The+Media+and+Celebrity+Gossip;+Perpetuators+of+Propaganda

The Media and Celebrity Gossip; Perpetuators of Propaganda

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Why does the news report on Celebrity gossip and innuendo?

**Is it to make the news more interesting and upbeat to increase viewers and ratings?** **Is it to cause speculation about events or people?** **Is it to mold public opinions?** **Or Is it because the media wants to use fluff to distract us from the real issues?**

**The news decides what we know about the world around us. If they do not report on it, than there's a good chance we do not know about it.**

**Therefore it's both interesting and important to examine why the news reports on certain stories and not others.** **This site will explore why gossip and innuendo are used in place of real news.**

**People innately care about the world around them, but also cannot possibly know what is going on without the news. The news is where we as American citizens get most of our information about what is going on in our town, state, country, and world. But how and why do news outlets cover certain stories and not others?**

**Where Our Info Comes From and How they Decide What We Should Know About :**

//The book //// Manufacturing Consent // by Edward S. Herman and Noam Chomsky discusses the different ways in which the news is filtered. The book states that because we live in a monopolistic society those with money have control over what the media tells us as well as what is censored.

Because the media gets their information from the societal elite, the elite can then take advantage of this dependency.

<span style="color: #cd1818; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">**The elite can manipulate the media by providing various outlets with stories that create a certain public opinion on a matter. Also, the elite can provide information worthy of a story to phase unwanted stories out of the public eye and the media**.

<span style="color: black; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">The elite provide information which fosters commonly held opinions. Anyone who does the research to support these commonly held opinions becomes an expert. However, if another person, just as intelligent and who has done the same amount of research goes against commonly held opinions, they are not considered an expert. Furthermore, certain organizations try to attack the media using “flak”, which is a negative response to the media. They do this to ensure that the media reports on what they want the public to know and also to ensure that the media does not report on what the elite do not want society to know.

**<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">No news can ever truly be trusted one hundred percent because it has been filtered in many different ways. The elite of society control the news and seemingly the elite always have an agenda. **

**<span style="color: black; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%;">So now that you know how our news is filtered, let us discuss how news outlets actually determine what we think is important... **

<span style="color: black; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">Developed by Maxwell McCombs and Donald Shaw, the Agenda Setting Theory explains why we care about some issues more than others and also who decides what issues are important. “We look to news professionals for cues on where to focus our attention.”, thus what the media thinks is important is likely to be what we as citizens think is important. (Campbell, pg 260)

<span style="color: black; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">Though usually the media cannot completely force an opinion on to someone, it can however decide what issues we have an opinion about. “The press may not be successful much of the time in telling people what to think, but it is stunningly successful in telling its readers what to think about.” (Cohen, pg 260)

<span style="color: black; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">It was speculated that media outlets may simply be reporting on what we as Americans deem important and newsworthy, but through a number of studies McCombs and Shaw found that the media did in fact choose what we consider important.

<span style="color: black; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"> **They found that we first are bombarded with coverage on a subject, and then shortly after that people begin to care about the issue**. In a study conducted by Donald Kinser three groups of people saw different versions of the news for four days straight. “Viewers who saw the media agendas that focused on pollution and defense elevated those issues on their own lists of concerns.” (Campbell, pg 262) Thus it is apparent that the media sets agendas for what people actually know about the world.

<span style="color: black; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">Though some people are more easily influenced by the media than others, most still get their information about the world around them from the news and are then influenced by what the media reports on. Even though many individuals select their news based on interests they already have, the media still has an agenda in a way they place the issues those people already care about.

<span style="color: black; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">The media agenda sets the course for what issues we are interested in by giving certain issues more prominence over others.

<span style="color: black; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">Stories that the media does not want the public to focus on get shorter airtime, smaller print stories, and are often hidden amongst the vast array of news. One can possibly see the agenda of a specific news outlet in the way they frame their stories.

<span style="color: #cd1818; font-family: Impact,Charcoal,sans-serif; font-size: 18pt; line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">**Why Report on Celebrities?**

<span style="color: #000000; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">By comparing Herman and Chomsky to McCombs and Shaw it becomes obvious that the media elite decide what news we think is important or even care about by what stories they show us and how they structure those stories.

