Parody as a Framing Tool

Often our generation is criticized for obtaining the majority of of news information from comedy shows such as The Daily Show and The Colbert Report. While these shows are occasionally ridiculous (more Colbert in my opinion) and aired for their comedic value, they do draw from real-life news and current events for their material. Below is a link to a fairly well publicized skit from The Daily Show parodying Glenn Beck's style of journalism on his FOX News show. The clip is taken directly from Countdown with Keith Olbermann who is reporting on the controversial routine. Have a look before reading on:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nNOku6QP4UM&feature=related

Glenn Beck's reporting style is unique indeed and (leaving my personal opinions out of this) arguably more open to parody than some other broadcast figures. However, I would like to examine the act of parody itself in terms of media framing. Framing is the process, both voluntary and involuntary, by which certain aspects of texts and categories of texts as a whole become more prominent through selection and broadcasting. News stories will frame certain issues and certain aspects about stories every day. For example, the whole concept of a "mean world" expectation from people comes form the media reporting only violent and negative stories or highlighting aspects such as death and destruction in other stories. The Middle East is a topic in particular comes to my mind when thinking of news framing. But I digress.

In the Baran and Davis readings, the concept of formed expectations comes into play. It is states that "Expectations are often associated with and can arouse strong emotions such as hate, fear, or love," (Baran & Davis, 315). These expectations are what interact with potential framing displayed by the media and media texts. Comedy routines such as those on The Daily Show engage in framing of their own. The parody style in these shows takes the small quips and unique behaviors/flaws of an individual or story and puts them front and center. The end product of such a framing exercise is ultimately suppose to be laughter or comedic value. In reference to the expectations discusses in Baran & Davis, I would like to propose that laughter and entertainment are also an emotion that can unconsciously cause certain opinions to occur with these shows. Considering our generation reports that a majority of our news digestion comes from these shows is a perfect example. We go in to such a program expecting comedy and laughter. However when the issues that are poked at are brought up in discussion, students will report that they heard about such a thing on The Daily Show. Hence, the only side of the issue they are aware of is the extremities framed and promoted by the comedy routines such as the clip provided.

However, we cannot neglect the fact that we are functional, thinking, human beings. Framing does not imply that we believe everything we hear from the media. In the Entmann reading, it is stated that "Because salience is a product of the interaction of texts and receivers, the presence of frames in the text, as detected by researchers, does not guarantee their influence in audience thinking," (Enmann, 53). When information is delivered through the media to a reciever, it is then interpreted by that receiver. This is to say that not all things stated on the news are taken at face value. Through this interpretation opinions are formed and the promoted view from the media can be accepted, rejected, or compromised with. With parody shows, certain issues are framed under a certain (usually extremely critical) light. While viewers look to the show for emotional satisfaction through comedic value, the issues are still real and are being portrayed in a certain light. Even in the YouTube clip the routine is being discussed and analyzed on another news program.

The questions that I want to propose through this analysis of parody concern our generation particularly. While independent research and opinion formation can be done, it is a question of apathy with college students. At Quinnipiac specifically, do you think the majority of students take the extreme parody of such shows at face value or a point of research? While most students will admit they learn current events from The Daily Show and The Colbert Report, I am more interested in their subsequently formed opinions on the issues at hand. Do you believe these shows form a majority opinion with its college-age viewers? Do you find yourself drawing opinions that coincide with the comedy skits of parody news shows? Parody is a very cloudy frame indeed, but our generation is a petri dish for the cultivation new opinions and influences and these shows appear to be the catalyst.

Hard News vs. Soft News

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kIyyE_PGATA

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pkm5KLDD5fc

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3B5rdJOFEGs

After reading Gaye Tuchman’s theories about the types of news that the newsworkers’ try to cover I went to WTNH’s YouTube page, and pulled out the first five videos that I found and decided to classify them and see what type of news they actually are.

Tuchman describes five different types of news. Hard news and soft news are the two primary types of news. Hard news is “news information people should have to be informed citizens and soft news concerns human foibles and the ‘texture of our human life’. So are the stories that WTNH covers news that are vital to human life.

