COSF 100 Midterm 1

Introduction to Communication as a Social Force in-class midterm #1

First Essay

In an attempt to understand the media, two major models have arisen, each withpublic interest as an important element. The market model and the public sphere model both try to protect the public interest but conceive and define it in different ways. The market model sees the public interest as what interests the public, therefore believing that simple free marknamics will fully fill the public interest and so want limited involvement by the state, where it only intervenes to protect property rights and the market's functioning. The public sphere model for the media looks at the public interest as what furthers democracy, stimulates discussion, and represents society. Such a view feels the state should intervene to ensure that the media are fulfilling these requirments.

The market model believes that the public will get its interest because corporate media will look to please the public for profits. Since they define public interest as what interests the public, to a certain extent that's true. As Rupert Murdoch and NewsCorp has learned, people enjoy watching car wrecks, animal attacks, cop shows, and reading about gossip and scandal. In this way (and by using the market model's take on public interest) NewsCorp through its Fox network, The News of the world, The sun, and its other holdings, does give the they want (arguably at the expense of the social fabric). In the Texas Las review article (Texas Law Review 60, no. 2 (1982):207-257), the authors took a very market model view. They believed that through the diverse and numerous media channels, people's desires will be fulfilled, and thefore the public interest will be served. That's why they advocated that the state take a hands-off approach to media management, letting the market decide the price of the transmission spectrum, and other avenues, and the content to provide. They believe (in accordance with the market model) that the government should only intervene to ensure a functioning market through protecting property and broadcast rights, ensuring a stable economic system and dollar, and allowing corporations to seek their profits. The market model view of public interest is limited to what interests the public and what is popular.

The public sphere model looks at public interest as democratic freedom (where people are citizens and have "one person - one vote," not "one dollar - one vote"), information, diverse views, innovation, and open for public discussion. Under this model, the media are tools and a means to strengthen society, increase awareness, and further democratic involvement. The BBC seeks to "represent Britains to Britain." In this way, they are furthering awareness and discussion about various real world issues that the average British citizen faces. Television for the BBC goes beyond mere entertainment to breech the ground of real-life issues that must be critically looked at, not avoided. Similarly, the CBC looks to strengthen the social, political, and cultural fabric of Canada. In order to do this, they give representation to a wide array of marginalized groups and look at important political events (like Rememberence Day). By doing this they bond Canada together, and inform them of others who are different from them, and show them why different isn't bad. In this model, the state should ensure the media strengthen society by providing funding and/or ensuring diverse content.

Both the public sphere and the market models claim to serve the public interest, but each define it in different ways. It is up to us to decid which public interest we prefer and push to help make that model more of a reality.

Second Essay

In The Business of Media, Croteau and Hoynes look at the business strategies of media conglomerates and the wayategies affect media content. These effects should concern the public as the public sphere is being limited. The conglomerates ultimate goal is profits, and in order to make the money, they have various strategies which affect both content and the public.

Conglomerates look to sensationalization and fluff. They use sensationalism to capture the audience's attention and use fluff to not offend viewers or advertisers. This severely limits the quality of information the public recieves. In the McHallin article, the example story they look at on AIDs education amounted to nothing (and was intentionally misleading on top of that). Such stories interest the public (and often outrage) but do not amount to anything substantial.

Corporations also let the quest for profits censor their content. Reporters self-cnsor content they know might not go over will with owners or advertisers. Also with the destruction of the church-state wall, censorship comes from within the company. Stories that might offend the tobacco industry (for example) were/are either not aired or end up hurting profits as happened with one example newspaper. Also NewsCorp didn't print a book that represented the Chinese government unfavorably because they were trying to strike a deal as a satellite provider with China.

Another affect of the breakdown of the church0state wall can be seen with the addition of sections of newspapers which come down to advertisements (like for home improvement products, pharmeceuticals, or even travel resorts. Also stories will be pursued that will look good to advertisers. Like unbeknownst to the writers or the public, the Los Angeles Times struck a deal with the Staples Center to promote it. That seriously compromised Journalistic ethics, especially because the reporters were kept in the dark. Also, book reviewers (especially when content is offered online) have a conflict of interest since they get money based upon purchases made by certain booksellers. This biases the reviewers to write good reviews so they and the newspaper will profit.

