MediaStudies

Sunday, 10 July 2011

Sunday, 5 June 2011

THE BLOG COMPETITION

The blogs I have received so far and my comments about them can be found below:

The architecture of this blog is quite nice, although one problem is that the links at times don't look like links they look like text, users need to realize instantly that the text is clickable, so when I first browsed this blog I thought all the pages were empty.

However, its really very well organized. I don't know why there is a plate of nuts and dates on the side but I appreciate the use of all kinds of apps like the fish app (though that is irrelevant) and the globe with visitor stats.

Main Campus 1st period

I actually don't know a lot about Tumblr, so am not sure whether the site hosts apps, visitor stats or linking tools or pages, however, the class did set up sitemeter which will give them quite a lot of information about visitors. The blog is not organized in the way that the above blog is but instead the posts look like a journal, which is fine when you're doing a personal blog but not very conducive to browsing a groups work. The reason this is inconvenient is that a user has to scroll constantly and also go backwards in time (this structure is a temporal one that would work for like a ship's log) and the user has to go to the bottom of the page to then click on the next page.

The layout is nice and clean though and the mast head makes it clear immediately what the blog is about.

Main campus last period

This is a pretty dadaesque blog with a legend borrowed or "appropriated" from Margritte's painting which I showed to all of you, a detail that should be appreciated, the dada humour does not end here though, the site deliberately reveals its own constructedness and mocks itself. I'm not sure if I appreciate my name being bandied about in the URL but I suppose thats part of the Dada spirit of revolt against authority.

My big problem with this blog is that I'm not sure whether it reflects the attitude and understanding of the entire class or of one particular individual, but even in this the blog is a piece of art so I'm going to have trouble deciding between this one and the Tuesday class.

FINAL DECISION

Maybe I should get the main campus a large poster saying c'est n'est pas donut

I think that would be a great reward, engaging with art and awarding it would deflate the piece somewhat.

Conversely I can just get Perk chocolates for both sections.

Wednesday, 1 June 2011

Study Guide/ Revision No

MEDIA STUDIES SPRING 2010. INSTITUTE OF BUSINESS ADMINISTRATION.

Ways of seeing:

Publicity images stimulate our imagination with either memory or expectation.

They belong to the moment- as we pass by them and as they need to be updated regularly.

They may refer to the past but they speak of the future.

One publicity image, may not have any impact on you, however, the whole system of publicity is now an accepted part of life.

Publicity images make us feel as if we are static and they are dynamic- although this is not true.

Publicity is related to freedom- of choice and of enterprise. We are free to buy any publicized good or to publicize the goods we manufacture.- as such they represent the free world.

They all may be related to different products but they make one common suggestion- that your life will be transformed/improved by buying stuff.

They do this by showing us how models have been transformed and have now become enviable. Envy= glamour.

The image cannot tell us about the joy of the product as that may create a distance between you and the object- instead they tell us about your future self and what that will be like once you have the product. So publicity tells us not about pleasure but about happiness. And that too a happiness as judged by others outside of yourself.

Once you become an object of envy you have to be disinterested in those who are watching and envying you- this is part of the glamour too.

The images thus have an impact on our self esteem and our love for ourselves.

Oil painting

The oil painting tradition impacted European vision for over 4 centuries- so naturally publicity drew upon this visual culture.

1- Publicity images borrow a lot of references from European art

2- Use art images for their relation to wealth, class and culture

Using art in publicity makes the object more classy, and also somewhat spiritual as well as cultural.

Paintings used to be used by rich people to show how wealthy they were.

In Pakistan we tried to use this rich cultural past in the following:

-Anarkali the video by Shoaib Mansur (they even speak Persian- so courtly they are)

- Amla shampoo used to run an ad’ that showed how in the purana zamana ladies used to pound herbs etc- thus creating a link between the wisdom of the past and this product

-similarly, Gogo pan masala used to run an ad that showed little kids in the past stealing paan from their dadi’s paan daan. Again creating a link between paan masala and a old established classy tradition of paan daans.

So these ads rely on a common cultural understanding of the audience- and on half learned, unclear memories of some glorious past.

ANXIETY

Publicity makes us feel like if we don’t have enough money to buy buy buy, the we are nothing. So it works on the anxiety of not being enough.

The message this culture or system of publicity promotes is that:

Money = the ability to do/acquire/enjoy

So power to spend = power to live.

This is also connected to sexuality. The power to buy makes a person sexually desirable. i.e if you can buy AXE deo then women will be drawn to you.

Oil paintings were a record of wealth- so they referred to the past-i.e if you ever go into a museum – accidentally (the Punjab museum next to NCA maybe?) you’ll see paintings depicting partition- obviously you will read this as an event that took place in the past. Or if you see a Gandhara relief carving- then surely you will know that this refers to a past event.

but publicity images refer to your future. What you will be like once you get that blackberry, or zong or uth package.