Three of the five stories that I found involved shootings in the New Haven area. While these stories are indeed unfortunate and need to be covered, I would not classify them as necessarily hard news. Shootings happen every day and knowing about every shooting in Connecticut isn’t going to decide whether I am an “informed citizen” or not. Tuchman classifies these news stories as spot news, which are things such as robberies, murders, fires etc. She also claims that this is a subclassification of hard news. I tend to disagree with this notion on the basis of her previous definitions. Knowing about fires and murders I feel like are actually more soft news than hard news, as they don’t affect the mass audience that WTNH is trying to go to, and instead it seems like they are more focused on trying to sensationalize the story and get the best shot of the fire, or the best interview with a witness, so that they can say they have the best coverage.

In the Baran and Davis readings, they talk about a form of journalism called “explanatory journalism”. This is a type of journalism which explains why events and statements described by conventional journalists take place. I don’t see enough of this going on in local news. It seems that they are quick to report the news and get the best shots and interviews that they can. But they fail to explain why this news is important and why it affects me. My question is do you think that enough hard news, and information that “people should have to be informed citizens” is covered enough by the media, especially by local news broadcasts?

Framing in Media

Since as far back as I can remember the media has been trying to impose certain stereotypes into our minds in almost all forms of media from commercials to movies. I’m sure you all have seen a commercial or can even think of a specific commercial that does this. Right off the top of my head I can tell you that women are portrayed as delicate, sensitive, and domesticated while men are portrayed as strong, aggressive and assertive. Because of this it made it easy for me to find the perfect video to demonstrate this and I’m sure you have also seen it before.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yIutgtzwhAc&feature=fvst

Robert Entmann defines framing as “selecting aspects of a perceived reality and make them more salient in a communicating text, in which such a way as to promote a particular problem definition, casual interpretation, moral evaluation, and/or treatment recommendation for the item described.” In this case men are being portrayed as obsessive of beer in a bit of a feminine way. In a more stereotypical commercial one might see them men in the beer closet watching a football game or eating a large steak or something. Do you think that this commercial was more taking a shot at how women usually act or do you think they did not even think of that part of it? Most sensible people can see that this is just supposed to be a funny commercial and not how men really are and probably would not have any adverse affects on men who watch it but there are definitely other similar commercials that do affect the issue of framing.

The example of the beer commercial is typical in the way that there are almost no commercials featuring women as the beer representative besides maybe the bud light lime ones. In my experience I found that men are the usual beer drinkers and women prefer a mixed drink with a little better flavor to it. Do you think that these commercials or advertisements have anything to do with that?

I was never so aware of framing and media influence until becoming a media studies major but now that I have been shown these things it is hard not to notice them. Because of this I noticed how the women in the commercial were portrayed. They were all excited over a large closet with lots of clothes and shoes. Do you think the writers of the advertisement did this on purpose or do you think it was just supposed to be funny about how the men reacted?

Can you think of any beer commercials that do not directly focus on men? If so, why do you think they went with women in the commercial instead of men? After hearing what Erving Goffman said how the media has homogenized how women are publicly depicted do you think that men are also publicly depicted?

Will media ever become neutral in gender roles or will things always stay the same?

Women as Cleaning Machines: An Issue of Framing

As a young woman who has been exposed to many commercials over the course of my lifetime, I have stumbled across a realization about women portrayed in cleaning commercials. Can you personally recall a commercial promoting some type of household cleaning product that featured a male as the lead? You might be able to think of one, maybe two, but how about five? Ten? How many cleaning commercials can you think of that feature women prancing around their sparkling homes sporting aprons and rubber gloves? I am assuming the latter is much higher number. You may already have plenty of examples that you can draw from memory, so instead I found a video addressing this particular phenomenon:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZqDzKad2Q3M&ob=av3e

This issue directly relates to our topic for the week which is the framing theory. To frame, as defined in the reading by Entmann, “…is to select some aspects of a perceived reality and make them more salient in a communicating text, in which such a way as to promote a particular problem definition, causal interpretation, moral evaluation, and/or treatment recommendation for the item described.” The way the media frame what they broadcast could potentially affect how we as audience members perceive that issue in real life. We have seen this time and time again with the objectification of women, particularly in the media. Especially as Media Studies students, we are all aware that women are oftentimes exploited and portrayed as sex objects all , but that is a whole separate conversation.

