As a parent of two small children, I do believe that using taxdollars to fund and promote a product that could have negative consequences on society is irresponsible and problematic for a society which prides itself on human rights. At this point, I am afraid to learn how much money has been spent on this so-called “murder simulator” game, but I can imagine that its development and maintenance costs us a pretty penny, financially, psychologically and sociologically.
Former CNN anchor Aaron Brown on "Is TV news fulfilling its promise?"
Former CNN anchor Aaron Brown waits off stage before presenting his keynote address at the annual Thomas W. Pyle First Amendment Forum at Southern Oregon University Wednesday evening.
Brown answers questions from the audience.
Aaron Brown's experience as a cool-headed journalist showed last evening as he addressed a standing room only crowd at Southern Oregon University. The former CNN anchor started out by taking a moment to look out at the faces in the audience -- students, faculty, and predominantly older Ashlanders. Without missing a beat he then quipped, "It must be a slow night in Ashland."
It might have been slow night in Ashland, but it was pretty lively when a few people decided to use the opportunity as a political soapbox. There were a couple of outraged citizen who stood up and lectured Brown about all sort of evils -- corporate media, the War on Iraq, taxes, greed, or whatever else was on their minds. This sort of spirit makes Ashland unique, but I felt a little sorry for Brown who had to bear the brunt of criticism for the failure of cable news.
Brown's address was honest and heartfelt. He knows his business. He didn't come across in the least bit as someone who was feeling sorry for themselves, angry, or overly self-absorbed. Brown's talk was a refreshing and sobering reminder of what the role of the media in a democratic society should be all about.
Brown believes in television news and represents a tradition in broadcasting -- one that Americans have come to depend on in news anchors such as Cronkite, Brinkley, Jennings, Rather, Koppel, or Brokaw. Brown belongs to the golden days of television journalism, where content and delivery in times of emergency and crisis requires great commitment and resolve. However, since his departure from the CNN anchor spot in November, Brown may very well represent the last of an era in broadcast journalism.
Television news is changing fast in an attempt to capture younger audiences. It now remains to be seen if the industry is up to the challenge. Medford Mail Tribune Staff Writer, Chris Conrad, summed up the tone of Brown's message when observing:
He [Brown] suggested his eventual demise at CNN resulted from criticizing the network’s obsession with lurid celebrity gossip while short-changing meaningful news.
This may very well be the case, but it is clear that broadcasting has lost an individual with intregity and a passion for journalism.
BLOGROLL
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Signs and Symbol Resources
- Symbols | The Art of Wonder
- Symbols and Symbolism, Symbolic Images, Meanings, Interpretations - Ready Reference Center at Middletown Thrall Library - Web Research, Websites, Internet Resources
- State Symbols USA | Official State and National Symbols, Emblems, Icons
- Ancient Symbols, meanings of symbols from Ancient Egyptian,Celtic, Greek, etc.
- ANCIENT WISDOM
- Signs, Symbols, Meanings
- Online Symbolism Dictionary
- Geek Lore
- Mircea Eliade
- Merlin Donald
- Sapolsky Metaphors Are Us
- James Howe MIT course Myth, Ritual, and Symbolism
- Peter Russell
- List of Stone Age art - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
- How Symbols are Created
- Language & Symbols | The Smithsonian Institution's Human Origins Program
- Symbolism | Thematic Essay | Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History | The Metropolitan Museum of Art
- Enrich Your LIfe with Symbols
- Geometry in Art & Architecture: The Circle Symbol
- The Meaning Of A Pentagram
- The Secret Language of Symbols
- The Circle is a Universal Symbol
- Circles and Symbols
- Cultural Color
- Symbolism of Color: Using Color for Meaning
It is quite clear that there are risks involved in blogging as a form of scholarship in progress -- risks that are more about exposing ideas not yet fully developed than anything that could pass as rigorous academic discourse at this point. In academe, the old adage "publish or perish" continues to remain a salient mantra for most.
Professors on tenure-track are often warned about the perils of deviating from antecedent practices and traditions that have fairly strict conventions in terms of who will earn tenure. The value of publishing a letter to the editor, for example, is not given the same weight as publishing research in a scholarly peer-reviewed journal. All of this makes perfect sense, but where do professors who maintain active blogs fit in? Many edubloggers spend many hours maintaining blogs, collecting ideas and material, and responding to comments. What is the value of such practices?
As a former journalist, I justify the risks of blogging about academic ideas with the belief that the rewards of engaging people in a broader and deeper conversation about what we see and how things are made to be see is more far more interesting, relevant, and exciting.
The objective of writing in the moment on a blog is about engaging others -- students, teachers, professionals, and the general public -- in a more or less real-time conversation about the impact of images on society.
Some academics argue that scholarly energies are better served if one spends time researching, writing, and sending off articles to peer-reviewed journals. Again this make sense, but I also believe that there is room for both the ivory tower and the soap box in today's media illiterate world. Not only is there room for blogging from an educational perspective, but there is also a tremendous need to train the general public to move beyond a so-called commonsense viewpoint offered up in the mainstream press today. The commonsense viewpoint, in this case, refers to how so many of us refuse to question "news" as presented as "truth" by much of the mainstream media.
Scholars, with years of academic training behind them, are in a unique position to engage the public inside and outside of the classroom in new ways. Through an educational blog, scholars can provide readers with the intellectual tools required to engage in higher levels of analysis and discourse.
This past week has been a case study in how effective educational blogging can be. It has also been a watershed moment in my education as a teacher.
As I have engaged in a daily analysis of images from the war between the Hezbollah in Lebanon and Israel, several readers have commented on my analysis and even questioned my logic. Good for everyone that have been taking the time to engage in this conversation.
Thanks to Charles who has been graciously challenging me to clarify my interpretation of Whitehead's symbolism, as well as to Karin who asks, "How do you suggest that picture editors choose a picture/s to represent this situation?"
The objective of this exercise has always been about helping myself and others to understand the power of the visual in society. More recently, with the conflict raging in the Middle East, I have become more of an activist in terms of visual literacy. The first step of this process has been to engage others in learning to apply a variety of perspectives to the war of images currently being played out across the front pages of our nation's newspapers.