You will become desirable.

When publicity speaks to the working classes (bus drivers, labourers) it promises transformation. Gorah making cream, thicker hair, slimming pills, fresh breath.

To the middle class publicity promises transformed relationships- tea and the good wife. Cooking oil and the energetic husband. Cell phones that allow kids studying abroad to stay in touch with the family.

So if publicity keeps speaking of a deferred future- one that never actually materializes, How does it remain relevant? Because publicity is judged according to how well it works on and connects with our fantasies. Fairness cream girls already have the Cinderella fantasy, wives are already imagining that a tea tray will bring harmony into the household.

Publicity plays on that gap between what we are and what we want to be. Publicity mirrors that space between what I am and what I want to be. Publicity does not manufacture the dream but it suggests to us that we are not enviable but we can be.

Publicity substitutes democracy- we cant change our systems but we can change ourselves- by buying.

So materialism is the only possible pleasure in a capitalist society. Even education becomes a material achievement.

Topics and concepts:

-Introduction: You should have a working definition of media. Understand that media are plural and can comprise a wide range of communication tools.

- Constructions of reality: In what ways do media construct reality? the minute a camera is pointed in a certain direction it begins to choose, and hide, and decide and lie. Similarly, we discussed how different words have different and at times loaded meanings- Lippman points out the limitations of language and vocabulary.  Finally, Berger tells us that reality is constructed by a Capitalist society to encourage materialism by playing on envy. What kind of media do you think you’d find in a socialist society? What kind of media does Adorno want?

Think about ways that different types of media construct different realities. How did Control Room construct a reality?  Did it propose one kind of reality? And now think about Rashomon- did that film reflect any kind of reality or was it a construction of a fantasy realm? How were the codes and conventions of this film different from Hollywood or Bollywood?

- Audience and society

 What effects, affects and influences do media have on audiences?

The Frankfurt school had a definite idea about how media and cultural productions impacted society, but you have been introduced to other models: Direct effects, Reinforcement, uses and gratifications.

Remember we spoke about how over the years ideas about audiences changed. What did Lazarsfeld say about media effects?

What is propaganda?

How do media create meanings? Fiske explained how camera distances convey villainy or intimacy because of the codes and conventions in society, look at the other codes he explains, lighting, gender representation, make up, ethnicity.

In what other ways do media impact society? Berger says they make us more materialistic via envy and glamour. This is especially true of the labour classes who are encouraged to buy buy buy a better life. Publicity images (or ads) make a false promise- that we will be more loveable more enviable, more glamorous if we buy buy buy. So we are perpetually chasing after this better self with each new product and each new fad. More Berger notes later.

Lippman says they fail democracy.

We have also looked at how media represent certain social groups in a society, by doing so they may be either reflecting prejudices and stereotypes already existing in society and by reproducing these ideas they may be rejected. What does this say about ideology and power?

Who are others? Silverstone speaks about others extensively and recommends that proper distance is a form of morality and of humanity. Why does he advocate media literacy as a way to make the media space more moral? Why does Silverstone say that the media environment has a hole in its ozone layer? Why does he think the internet is so important? And why does he say the internet encourages narcissim?

Similarly we studied various research methods used to measure media’s effects on society:

Cultivation, Agenda Setting, are some theories that talk about how media affect viewers. The reading you were set also talks about how effects theory perspectives have changed with time from the idea in the 1940s that media have massive effects to the idea in the 60s or thereabouts that media have very limited effects to the current idea that media have moderate effects. The idea basically is that scholars react to the trends that are current in their day. This is because they are reading each other’s published works and staying abreast of the latest in the field. What usually happens is that a few well-known and respected scholars set the trend and everyone takes a cue from the most well known, best funded and best reviewed work to design their own. So for example Entman has become a well know scholar working with Framing theory and almost anyone who does any further research about framing will definitely cite Entman. Similarly Gerbener is best known for introducing cultivation theory so anyone who wants to conduct surveys or carry out experiments dealing with cultivation will read up on and cite Gerbner in his work.

What you should know about effects work is:

Causality is different from casualty. Only experiments prove causality.  Agenda setting is a theory for which causality was demonstrated via an experiment. Cultivation theory does not typically include experiments but relies largely on surveys – this is because the theory posits that it takes a long time for the effect to have an effect.

Remember that experiments lack external validity because they are generally conducted in artificial environments unlike the real world and because the sample size is generally too small for us to be able to generalize the results. Phew.

Now that we have spent some time thinking about how media impact society- lets switch gears and look at what impacts media.

Here too you have a number of ideas to think about- that we have discussed over the course of the semester.

The uses and gratifications model

The socialization of journalists

What else drives media? Ideology? Codes and conventions? Commerce? Regulation? How does regulation drive media?

First, the model –profit versus public service.