Through conglomerates diverse holdings (integrated both horizontally and vertically) conflicts of interest arise if news breaks about another arm of the corporate squid. For example, ABC news didn't run a 20/20 episode on problems at Disneyworld because Disney owned ABC. Also GE's NBC covered a story on defective bolts but failed to mention that these bolts were used in GE's Nuclear reactors (until they were criticized for the ommission).

Through conglomerations gobbling up of other companies and their ultimate quest for profits, corperations have interest in many business strategies that translate into affects on media context. Sometimes it's more benign (like the George Lopez Show's trip to Disneyland after Disney bought ABC and the show) or more harmful (like not revealing information about the 1996 Telecommunications Act which would be detrimental to the public), but either way it's democracy and the public that ultimately suffer.

Articulation

My Contrite Articulation and Extension of Gitlin's The Whole World is Watching

Protesters and activists are often looked at in the same form as "the exotic." They are put up to be "the other" in oppositional contrast to "the us." In this role they can solidify the us. Until, as Gitlin explores, there comes an "elevated moderate alternatives" that serve to compromise the supposed monolithic hegemeny to make way for the inocuous claims and aims of the other while rejecting the most radical goals. In this way the us is able to bend towards the other...but not so far as to actually compromize a complete upset of the status quo. Often, like in the exotic's fetishes and "artifacts" (ie. totems, beedwork, rugs, carvings, masks, bowls, pottery, etc.) the other's elements are not only marginalized and reduced, but also commodified. In the case of the exotic, their entire culture is looked at and commodofied, from their tools, their religion, to every element of their culture. With protesters, the extreme others are still exotic, uncivilized, and deviant, thus rationalizing "elevating moderate alternatives" reinforced with the media and by the commodified trendiness of the objects and visage of the other (ie. peace signs, hemp clothes, punk attire, skirts with pants, etc.).

Fearless + Dreamscape

Fearless

How can I explain it any better
than just showered, zipping up your clothes
Getting ready for a day that I will hide from
I can't say no and yet I don't regret
And in the morning glow I can't help but smile
Cuz I have hope that it too can happen to me.


Dreamscape

There's a demon through the mirror,
and I cannot face him down.
There's are ghosts inside my head,
They are screaming at me now
But they're all I have for friends
In my filthy little hole
Cuz no one comes for me
I'm just an lonely soul
And when I close my eyes,
It's the devil that I see
And he takes me and he breaks me
Till i'm begging on my knees.
The ghosts blew out the flames
That used to burn in me
And all their voices echo
That they'll never set me free.

Southbound

It's dark I'm cold and lonely
Walking towards my empty place
I know that you won't be there
But i'll still hope to see your face
I'm standing on the corner,
Wondering what good you are to me.
I'm waiting on the red light
But know green won't set me free.
Cuz i'm walking in a haze
And I am feeling almost blind
Missing you in spite of everything
And I'm losing my own mind.
Behind me I hear footsteps
So I quicken up my pace
But I turn and I see no one,
Just the phantom of my shame.
When I arrive I crawl in bed
So cold without you near
But I know it isn't worth it
Cuz when I need you, you're not there
In the dark of night
I just try to let it go
In my bones I feel I'm nothing,
And I'll be left to die alone.

Faithfully

I held faith in all the wrong things and now i must pay.
So i pay in the tears I shed; the tears that they crave
There's no life left in me and I've lost every hope
This is what hell is. This is the depths of it all.
This is what I deserve, this is the pain that craves death
And my souls burns in flames with no shelter in sight
And I find myself shrinking as the world grows huge.
A wonderland nightmare that won't stay in my dreams
And so I am shrinking, and falling forever down
Not a thing to hold onto
Not even my soul.

Would You...?

