Sunday, March 4, 2012
Jen: "If it Bleeds, it Leads"
The media is a centralized outlet used to influence society on a large scale. Arguably, the news is used to control and define us as individuals and a community. Daily news reports show rape, murder, kidnappings, and cover stores to invoke fear of violence associate with the threat of crime. The looming insecurity at the end of an hour news report is- this could happen to me. I could become a victim of crime. Moral panic and individual fear of being victimized legitimizes policing, as crime becomes a strategic issue. Jonathan Simon addresses this notion of crime promoting governance over society in his book Governing Through Crime. He writes, “when we govern through crime, we make crime and the forms of knowledge historically associated with it-criminal law, popular crime narratives, and criminology-available outside their limited original subject domains as powerful tools with which to interpret and frame all forms of social action as a problem of governance”(Simon 17). The first YouTube clips attempts to express the influence of media on society through comics with statements such as: “Thanks corporate news. We couldn’t control the people without you” and a political comic that reads, “We’ll be back, after this commercial break with more reasons why it’s not safe to leave your house”. Captain Upson and Officer Phillips addressed the issue of publicized events in relation to civil disobedience. Occupy Wall Street was the highlighted topic of their discussion, and they touched on the lack of media coverage in Berkeley. This second clip features Chris Chambers, professor of Georgetown University, as he articulates his opinions of the role media perception played on publics opinion of the movement.
The argument being made is that politicians do not directly control media, but those whom fund these news channels have an ulterior agenda they thrust upon the public. Chambers comments on the protestors in NY being portrayed as “dirty hippies” and “drum beating savages” by FOX news; and claims this is because “Wall Street funds corporations that own media outlets”. The narrow scope coverage of this event specifically illustrates how the media’s agenda skews perception of events to sway public opinion. An interesting comment from the second clip is the idea presented by Congressman Peter King on legitimizing the story of Occupy. Not wanting the movement to get larger by stating the protestors do not “represent America” dictates what the news show, and how much coverage a specific event will receive. An interesting way of viewing this would be to compare the total time coverage the Occupy Movement had in comparison to a large criminal court case “starring” a rapist and murder. On February 29, 2012 “The House of Representatives approved a bill on Monday that outlaws protests in instances where some government officials are nearby, whether or not you even know it” (http://rt.com/usa/news/348-act-tresspass-buildings-437/). This is one of many ways the government is using media and our fear of disorder and violence to create new laws to govern and control us. The media has become a facilitator of moral panic to aid in governments control in creating new methods of policing us. Through our fears, law enforcement is able to use policing to control us, “…all legal authority ultimately rests on the threat of lawful violence within the criminal law, all governance is “through” the implied threat of making resistance at some stage a “crime’” (Simon 14).
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AHN
ReplyDeleteWhen reading about this blog, it reminded me of Monahan's article that talks about the "security culture" and how the fear of potential threats can influence policing. With the new Occupy Movement being portrayed as a security threat instead of a first amendment right, there is no doubt from a Neo-Liberalist standpoint that the protesters are the next security threat.
In relations to El Dorado and the Banished, the occupy protesters are a threat because they're against the corporate capital gain. In El Dorado, if there is a higher demand for property by the professional class and gentrification of neighborhoods, this "security culture" will influence the type of policing when addressing the Occupy Protesters. Since the media has such a huge part in the portrayals of the Occupy movement it will further influence Monahan's security culture of fear. This fear that the Occupy protesters are either anarchists or hippies, will cause citizens of El Dorado or any highly gentrified area to pressure the police into doing hard policing versus soft policing.
This blog brings up many great points reflecting the ideas and concerns raised by Monahan. Our current society is one dominated by fear and responded to with mass consumerism. Our fear and consumerism is molded by those in power to achieve certain goals whether it be reviving the economy through investing large amounts of money into private industries (i.e. a neoliberalist goal) or to pass increase national security by playing on certain fears. Monahan also mentions, as is stated in the blog, that media plays a huge role in shaping insecurities and telling us what we need to do to mitigate that insecurity, giving those in charge of media control over us.