Should media be profit driven for efficiency or should they be driven by a desire to serve the public good? Your reading does mention some advantages of each type of media and you should think about these.

In this topic you should be clear on the following concepts:

 Public sphere, Public opinion, Public good.

It bears repeating on my part that public opinion is not simply to go around asking people what they think about issues. Public opinion is a more dynamic PROCESS. Whereby democratic theory assumes that media will do the following 1- educate the public about key issues 2- to make these often boring issues interesting for the public by dealing with them creatively 3- then, inform the public and those in power about what the public thinks about issues. Media are suppose to give space and time to a variety of views and ideas including the issues that affect minorities, unpopular ideas and other less heard of views. 4- Media are suppose to be a space where various groups of people can debate. This is why media seems full of shows where different parties fight on air. However fighting is not what is required by the public sphere model. What we need is informed debate.

Lippman of course thinks this is impossible and that democratic theory is asking media for too much especially as the media is run on a profit model and as people are not as smart as democratic theory imagines them to be. What do you think?

Also as part of this topic we discussed corporations.

The Business model of media says that in capitalist systems there is a lot of competition and so a lot of voices including the minority voices will automatically get heard because business owners will try to give the audiences what they want. So, for example in the USA if you consider African Americans as a minority group then, that group is served by media as there are a number of movies, shows and books that feature African American experience. However you might argue that such shows are niche shows and are watched by niche audiences (in this case black Americans) and that it is the mainstream media (think Friends) that needs to include minority voices. Think about mainstream American media- how inclusive of minority voices and opinions are these? America includes significant Pakistani, Chinese, Spanish/Mexican and non Christian origin citizens. Do you feel like these are accurately and sufficiently represented on mainstream media?

The other issue with the business model is vertical and horizontal integration. On the face of it the US has a number of media outlets : websites , TV Channels, movies, newspapers etc. But if about 5 companies own a 1000 outlets then can we term that as competition?

And what can we do to escape the big bad corporations? Well here’s where regulation comes in. For a long time PEMRA did not allow TV channels to also own newspapers. That is why GEO which was launched by Jang group- was forced to air all of their broadcasts out of Dubai- this rule of PEMRA was known as “conflict of interest,” and was later changed so that now Aaj TV, Express and Geo all of which have sister newspapers, Business Recorder, Express and Jang – can operate both types of media. Similarly the change in regulation allowed Hum Tv to launch a radio channel. So you can see that the trend of horizontal integration is also true for Pakistan. Although so far vertical integration has not taken place. If Geo buys a cinema and also starts selling you cable instead of worldcall then we will have vertical integration as well.

Concepts you should know in this topic include: Objectivity. Integration Regulation versus censorship Freedom of speech

Objectivity in journalism is a very tricky concept. By now you have seen in various films like Control Room that journalists are not robots and that they have feelings, emotions, ideas and opinions. Should journalists try to suppress their own subjectivities when covering a story that may be as important as war? Or should they perhaps tell us how they feel so that we are not fooled into thinking we are reading impartial news? How should journalists achieve objectivity? One way journalists try to do this is by giving all the sides of a story. So they would tell us that the President wants to go to war however the opposition thinks this is a bad idea. In reality, sometimes, news comes out biased.

Again market theory would say that if we de-regulate the business environment to allow any and everyone to have a media platform then all the voices would get heard. This too does not happen in practice because media costs money and advertisers follow the majority.

Now think about freedom of speech. It’s a big issue today especially as the freedom of speech of some countries allows them to publish cartoons that upset large segments of the world population. This in fact is a problem of globalization. Freedom of speech is rarely in practice infinite. Even in the US and Europe pro Nazi voices for instance would not be allowed to spread hatred and violence. It is for individual societies to decide what will be included and won’t be included in freedom of speech. However globalization has complicated this issue- because although the Danish people might think that certain cartoons are acceptable- those cartoons had an impact thousands of miles away in our country. Think about this issue. How would we react if the Danish told us that it was no longer okay for us to print a certain topic? We would probably argue that Pakistan is a sovereign state with a right to make its own laws about what we can and cannot talk about. And in a previous era before Internet perhaps we wouldn’t even have heard about the cartoons. Now we have heard and have opinions about the issue.

Media globalization is interesting for this reason. Now think about the public sphere and public opinion obligations of media and try to figure out if global media can possibly achieve this. Imagine trying to give time and space to all the various voices in the globe- fairly. Lippman’s ideas are very interesting if you think about them in a global sense. And Silverstone has thought about these issues in a global sense. Meanwhile Clifford Bob has discussed how there is no global meritocracy or issue but a harsh Darwinian market place. What implications does this thesis have for a global public sphere? What implication do major corporations have on the global public sphere? What about representation issues?