Take the air out of my lungs,
And the gun out of my hands.
Hide the world from my vision
And lead me through the dark.
Oh, pump the pills from out my stomach,
and dress the slits running my wrists.
Cradle me like a baby,
Like the lost child that I am.
And that ghost that sings to me,
Please free him from my mind.
For I have nothing left to give him,
And his voice is scaring me.
Please guide me past his doorstep
And don't let him steal my soul.
And the waves crashing on his beach
All sing out to me
Like a chorus of God's angels
Begging me to go.
So save me from that ocean
and from the siren's song.
For my scars are all I'm left with
They still hurt like yesterday.
And yet I still remember
That heaven's a world away.

The War of Life and Death

The dark and the light wage war within myself.
On the one side there is a life forgotten, a battle tide that edges out the soul itself with darkness as the final flag. And on the other side lies a soul bathed in light. But it has no final flag for light must always give way to dark when it finally fades away. And so with life - To live for the day is to put off the inevidable death's embrace. So why does the light push so hard? How can the light fight off and adversary it cannot see or touch and which encircles the light at all sides? Destiny lies with dark (to it must be given way). But light still fights.
How empowering?
Evil and good lie within engaged in the battle for all that might be. But what would the war look like if one could be both light and dark? Both good and evil? Both an angel and a demon? What a new adversary emerge? Would good and evil reign and rage over some other force benign until arms are taken up against? Would that other force find favor in the light? Or could it sway the dark? Or perhaps would its weight drag both dark and light away? Both evil and good beyond the bounds of common thought?
How status-quo?
What if the battle was not of light on dark or day from night. What if the dark let light live as long as it might? For it knows that in the end the dark must come, so why not resign itself to let life shine itself in peace, knowing that then the dark will rest in tranquility following a day of bliss instead of struggle?
How utopian?
And yet there is no utopia. There is no victor no peace inside my soul. Not yet. Not today. Despondency.

And You Know...

Live to Die.

How to stand up when you've fallen so low? There is no hand to help cuz the demons in my dreams are all that's left to keep my company. I hear them say "you're worthless" and i believe those words. "Where are they now? They are no where to be found." How to find a way out of this hole i've been shoved in? - the cruelest world, the cruelest place, and the cruelest voices speak to me. I have nothing left and just a hunger both for food and for hope. This long journey I cannot start is all that's ahead of me. Putting it off I keep my body bent and my eyes shut tight to spare me from the sights. But I still hear their cackles echo in my bones. It cuts me to my core but I have no wings to rise above. I have no clothes to keep me warm. And I have no strength to lift my head. How to survive this journey, babe - I'm so alone and oh so damaged? If I opened my eyes could I even see? If they could look at me now, what would they say? If there was a ladder, could I get myself out? I doubt it even matters because I think i've lost myself entirely. I cannot live, I cannot hope, I cannot wish upon a star. Although I can't feel it I know i have a hunger so deep and a pain so real while I live my life spent dying.


Pale White Pills

The drugs flood my brainways with invalid chemicals. And still i sit here waiting for a hope that never comes. And i'm all alone again, left only to doubts abounding, that pull my heart to hell. In the drugs i hope to have a fostered sense of self. But I do not know who I see when I look into the mirror - a face so unfamiliar that i flinch at being watched. Tomorrow i'll want life, tomorrow i'll be happy and get all i ever wanted. But in my bones i know that tomorrow will never come. And then the thoughts creep up to justify my solitude, inverted salience. In them the flaw's the situation, but in me it is myself. So i deserve what comes to me, but they need happiness. No fundamental error here - well - i guess just the wrong way 'round. The problems not the lack of love, the problem is MY love. The problems not cheating for the cause was truly me. The issue is not new space between, for i SHOULD be shut out. I deserve to be shoved away and down (why won't the chemicals speeding through my veins do their jobs?). So if I never see those eyes again, that would be Justice. And if i never am forgiven - well i ought never be. (but ask me what i need forgiveness for and my tongue can only word "obviously something, the distance says it all"). Sometimes, some how, some way, my fingers turn to fists, and a tiny thought creeps from a pill that says "i am okay." But the other thoughts (much stronger and more fit to live in me) will shove it out in 3-2-1 and i'm back to "it's all me."


