Archive for October, 2008

The Undesirable Messages in the Mass Medium

Thursday, October 30, 2008 at 3:12 pm · Filed under The Controversy of Rap Music

Introduction

This week, my assignment was to select a mass medium that could create controversy in terms of the messages it sends out to the public. I chose to look at the various effects of rap music since I’m one of the few people that enjoy listening to it. I was asked to find and read three academic journal articles about my topic and reflect on them afterwards using Toulmin’s model once again.

Claim and Qualifiers

From the journal articles that I’ve gathered, I do agree that rap music can generate troublesome behaviors in the younger groups of listeners. However, I hold strong disagreement to the fact which states that rap music is at complete fault when a child or teenager becomes more violent.

Grounds

The first report that I read was about an interview with some of the well-known rap artists of our generation.  It’s harder to find valuable rappers these days, but we need to realize that there are still artists around who work at using their rapping skills to convey a positive message to their young listeners. Therefore, we cannot label the entire rap music industry as insulting. As Houston rapper Trae said, “There’s a lot in rap music that does influence, but you cannot sit here and just blame it on hip-hop. If you do blame it on hip-hop then blame it on all the fake rappers out there.”

The second article of mine was a research on the relationship between rap and the level of sexism in college students. The study involved three groups, one that did not listen to any music whatsoever, another which listened to songs that had no sexist lyrics, and the third group was provided with songs that did have sexist lyrics. The results of the experiment revealed that every male in all three groups became more sexist afterwards. The fact that even males who didn’t listen to sexist lyrics had undergone a higher level of sexism later on does not prove that rap music causes sexist behaviors.

The third article examined how the issue of race is entailed in rap music. Carrie Fried evaluated the outcomes of her survey, which had asked people’s responses based on the lyrics they were given. The lyrics had a picture of either a Caucasian man or an African American man. The study indicated that people still correlate racial stereotypes with lyrics. When lyrics were presented with a picture of a black rapper, every viewer’s reaction was more negative than their reactions toward lyrics with the image of a white rapper.

Warrant

The findings about the causes and effects of rap music are relevant to the rap industry as it shows that the music is not responsible for the rising of youth violence altogether. It confirms that those who listen to that kind of music need to change their perspectives. Rap has rotated more and more around the subjects of sex, drugs, and violence. It is true that Hip Hop nowadays is evolving in a way that is not truly seen as an evolution due to its obscene lyrics. The contents of most songs are becoming more explicit. However, if listeners were to be more educated, they wouldn’t be easily swayed into following those kinds of lyrics and putting them into action.

Rebuttal

Rap music falls under the “Agenda Setting Theory” because the theory states that media tell people what to think about, not what to think. I truly believe that the two matters associate with one another. It’s evident that sex, drugs, and violence are some big concerns in our world. Rap artists communicate those issues so that we’re not ignorant about them. They merely share those realistic affairs, but it is our own job to absorb what they say in way that we learn how to better ourselves. Parents cannot just blame rap music for their children’s mischievous manners because they’re the ones that are strictly in control of how their kids conduct themselves.

References

Llobet, E. (2007, November 19). Rap artists assess hip-hop music’s effects. The Daily Cougar, Retrieved October 29, 2008, from http://media.www.thedailycougar.com/media/storage/paper1206/news/2007/11/19/News/Rap-Artists.Assess.HipHop.Musics.Effects-3109639-page2.shtml

Mancini, G.. Rap music: ‘Danger’ to society or just another waltz?. Indiana University, Retrieved October 29, 2008, from http://www.iuinfo.indiana.edu/homepages/0919/text/rap.htm

Unknown. (2008, February 21). Study: Rap Music Linked to Sexism. North Carolina State University, Retrieved October 29, 2008, from http://www.physorg.com/news122832232.html

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Alternative News Medium versus Corporate News Medium

Tuesday, October 21, 2008 at 4:49 pm · Filed under The Alternative News Medium

My first assigned blog post was about monitoring the website of USA Today and now, this second blog is about the alternative media and its way of covering the news. During the past three days, I looked at the reported stories of the Newsweek magazine along with articles from the New Internationalist magazine. The Newsweek magazine represents a corporate news source, meaning that it strives for a gain in profits and sells elite viewers to advertisers as foremost origin of revenue. Its jobs are to educate the public and to promote a certain perspective or attitude. The alternative news media, however, upholds a contrary objective than the corporate news business. It is a non-profit type of media and it considers itself a branch of a project that launches new ways of swaying the public opinion. Unlike the mainstream media, it does not hunt for elite groups of people but rather seeks the broad audience.