On the flip side, women are also being portrayed as the sole household member responsible for cleaning up after everyone else. According to cleaning commercials, women are the only people who know how to clean or use a mop! I wonder if any of you have also noticed this trend. I find this tendency to be partly amusing and partly outdated. I would like to think that the media would represent gender roles in a way that better correlates with modern trends, but according to these commercials women are still the only family members responsible for cleaning the house. Maybe it’s just my family that’s different, but my dad does the cooking, the grocery shopping, the laundry, and sometimes the cleaning. Is that the case in your house? According to the framing theory, the way that topics are framed in the media could potentially influence how the public forms beliefs about reality.

Erving Goffman explored the way media might influence viewers:

…he presented an insightful argument concerning the influence advertising could have on our perception of members of the opposite sex… We might be learning more than product definitions from these ads. We could be learning a vast array of social cues…Advertisers didn’t create sex-role stereotypes, but, Goffman argued, they have homogenized how women are publicly depicted.

Do you think these cleaning commercials focused on women enforce the notion that women are responsible for cleaning? Does it become a subconscious belief that it the woman’s job, or do you think that these one-sided commercials have no effect whatsoever on what people believe about who should do the cleaning?

What other dominating portrayals of gender roles to you see depicted in the media?

"Frankenfood" Coming Soon to a Store Near You?

http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2010/09/20/fda-genetically-modified-salmon-gmo/

Fox News is a sure bet for an angenda-setting article, upon looking at the homepage I was hit with Breaking News bars in fire hydrant red, and titles like 'Abortion joins 'don't ask' in Defense Budget Battle' and 'Kids Tracked More Closely Online Than Adults'. My first impression was, "Wow, what a crappy world", then I took a moment to gaurd myself from the large font headlines (larger font implies a greater importance) and flashing red news bars to realize that there was not a single positive article on this entire homepage, with all of our politicians being corrupt and internet and video-games brain washing our children; how could there be any good to report? When I think of agenda-setting, I think of big corporations like Fox News, whose overtly conservative nature is known throughout America, yet it still has the tagline 'Fair & Balanced'.

The article that I chose to focus on was entitled "Frankenfood" Coming Soon to a Store Near You?", this title has it all in my opinion. First, I want to point out the great Frankenstein reference which anyone over the age of 6 will understand that Franken-anything means that it is genectically altared and not natural. Second, I'd like to note the usage of the word 'You'; when used in the headline immediately draws the reader in, immediately thinking that the next time they go to the grocery store, Frankenfood is going to attack. The article in reality deals with a new genetically enhanced salmon that the Food and Drug Association is looking into. The first half of the article warns the reader of these 'frankenfoods' which would open the door for a new section in the grocery store between frozen and organic; infering that if this salmon is approved, all of our fish will be genetically engineered. The article states half-way through that: " the FDA said there were no biologically relevant differences between the engineered salmon and conventional salmon, and there is a reasonable certainty of no harm from its consumption." The creator of this salmon, Ron Stotish the cheif executive of AquaBounty, says the fish would be breed in better conditions than many of the worlds farmed salmon. The main concern here is the long term effects of eating a genectically engineered fish and the labeling of the fish, would consumers know what they were actually eating?

The media has evolved over the years from being our trusted 'watch-dogs' of America, to neither our friend nor foe. The love-hate relationship that society has with the media stems from the level of trust that has been broken between news anchors and its viewers. Rogers & Dearing make a point to state that the "agenda-setting tradition is concerned with how the media angenda influences the public agenda" (pg. 2 of 10), by media agenda Rogers & Dearing refer to the "issues or events that are viewed at a point in time as ranked in a hierarchy or importance" (pg. 2 of 10). This agenda-setting is dangerous because a small group of people is left to decide was is or is not important for the public to know. That gives that small group an extreme amount of power. McCombs & Shaw make an excellent point that "while the mass media may have little influence on the direction or intensity of attitudes, it is hypothesized that the mass media set the agenda for each political campaign, influencing the...attitudes toward the political issues" (pg. 2 of 11). I thought this was important to note because influence a general attitude of the public overall has a greater effect since most of the public would not get into long discussions about each issues but having a positive or negative attitude towards the issue will be seen in polls and surveys where the person checking the box for their opinion is probably not very informed about the entire issue at hand. Which goes along with how th majority of the public will only get information from one news source rather than check all of the available sources for all the facts.