Destination: Unknown

Give me all your fortune, baby,
Give me all your fame
Slit my truth wide open for you
And let me fade away.

Just give me my blue fortress,
And give me all your pain,
Let me bleed your comfort, baby
That seeps right through my veins

It's my truth that scares you, honey,
It's my lies that bind
And with all you've lost now to me
Why are you still mine?

I fake it for the world's love,
Dear, It's my heart's disguise
And faking makes me weary,
so just leave to me my lies

Dark + Light

Through the Fires of Hell, Reborn
From tears flow an empty tune that dies in the cold air. I see the trees laughing in the breeze, an echo of the world's chorus. In my misery and loneliness I find myself reborn. The ashes of my grave encircle me like a blossom. I walked through the valley to find my life with nothing of my own. The self I found in the depths of hell will burn within me now. Can you see the Good in me? Can you see the promise? Look into my eyes - my soul, can you find the light? Can you see if there is life left in me after all that I've been through? - Too much loss for one boy to take. Too much betrayal for any man. And too much pain to live.

Let Dark Come to Find the Light
Life's out there, so tell me what you're waiting for? Love can bloom out of the pain. Just love, no matter what. Life's waiting, so take a chance, tonight. Love leads life to great heights. And know there's nothing that cannot be done. There are no secrets that love can't hold. In a perfect world, love would bloom like sunflowers, always looking to the sun, never losing itself to the night. So make this world a more perfect place by trusting that after the darkest night, the sun will shine all the brighter. The only other choice is to live in dark despair - but then the meaning of life is just to die. So let the light into your soul. Let the sunflowers bloom within you. Smile as you reach for the stars (the light in the dimmest nights). Make a wish and let love guide you to acheive greatness. And always - throughout the darkest of dark - fight for the light of love, and it will surely shine on you.

4 Outlets

Why so Fargone? (The Reckoning)
Fragment ideas spill onto the page, filled with half-baked thoughts of love and hate and apathy; friends and enemies and nothingness.
Gentle text of "come back home to denny's" flash into my mind. The day I up and ran away, thinking I would be better off that way. (But all I left was my home in them that was abandoned when I returned).
When I let her up and walk away, her act of rennaissance I should have asked for her to stay, made her know what I had meant - But sometimes they have to discover it on their own.
I carress the words of anger said - not anger, just frustration. A drink to dull the edge of betrayal means nothing when you share its cup and couch. And the truth leads to him walking away. And my sympathy for the other guy still crying on the chair was not enough for them to bare as my tears began to form.
The time I had ran away to spare her from myself (for I was too much too take, too much harm and she didn't deserve me, she deserved so much more) and then was left crying at the doorstep as I realized I hadn't wasted her time and I knew what love could be.
To leave to find a home, when you had it all along.
The little boy I was, running out into the snowy streets, with no shoes or even a shirt. The melodrama of my life, my run, and the tears that killed the snow. No where to go until someone came to rescue me.
Everything I want is no where.
Everything I want is just to forget.
As the words free flow into an emptiness, the literate's escape (the birds' song, the rabbit's hole, a story from the past).
Each one leaves something's lost, just as something's gained.

Never a Tomorrow
Carreening down the highway,
the devil by my side.
And in my head he's echoing
"you can run, but you can't hide."

Take the wheel and drive me home
Kill the truth they shout to you
Take a pill to shut them up,
And try to find what's true.

"You can crash into the ocean, man,
And find yourself at home"
Shame on you, you lied to me
while the devil pinned me down.

The truth lies like a stain on you
As your veins leak out bad deeds
I rock back and forth compulsivesly
As the tears roll off my cheeks

And in the car that's driving me
Down into the sea
I cannot help but watch the stars
Swim away from me.

Losing Myself (One Avoidance at a Time)
It's the hollow truth that breaks the bow.
It's the bitterness that fights the light.
Make it hurt, make it burn, make me fall.
I fell down to save your life.
And in your room I found my heart was gone away.
And in my voice I found a stranger speak through me.
In my soul I felt the sad in you.
And in your eyes I saw the truth behind the lie you live.
Though I knew it all and knew how it would end,
I would have fought to save your life.