Based upon the name “New Internationalist”, we can already expect to find mostly issues from abroad while Newsweek handles issues within the United States. Yet the greatest distinction that I noticed between the two news suppliers is that the alternative media source of my choice does not provide the latest stories daily. Newsweek, on the other hand, keeps presenting up-to-minute information every single day. Newsweek entails various topics such as health, technology, and entertainment. It also includes international stories that the other media source covers. The fact that it possesses basically all the categories of subjects makes it more fulfilling than New Internationalist. The presidential election is definitely the hot topic at this point in time as the final voting day approaches. Therefore, Newsweek’s section of the “latest headlines” is mostly occupied by articles that focus on McCain and Obama. New Internationalist contains very limited amount of news, which leaves viewers to be clueless on some other subjects. It tells a lot more about the health conditions that are going on globally as world poverty is its main focus. Although the majority of its reports are serious and depressing news, it also takes time to embrace a few amusing scoops. An example of such comical story is an article called “THINGS TO DO BEFORE I RETIRE”, which was derived from the diary of our current president, George W. Bush.

While there are many differences, there’s also an essential similarity between the two sources. Both consist of interviews with regular people seen on the street. The quotes they use in their reports are directly taken from what their interviewees have stated. This makes their articles more precise and valuable, indeed. The two sources aim to concentrate on the issues that the public would want to know more about and would be interested in understanding more deeply. The fact that they involve ordinary people in their interviews gives the rest of us viewers the ability to relate to those people, which is definitely important.

 

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The Roles in the Media

Tuesday, October 14, 2008 at 5:18 pm · Filed under The Media's Role

Introduction

For my first blog assignment, I was instructed to examine the election coverage by a media source of my choice. I decided to study how USA Today online reports the presidential campaigns in terms of Kathleen Hall Jamieson and Paul Waldman’s book called “The Press Effect”. The time of which I monitored the source from Saturday to Monday was between 10pm to 11pm. We have also been taught in class how to construct our argument based on Toulmin’s diagram. Therefore, I will be using his model to compose my own analysis and standpoint.

Claim and Qualifiers

In my perspective, USA Today effectively covered the election during the three days of my investigation as it has carefully engaged a wide range of approaches within its information. However, parts of the statements appear to be irrelevant to the main messages that the reporters were determined to focus on.

Grounds

I read fourteen articles from the politics section of www.usatoday.com/ overall.  Nine of the fourteen articles included several surveys and polls to inform the reader about which presidential candidate was leading before and which one has now taken the front spot. The various fluctuations of the public’s votes and the way the reporters take significant account of them carry out the format of a horserace. Along with the horserace layout, news writers followed the polls with strategies that the candidates need to execute to acquire victory. Those two features make the articles slide under the “soothsayer” role. However, most of the stories have also fused the role of both the “custodian of fact” and the “press as storyteller” together. Those individual news reporters incorporated pieces of history and biography of each candidate in their articles, which is what the role of the custodian of fact carries out. Additionally, they personally selected certain details of their preferences in order to express their desired concept. This doing represents the trait of the “press as storyteller” role. One of the articles directed more toward the role of the “press as psychologist”. It used a few phrases of “seemed to” as it talked about particular people’s behaviors and feelings in the campaign. The usage of expressions such as “seemed to” implies the act of supposing, which isn’t a fact.

Although each reporter’s article contains bits and pieces of the many roles from “The Press Effect” book, they all have one big similarity. Every one of them entails numerous word-for-word quotes from the presidential candidates, their running mates, as well as the public. Some news writers don’t just put out the facts and details and leave it at that. They also strengthen their gathered information by giving an analysis of certain parts. A few of the articles don’t quite stick to their primary focus as they deviate to mention other facts that the audience wouldn’t need to know about. Those unrelated pieces of information could only serve for the purpose of quick, short entertainment. One example is in an article that concentrated on Sarah Palin’s speech in Ohio. At the end of the description of her discourse, the reporter decides to add the fact that she went to a local farmer’s market to buy some apple cider. This random inclusion may be purely for fun detail and to release the seriousness of the topic.

Warrant

Since the articles possess so many little chunks of each various role in Jamieson’s and Waldman’s book, they are found to have more diversity and description. They are less bias as well. The reporters do not disregard the opinions of any groups of people. Children under the age of 18 are even included in the reports about the election as there was a completely separate survey for them to vote on. Furthermore, each article consisted of both the Republicans’ and the Democrats’ points of view. Some reporters’ objectives were to discuss one specific party, but they considerately brought up the reactions and counterattacks of the other party as well.

Backing

Although I believe that the “custodian of fact” is the most important role out of all the other possible ones, it’s even better when an article is able to enfold a mixture of the four roles excluding the “press as patriot”. Integrating all four makes the story well-rounded. As a voter, the person would want to know every angle and aspect of the running candidates such as their personalities, their beliefs and policies, and their history in order to make a greater educated decision. Perhaps even fragments of irrelevant information can be included like a couple of the articles that I read. The irrelevance may not seem fully professional at times, but it can also work in some cases.  In this election, it does seem to serve a purpose for the reader if they wish to know more about the candidates and their personal tastes. That shouldn’t be taken into consideration toward which person to vote for, however.

 

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