So to Frankenfood or not to Frankenfood?

Gaga: Not on today's agenda

Posted on behalf of Matt Hudak:

http://www.foxnews.com/entertainment/2010/09/17/lady-gaga-urges-fans-senators-dont-ask-dont-tell-policy/#content

A blog on agenda-setting? I immediately turned to the infamous FOX News Network. FOX News, known for it’s conservative views, provided a relatively stale article on Lady Gaga, which I thought was somewhat of an oxymoron. Two-thirds of the FOX News article, “Lady Gaga Urges Fans to Call Senators Over 'Don't Ask, Don't Tell' Policy, But Can't Get Through Herself!”, were direct quotes regurgitated from Lady Gaga’s YouTube proclamation on gays openly serving in the military. It is hard to draw out FOX’s opinion on the issue because of the author’s objective reporting. The article does not try to come to any real conclusion about Gaga although the title does imply a failure for Gaga. The title state that Gaga “can’t get through [to the Senators] herself!” The title also states that Gaga wants her audience to “call Senators over” the issue of the military’s “Don’t ask, Don’t Tell” policy, when really her intent is to encourage fans to ask senators to repeal the policy (a title change that could have shown more support on the issue).

Roger and Dearing’s, “Shaping the Political Agenda”, the idea of “assessing causality” plays a part in the explanation of where this particular article is on Foxnews.com. Seeing as I had to search for this article within the website rather than seeing it as a headline is proof that Fox News does not even want people to be exposed to the network’s own article. Roger and Dearing state that there is a “positive association between the amount of media content devoted to an item and the development of a place on the public agenda for the item”. This ties into the fact that although similarly-racy entertainer, Lindsay Lohan’s, failed drug test article was posted on the same day as Gaga’s article, the FOX News website has Lohan’s article on their main page. There is convincing evidence that because of the placement of Lohan’s article, it was read more (or at least discussed more). As of Sunday morning, Lohan’s article had 217 comments with 204 ‘Facebook Recommendations’ while Gaga’s article received 7 comments with 14 recommendations to Facebook. Baron & Davis’ section on “position of a story” rings true in this situation and proving that “lead stories had a greater agenda-setting effect” (Baron & Davis, 281).

I also found it interesting that the Associated Press provided the Lohan article and it got better placement on Foxnews.com than FOX New’s own Gaga article. In my opinion, this has a lot to do with Baron and Davis’ idea of the spiral of silence. With an issue such as rights for gays and lesbians in the military, the media has not yet become comfortable discussing it, especially a conservative network such as FOX News. Which direction is media is steering issues like this? Unfortunately, some think that, “As time passes, those viewpoints will cease to be heard in public and therefore cannot affect political decision making” (Baron & Davis, 283). Drawing a conclusion, this is probably why FOX News does not have Gaga’s article ‘front and center’. How strong is the correlation between media coverage and political decision-making? I personally believe that society is moving in a direction where media coverage of once taboo issues is increasing and this will, in turn, have an effect on political decision making.

Agenda Setting in the News

            When I was younger (and by younger I mean until right before I went away to college) I would wait for my dad to come home every night and then as we were eating dinner it would be just time for the evening news to start. Sometimes we would watch Brian Williams and sometimes we would watch Katie Couric but it would always start out with previews as to what would be on the show for that day.

I didn’t know it then but that was an example of agenda setting. A lot of how the evening news works fits in with the criteria of agenda setting as shown on page 281 of the Baran and Davies reader. In the evening news, stories with most importance or what the media assumes people will be the most interested in are positioned first in the newscast.  The first item this newscast talks about is the Enron scandal. It clearly has a negative spin on it. An uninformed citizen who did not know much about the Enron scandal could for sure tell from just the tone of how they were talking about the scandal that this was very negative. The language they use is very vivid (talking about how Enron had fallen from being one of the top companies on the stock ticker) and it is placed in an important spot (the lead story).