ReplyDeleteThe El Dorado piece can be related back to this in several ways. The first is the arrival of the wealthy in El Dorado itself. Likely accompanied with this gentrification are tools of control that can only be afforded by the rich such as media. Surely once the rich settle in the community, they’ll be want to control and distort the media in ways that benefit them and they’ll be able to with their abundant resources. While this isn’t directly stated in the El Dorado piece, it can be safely assumed that this will occur to some degree. Also resembling the blog is the instance of Oakville activists who are having trouble mobilizing their protests. This is most likely due to those in control of media not giving the event enough coverage. This is probably a conscious choice by those in charge as a way of containing the ideology of those in the movement and letting only the information they want to reach the people go through. This would dampen the movement and help explain why the surrounding community us having such a hard time embracing and supporting this movement; there simply isn’t enough information about is being circulated.
TJ MAX
Monahan's discussion of Neo-liberalism came to my mind as well when I read this blog post. In subject matter, infiltration of market values in the public sphere is different than manipulation by the media, but coercive power is inherent to both phenomena. Neither allow people to make a choice on what they want to be exposed to. People get sensationalized news stories not unbiased regurgitation of facts and those who adhere to market values are the only ones who can reap the full benefits of what used to be public institutions.
ReplyDeleteYet, after watching the entirety of the second clip, I felt a little backlash on my original outrage of the media's manipulation. It's nothing new that the media gives us a skewed portrayal of how things really are. I felt the second clip was a little obvious in the points it was making. They try to make it seem groundbreaking that they figured out that the conservative media depreciates the acts of the progressive-minded population while the liberal media ridicules the right wing and they call for some kind of change. That is the way it has been for a long time, and for people to demand something different seems a little absurd. The tension between the right and left will always exist and there will always be those who exacerbate the situation with unwarranted, opinionated speech. Of course Fox is going to applaud the Tea Party and chastise the Occupy Movement while CNN will do the opposite! We need to take each news outlet with a grain of salt.
-AJD
I totally agree. The mass media in the U.S. has been corrupted and serves as a system of propaganda and coercion. It is unassuming and does not alarm the masses of the people for whom television is the only source of information. At one point in your writing you say that the media is not directly controlled by politicians, which is absolutely true. My concern however is that you do not address the fact that the media is controlled by the same people and interests that control congress/ politicians through extreme lobbying. What many people don't understand is that the majority of American politicians and media are bought and paid for by the major corporations and serve the interests of the few. This is a major problem that the masses of the American people remain oblivious too.
ReplyDeleteOn another note, I agreed with the sentiments of the Berkeley PD officers as it related to the occupy movement. The ultimate aim of protesters is to bring attention to the issues they feel are important and one of the ways to do this is to have a run in with the police. Protesters know that public law enforcement highly scrutinized in the media and they attempt to use this to their advantage. Their has to be another way to get the message across and not have to have a battle with the police.
Khalidah Shaheed-Muhammad
I agree with Simon's arguement, I feel there is alot of negative media attention to horrendous crimes that do not accurately portray the citizens of society as a whole. Unfortunately this causes a culture of fear that is unnatural and unwarranted.
ReplyDeleteGoverning through crime has become especially popular since the 1970s with the increase in the media portrayal of crime and the reliance of politicians on governing through crime in their political campaigns. It is likely that elected officials in el dorado will also become reliant on governing through crime as thet try to please their constituencies. Crime will likely become a device is the issue between the different classes in el dorado. there's richer classes and the poorer working class will probably disagree over policing techniques and the media will probably side with those who fund the program. As monahan pointed out, the government has increasingly become aligned with business interests. The media has always been used as a tool to influence public opinion and in eldorado it will similar be used in the context of political opinions.
ReplyDeleteS. Toumanian