<span style="color: #cd1818; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">So why then would the media elite want to focus our attention on celebrity gossip as opposed to real news?

<span style="color: #000000; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">**Michael Jackson** is a perfect example of how the media elite has used celebrity gossip to avert our attention



<span style="color: black; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">The article, “Media Distractions Hurt Real Issues” by John Nichols discusses the 2005 Michael Jackson child molestation case. For eighteen months the case was in headlines and a top news story.

<span style="color: #cd1818; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">**The hype surrounding the case out weighed more important news worthy topics such as electing the President of the united states, issues regarding retirement, and the war in Iraq.**

<span style="color: black; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">As the article states, large media corporations enjoyed reporting on the Michael Jackson case because they did not need to spend hefty amounts of money to follow the case**. Instead of having to investigate serious issues the media simply needed to set up camera crews in front of Jackson’s California courthouse. **

<span style="color: black; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">The article goes on to discuss why stories such as these becoming top news affects American’s perception on what and who they should know about. Instead of the media corporation’s spending money to investigate President Bush or the War in Iraq, they chose to report on Michael Jackson.

<span style="color: black; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">Instead of scrutinizing our government or powerful Wall Street players, the media chose to scrutinize Michael Jackson. Therefore, because the media was scrutinizing Michael Jackson, the American public did so as well.

<span style="color: black; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">The elite were happy that Michael Jackson was top news because this meant that they would not be scrutinized by the American public. **The article argues that reports on such topics as Michael Jackson molesting children distracts the American public from what they should actually be concerned with.** [|obat Kindle South Africa]

<span style="color: black; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">This is a video which describes how the media fueled the Michael Jackson fire, and why the wanted him to fail: <span style="color: black; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">media type="youtube" key="TeehE8sQuLY" height="390" width="640"

<span style="color: black; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">The media imprinted into our minds that Michael Jackson was crazy and awful, etc, but also used him to distract us from the real issues we were facing at the time. Because the media is where we as citizens receive almost all of our knowledge about what is happening in the world around us they can easily manipulate how we see that world. Thus the media is guilty of propaganda because they coerce us into thinking a certain way about a person or issue. <span style="color: black; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">

<span style="color: black; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">We would like to think that propaganda only existed in World War II, but that is not the case.

<span style="color: black; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"> **Propaganda** can be defined as : <span style="color: black; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">-When one has no choice but to except the message they are receiving <span style="color: black; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">-when officials disseminate info designed to change attitudes and behaviors <span style="color: black; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">-when one is coerced into thinking a certain way

<span style="color: #cd1818; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">Sound familiar?

<span style="color: black; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">The media does this all the time without us realizing it. They not only shape our opinions, but also decide what issues or subjects we have opinions on. So if the media wants us to think a celebrities life is important, we will. Sounds like propaganda to me.

<span style="color: #cd1818; font-family: Impact,Charcoal,sans-serif; font-size: 18pt; line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">**Don't Fret!**

<span style="color: black; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">There are ways to not fall victim to the media’s use of propaganda :

<span style="color: black; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">-Do not trust any news outlet **100%**- they all have an agenda <span style="color: black; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">-Shop around- gather information from many different sources to create your own opinion <span style="color: black; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">-Realize that when the news reports on celebrity gossip or innuendo they are most likely trying to distract you from something else, by shopping around it will become apparent what important story the news outlet replaced with “Lady Gaga’s Latest Hair do”

** Still Don't Believe Me? ** <span style="color: black; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;">Think about all of the problems we are facing today : Troops in Iraq, Libya, Gas Prices, Global Warming, The worst recession America has ever seen, the list goes on and on...

<span style="color: black; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"> Now be honest, can you tell me more about any of those topics than you can about Michael Jackson? Charlie Sheen? Lady Gaga?

<span style="color: black; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">I’m guessing probably **NOT**, and that is //exactly// how the media elite want it to be.

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