The Sign for When to Run
I heard the words they said through half-cocked grins and half-full cups. I heard the whispers and the snickers as he walked into the room. I saw you forget me and stop with your support. I knew you had betrayed me at that taunting joke I overheard you say. I would have run away that moment then had I known you were so low as now and could find the strength to stand. I almost did flee into the dark strange land (damn the consequences) when i knew you lied to get me there that night after the longest and hardest trip i've ever made. Needing a pill to take the first step, (losing my mind was the easiest thing as the scenery swept by) for I was unable to find any strength within. Imagining a hand to hold. You never knew (you never cared). Then forcing myself to find a way to drive. Buffering the panic with careful distant measure and a desperate will to Good. Forcing myself to ask my dad for help (knowing what that could mean). "Repeat three times: 'everything will be alright' and just breathe." Making my eyes stay awake for 20 hours after less than 3 of sleep. Enough caffeine to stop a heart and to feel the overdose. And then to find the light at the end was nothing more than an ephemeral mirage. An illusion just to get me there, to get a gift (you think i'm rich), to show me off (like i'm a prize), to make a scene (like i'm a joke), to fix a broken thing (like i'm a tool). It was then I knew you were just a lie, and didn't give a shit about me (but i forced that bitter thought to the back of my mind). It was then I might have left, I might have ended it. But in you I saw the strength to be the man you want to be. And for his sake I always stayed.

Dos Mas

To Lose a War (By Honesty)

You left me all alone to hold onto what i could. But what was left slipped through my fingers and now lies forsaken in the dirt. I know not what you've done (do you?), or why you've done it so. But know you must trust your heart. You must do what you think is right. - - And yet my fingers ball to fists as I think of all the broken promises you've left. You've forgotten me and all i've done to paint your life anew. You've forgotten the words you whispered to me, and all the tears you shed. The moments I held onto you to sail you through the storm. The moment I knew you needed help and knew you didn't know. You can walk the road alone, but that's no way to live (needing help isn't a weakness, it's a strength to have). And now we must fly away, solo (you've left your friend behind). Why should I still care when you've left me with no one? I know not the reason, I just know that I still do. I'm scared and broken with no one's hand to hold. I've never been so alone - So dead - Or so alive. If you don't care enough to try, then why the hell should I? If you've forgotten what we were, then why should I hold on? Even so you never were a waste of time. My friendship was always true. And I saw in you all I wanted to be; the man I should become. I know it can never be the same. I know you've said words you can never take back. But if I could save the day, I would, and I still pray for you.


False Start Friend

When I think of where you're going and all places that you've been, I know the fears you hide. I know what you're trying to do, who you want to be. You're so afraid to lose, but more afraid to win. Too afraid to be like anyone else you've seen. You sell yourself short and believe you're left ahead. You're stuck in the past and cannot see the future.
When you say I'm not worth the friendship, or even worth a word. I have no choice but to believe those words you say. All I can do is breathe, and maybe that will make it better somehow, some way, some day. I guess I was just a waste of time. Maybe that's what started all the trouble and the fights. Some days were heaven, some days were hell. We just found ourselves sinking alone, together. I guess sometimes everyone has to let the darkness fall all around, the night and chaos come. It's hell that makes us stronger, and I know you can make it through and can find a way to soar. I'll always believed in you.

Out of the Loaded Dreams

Out of the Loaded Dreams

My darkness lies beneath the shell where my despair and sadness bloom. The hole i've been put in has no light to guide my soul. My body shakes in the corner of my life, my fate, my tomb. I know not where the ghost is leading me, but i know i'm falling down. Alone again I hear my demons speak to me in the darkness of my dreams. All the broken promises they made drag my heart under the ground. I hope an angel takes me out of here, but I cannot find her hand. I only know I've lost myself - that is the price to pay. My body is too broken to have the strength to stand. I'm small and scared and falling, burning like a shooting star. In my descent I close my eyes and hope to be reborn. The firestorm - my death and grave, my cradle and rebirth.