            Page 159 of the McCombs and Shaw article posted on blackboard talks about how many of the news stories are the same across various media outlets possibly due to various newswire services. The Evening News and other news outlets putting certain stories first across the board could be considered agenda setting.

            I believe that is probably very had to accuse a media outlet of having any kind of specific agenda. Yes, many newscast and newspapers may have a very similar story as their lead-in piece or as the front page story but really, that is because it’s what the public cares about. The YouTube clip from the previews for the evening news ends with a preview for a human-interest story and the back end of a newscast is where that belongs. It doesn’t really have the same sense of national urgency that the other stories do and is really good filler for when people mentally starting to tune of the news. I find it hard to believe that something can be considered agenda setting when really they are just putting what the public wants to hear at the forefront.

            Whether the tone of a news piece could be considered agenda setting is an entirely different story. I think in some cases it can be. In MSS232 we watched the FOX News documentary, Outfoxed, and there are a lot cases where that channel does things like refuse to hear a democratic point of view. However, when something fairly one-sided like the CBS Evening news reports on the something as scandalous as Enron its hard not to show it in a negative light because it is indeed negative. It’s not like you can portray Enron is a positive light. It’s probably even hard to portray a scandal like that in an unbiased light.

            If a media outlet has a slight agenda when setting their news I do not think its for a political agenda but rather probably more for ratings/sales. If I was at a newsstand and saw two news papers, one with a really emotive headline about something I was interested and one with a very factual headline for something I was interested in I would probably pick the emotive headline because it was interesting to me. When I am reading/watching the news I don’t want to read/watch an encyclopedia article, I want to read/watch something that is going to make me asking questions or even challenge the article if I do not believe in what it is saying.

            I think Agenda Setting is a very hard thing to prove in most news cases. Media outlets would be foolish not to play in to our emotions and I believe that it what most news outlets do.  Do you think News sources really drive to push their own agenda and try to promote feelings that we are supposed to feel?

Tom Corsaro- Media and Children’s Socialization

http://www.apa.org/monitor/feb03/unraveling.aspx

Above is a link from the American Psychological Association. The author, Rebecca Clay discusses the effects different media has on our children. Although society usually blames different forms of media for different forms of destruction, Clay brings up the point that there are still forms of media such as educational television for children that has a strong positive effect on our children. At such a young age, children are very impressionable.

The Baran and Davis Book touches upon how much time a day an average person spends consuming various sources of media. “These children, because the consume more than one medium at a time, are actually exposed to the equivalent of 8 and a half hours a day of media content, even though they pack that into less than 6 and a half hours of time” (193, Baran & Davis). Since there is such a significant amount of time spent consuming media each day, the media could very well change us. Baran and Davis discuss the idea of early window. This refers to “the idea that media allows children to see the world before they have the skill to successfully act in it” (Baran & Davis). At a young age, children are shown the problems in society before they actually know who they are as a person. What can be done about this? Is it even an issue? Joshua Meyrowitz explains, it “escorts children across the globe even before they have permission to cross the street”. Should parents have to restrict their children’s media intake to only beneficial forms, like educational television?

A part of the reading by Gerbner, discusses media and how it can mold you into a certain person. I completely agree with his idea. The media is a strong force in the world and can really make you change opinions, ideas and can effect even the simplest decisions in life. Knowledge from various media sources “gives individuals their awareness of collective strength (or weakness), and a feeling of social identification or alienation” (146, Gerbner). Do you agree with Gerbner’s view that the media can have that much control over your life? I think the media does have a very strong influence on our everyday lives. Children, especially, who don’t really know who they are, what they like and what they want to do in the world, are more susceptible to media and its overwhelming effects that morph you into who are today.

