A Government Status Quo in an Ever-Changing World Government control of the media is a major topic of contention that can extinguish the freedoms and liberties of its citizens. Governments, whether monarchies, dictatorships, or democracies, all have, to a greater or lesser extent, the ability to monitor what is being expressed through the media. The more governments attempt to control television, radio, Internet, and print, the more society is biased to the controlling government’s point of view. An objective perspective is then compromised and truth is often difficult to find. Some governments even dole out harsh punishments to individuals who express opinions contrary to the government’s politics.
However there are cases in which the media has had positive effects on a Prime Minister’s popularity, such as “The Sun”, which, notably, turned its bias towards Tony Blair and the Labour party before their large win of 1997. Secondly, the cabinet is a large source of the Prime Minister’s power. Although the Prime Minister has the power to appoint and fire the members of his cabinet, these members have the authority to reject the Prime Minister; this was the case for Margaret Thatcher in 1990 after the leadership challenge by Michael Heseltine. The powers of the cabinet mean that a Prime Minister has to have significant support by the members to be able to receive the full amount of power. This source of power is also affected by members of the cabinet whom are too powerful and important to easily dismiss, most recently famous was during Tony Blair’s leadership, 1997 – 2007, and the pressure he received off Gordon Brown to leave.
Using material from Item A and elsewhere, assess sociological explanations of the role of the mass media in creating moral panics about crime and deviance. (21) A moral panic is an outrage that is stirred up by the media about a particular group or issue. The role of the mass media is to communicate to a large audience, whether it be written or spoken, though the radio, television, newspapers or the internet; as item A states the news media are one of our main sources of knowledge about crime and deviance. Often the media will create a moral panic surrounding crimes and criminals or deviants. Cohen’s explanation of folk devils and moral panics is highly relevant to understand the role of the mass media in creating moral panics about crime
The publicity of the case and the one-sided role of the media caused a majority of people, internationally, to be biased and influenced. This impact then led to numerous problems and difficulties in being treated fairly, such as finding an impartial jury. This factor of having preconceived idea meant that the jury had already decided Lindy Chamberlain’s fate, opposing the justice being “served,” legitimately. Wiping away any chance for Lindy Chamberlain to prove her innocence creates an inevitable outcome. The Chamberlains being judged under a heavily biased jury influenced by the media, therefore shows the maltreatment of the case by the justice system and the society.
Propaganda is known to be the intentional manipulation of public opinion through hidden messages in advertisements and other media functions. Thus, propaganda uses many techniques to be able to deliver theses hidden messages to the public and influence their opinion. Fear, brainwashing, name calling, glittering generality, misinformation and much more are some of the techniques that propaganda uses to influence and manipulate the opinions of the majority. Propaganda finds the
The Cold War lead too many of today’s most spoke of history. Anticommunism and McCarthyism is known worldwide and has had much to do with how the government and people where afraid of speaking out against McCarthy. When reading this essay the difference between anticommunism and McCarthyism was told and also how the media covered the controversy. The American foreign policy is how decisions and determine are made by anticommunism and how the Red Scare changed people life’s
For instance Green Peace; an interest group can easily be identified as an influencer in media response. Pluralists also share the view that media content is reflective of the audiences interests, an example of this is how coverage of 'immigrants' is often very negative in 'The Sun', a tabloid newspaper. Pluralists feel that media is responsive to both market and public demand. The audience is a dictator in terms of what it wants in media content. Burnham argued that the mergers and
This is the idea that journalists and editors control what is considered newsworthy, and consequently what appears in the news. There are many unrecorded events that happen in the world that do not make the news. This may be for a number of reasons, mainly being that the ideology portrayed must reflect that of the powerful groups. This shows how the news is a social construction based on what people that have access to such media deem worth being published. News values may influence gatekeepers in deciding what to appear in news.
On an essay by Aldous Huxley, Words and Behavior, Huxley argues that human being use words for their advantage in order to conceal reality, while inflating language. Looking into the language inflation from a social perspective, it is very evident that language inflation has affected the aspect of human era. Examples now-a-days are clearly seen in the assortment of advertisements which abuse of the inflation, exaggeration, of language to promote their products. Furthermore, language inflation is seen in government and politics, especially in the speeches given by politicians. At times the words have become so sophisticated that people don’t even know what they mean, and nonetheless the authenticity behind the words used.
Muckraker "[Is] it a compliment to be called a muckraker?" (Miraldi 8). The answer to this question differs from person to person. In the early 1900s, a "muckraker" was considered to be a journalist who went too far in order to get a story, as popularized by Theodore Roosevelt's 1906 speech ("People & Events: Ida Tarbell, 1857-1944" 1). However, today "muckraker" takes on a more positive connotation, referring to a journalist "who inquires into and publishes scandal and allegations of corruption among political and business leaders" ("Muckraker" 2).