JOUR1111 Lecture 10: Today's Agenda

I haven't been blogging much lately, mostly due to a combination of assignments and laziness. Time to rectify that!

I didn't actually go to this lecture. But before the gods of academia strike me down for my transgression, I would like to say that the reason I didn't go was because I had been up all night starting finishing an assignment, and circumstances arose which made it prudent to vacate St. Lucia and return home, in order to catch up on lost sleep.

I did watch it online though. It took about three hours, seeing as I kept stopping the video to write stuff down/getting distracted by shiny things in my room.

Like this, except all about shiny things.

 Anyway. Inability to pay attention to my computer when not wasting time aside, I rather enjoyed this lecture! The video at the beginning certainly made me chuckle.

Something that stuck with me the entire time was that quote by Richard Nixon shown at the very start: "The American people don't believe anything until they see it on television." To me, this was a very interesting insight into the way policy-makers and the higher-ups view media mostly as a form of propaganda. I know that's not what he said, but that was the underlying message behind it for me.

I like the term 'social construction of reality'. The idea that our reality is basically just the collective sum of shared 'issues of importance' that are constructed and mediated by the media is a very interesting, albeit cynical way of thinking. Plus, it appeals to my inner conspiracy theorist.

Hehehehe.

But on the the real issue. What we watch on TV, read in the paper/online and listen to on the radio, all comes to us because someone wants it to. Someone, somewhere, has decided to bring this piece of information to our attentions. It all comes down to the agenda of the person/organisation that send it out in the first place.

Bruce talked about four different kinds of agendas: public, policy, corporate and media. It's fairly easy to distinguish between these. We want to hear about One Direction, Julia Gillard wants us to hear that Kevin Rudd isn't planning another leadership challenge, corporations want us to hear that everything is fabulous and people will never ever ever lose money on shares, and the media wants us to hear about all these things, for varying reasons across different news providers.

Bruce mentioned in the lecture that the more an issue is covered, the more important it is to people. I feel that this was one of the major points of the lecture, especially considering just how much truth is in it. A lot of us are familiar with the Craig Thomson scandal. How could we not be? It's everywhere. But what's going on in Paraguay today? I wouldn't have a clue. Maybe it's an uneventful day. Maybe tens of thousands of children were murdered in the street. I may be exaggerating my hypothetical situations here. The point, however, remains the same. We don't know, because the people who set the agenda don't want us to care.

The media has been setting the agenda for nearly a century. Take wartime propaganda. Support the troops! Down with Hitler! That was what they wanted us to see, hear and read, and therefore that's what we came to believe. It helped that Hitler wasn't a very nice man, but hey, it was still the agenda of the time.

Propaganda is definitely a major part of agenda setting. It's 'a tool to shape images in the minds of humans to support an enterprise, idea or group'. In other words, propaganda plays a major part in the images that form in our minds when we think about a particular topic. Bruce mentioned Mitt Romney being a Mormon as an example of this. Mormons tend to get a bad rap in modern society. Most people have personally experienced or heard a story about Mormon door-knockers who dress nicely and roam the neighbourhoods, going from house to house looking for people interested in joining their religion. You know, like this:

Comes to your house no matter where you live!

Now, I'd like to mention here that I'm not intolerant of other people's beliefs, I'm just using this as an example. If someone is offended though, please let me know and I'll get rid of the picture and change this part of the post. Anyway. I know not all Mormons are like this. Also, there are 'door-knockers' in a lot of religions. So why does this stereotype exist? Because someone (or several someones) at some point in time, for whatever reason, decided that this is what they want people to believe.

So why does the media set the agenda? I liked Bruce's self-quote: "Because they can!" Did anyone read 'The Australian' on the day the budget was announced? I get the feeling Rupert Murdoch might just have had a little involvement in this one:

The Australian is a fairly conservative newspaper (not surprising, given that Murdoch owns it), so it should be expected that they take this sort of view. This might have been a little overt though. Just a little. The Australian wanted its conservative audience to see the Government as a bunch of filthy lefties, so this is what they put out. How's that for an agenda?

However, agenda setting falls flat on its face when we decide that we don't want to believe what we're being told. If one does a little more research into an issue, they might find themselves formulating a different opinion to what a media outlet is telling them. Alternatively, someone might just not care about the issue, and will thus ignore the agenda. Take that, established order!

That's all I have to say for this evening. I was going to do the other lectures I haven't covered yet, but I got more into this one than I thought I would. Oh well. There's always tomorrow!