Allison Ehrenreich-Young Children and The Media.

http://abcnews.go.com/story?id=8866443&page=1

The link above is from ABC news health section of their website. The article and short video clip discusses the risks of violence and sex in the media and how it affects children and teens. The article also mentions how the nation’s chief organization of pediatrics wants doctors to do something about it. According to the video clip, it is recommended that a child under the age of 2 is not exposed to any TV at all. Baran and Davis would agree with this rule of thumb as they state on page 190 in Mass Communications Theory “The researchers argue that by age of two and a half, children have sufficiently developed viewing schema that allow them to comprehend specific television content conventions.” In other words, after the age of 2, children can better understand TV. Before the age of two, they do not possess the skills to understand media content which could result in a very confusing experience for a young infant. The video clip also states that it is proven that background television in the home can result in poor attention skills in small children.

At first I was perplexed by why this organization would want to put the responsibility on doctors to manage children’s media intake. It then dawned on me that this countries youth has had a major rise in the diagnosis of ADD and ADHD. Maybe the medical community wants to try to blame the media for this disorder. They could claim that because media sources target children starting at a very young age, and since it is prove that TV and background TV could produce poor attention skills, that television viewing or exposure to television at a young age could affect a child’s attention span or cause Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD). Although this makes perfect sense to why the medical community is upset with the media, are the doctors supposed to now make house calls to make sure children aren’t exposed to too much TV? Should pediatricians be responsible for implanting medical devices into the bodies of our youth to ensure that media isn’t affecting our children negatively? Absolutely not!! The nation’s chief organization of pediatrics should be focusing on the actions of the parents. When a child is that young, the parents have full control of what their child does at every waking moment. Yes, the pediatricians should be informing parents about the negative and positive effects of media in a young person’s life, but it is up to the parents to implement a healthy lifestyle for their offspring.

As McQuail states on page 400 in McQuail’s Reader in Mass Communication Theory, “The majority of American television shows have at least one act of violence in them; the context in which most violence is presented is sanitized; violence is rarely punished in the immediate context in which it occurs; and it rarely results in observable harm to the victims.” Because of this known fact, the parents should then step in and remind their children that there are consequences for every action. Just because the cartoon character stole money from the bank and didn’t get in trouble doesn’t mean that is what would happen in real life.

The real question here is who is responsible for children being directly affected by the media? Is it the media’s responsibility? Is it medical professionals? What about the United States Government? Could it be the parents? Or should we point fingers at society? What do you think?

Mike Farrell - Video Games and Censorship

When reading the article I found for this week’s blog, I couldn’t help but dwell on a pretty staggering bit of irony. The article was about a brief filed with the Supreme Court by the Entertainment Software Association (ESA) asking to repeal a California state law that restricted the sale of video games deemed to be “offensively violent.” The ESA argues that the law “protects no one and assaults the constitutional rights of artists and storytellers everywhere” (PR Newswire), and that it was initially passed unlawfully. This is a perfectly valid argument, and one that has been a subject of debate for almost as long as the medium has existed. However, what struck me as being odd was that the name of the case before the court was “Schwarzenegger v. Entertainment Merchants Association and Entertainment Software Association.” In a particularly egregious case of the pot/kettle name-calling, the good fight against video game violence is being led by an action movie star with a triple-digit on-screen body count.

Regardless, whenever anyone looks to point a finger at something corrupting their kids, video games seem as good a scapegoat as any. They hit on basically every facet of the social learning theory discussed in the Baran & Davis reading: modeling (are kids learning how to shoot from games?), priming effects (are they being trained to kill?), imitation (will they go out and recreate the violence they see in the games?), the list goes on. The Wartella, Olivarez, and Jennings chapter of the McQuail reader states that a 1993 report from the American Psychological Association concluded as well that “there [was] absolutely no doubt that those who are heavy viewers of violence demonstrate increased acceptance of aggressive attitudes and increased aggressive behaviour” (401). In the context of the social learning theory, violent video games seem to be a pretty serious corrupter of our virgin youths.

But in terms of social learning and adolescent development, what’s more important here? Are video games such a negative influence on children’s lives that we should abridge the constitutional rights of game developers to protect them? The Electronic Software Ratings Board (ESRB) was created to curb the sale of explicit content to an inappropriate audience, but has that really made any progress? Is there any way in this situation to both have one’s cake (release violent video games) and eat it too (not have children acting violently)? Does this open the door to future censorship debates in other media?

Article: http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/video-game-industry-asks-us-supreme-court-to-maintain-first-amendment-protections-102630074.html