TRUTH:

Our ruminations about objectivity lead us very naturally onto the next topic we discussed. Truth with a capital T. We looked philosophically at the question: are we capable as humans of coming close to Truth and Objective reality? Plato says no, we are like prisoners in a cave- we believe only what we see and hear. The idea is that our senses give us information about the world and with this information we develop a sense of Reality. So what happens if our senses are limited or inaccurate or relative? Is reality too then limited, inaccurate and relative? Plato tells us that Reality with a capital R does not change -- it is outside the cave- and just because we cannot perceive it does not mean that it is not real.

This leads us to Rashomon, which asks a lot of questions about the nature of reality. The murdered man speaks to us, everyone tells a different story, and we hear it all from an unreliable woodcutter who seems to have stolen something from the victim. It sets up a nice puzzle for us to think about objective reality.

Who is concerned with objectivity apart from philosophers and religious people? Courts of law, journalists and scientists are. And although we as humans may be too limited by our imperfect senses we still need to have a working definition of what is objective so that we can have trials for criminals and report on the working of government and figure out if jumping from a high building will always kill us in the real world (sorry Matrix fans) because of a thing called gravity.

This discussion nicely leads us to Lippman and of Lippman we have talked at length so I will not go on here.

I should clarify the press agents concept though as this one seemed to leave a lot of you confused. Press Agent is just Lippman’s fancy way of saying public relations officer. The guy who writes press releases and faxes them to newspapers. A lot of these press releases end up in the garbage by the way. Most actors have a PR guy- he’s the person who speaks to the press after Brad Pitt divorces Jennifer Aniston. The PR person won’t tell you stuff like, Aniston threw a shoe at Pitt or she had a nervous breakdown but is more likely to say something like “both are still on good terms, it was a natural evolution of their relationship and they mutually decided to part but are still the best of friends.” Similarly, if two political party leaders met over lunch and one threw water in the other’s face while the other was lying through the teeth the whole time, the press agent will have a prepared statement ready to say something like, “there were some disagreements but both parties agreed that such talks go a long way in improving relations. At this time we feel that more meetings are necessary to establish trust on both sides.”

Finally I want you to think about ethics. Where do ethics come from? Should ethics be law? What kind of ethics should journalists and othermedia professionals i.e the press agent have? Silverstone has some suggestions for us.

Why should we study the media?

What are the functions of Mass Media according to Lazarsfeld?

Monopolization canalization supplementation

What is two step flow?

What is Cultivation theory?

What was the Frankfurt School?

Marshall McLuhan (what did he say in one of your readings?)

Semiology- why should we study semiology? What the point?

What is the difference between inscribed reader and actual reader? What difference does it make?

What are the methods used to research audiences? Shaughnessy reading?

What is the uses and gratifications model?

Three models: Direct effects, reinforcement, uses and gratifications.

Preferred readings, negotiated readings, alternative/oppositional readings

What are codes and conventions and Genres- why should we study them?

What is cultural imperialism? Can you think of any examples?

What is the CNN Effect and when does it work? What does it tell us about who has power on the media agenda?

What options do global publics have for getting onto media agendas?

Think about how Al Jazeera fits in with Clifford Bob’s suggestions.

What is proper distance?

How can democracy be replaced by publicity?

What is Yellow journalism?

What’s the church state wall?

How do advertisers seek to overcome inattention from reluctant audiences?

What is publicity?

Why does Piers Robinson say that the CNN Effect is overstated?

What are the examples Robinson gives for the CNN Effect in the real world?

What is Berger's central premise about consumerism and materialism?

What are the advantages and disadvantages of commercial broadcast vs public broadcast systems?

Why do the prisoners in Allegory of the cave find it so hard to understand their friend when he returns from the outside world? What is an allegory? What is Plato trying to say? (Luckily wikipedia is not banned) also check out spark notes etc for Plato study guides.

Why is news unlike truth according to Lippman?

What are schemas?

Monday, 23 May 2011

READINGS UPDATE

PLEASE NOTE:

All readings have been mailed as attachments to your class Reps. I have not posted them online as the readings were all pdf files on my hard drive and I could not post attachments here. If your CR has not forwarded the readings to you, please get in touch with your CR.

Tuesday, 17 May 2011

Readings

A link to a reading for the coming week are posted below:

Please prepare some talking points for class- the coming weeks are vital to your class participation grade and this is your opportunity to shine

The CNN effect

Sunday, 24 April 2011

More Lippman

WALTER LIPPMAN

We have to picture more space than we can see

with our eyes, and more time than we can feel,

we have to describe and judge more people, more actions, more things than we can ever count or

vividly imagine.

We have to summarize and generalize. We have

to pick out samples and treat them as typical.

“. . . the real environment is altogether too big, too complex, and too fleeting for direct acquaintance.”

“The casual fact, the creative imagination, and the will to believe lead to a counterfeit reality.”

“The pictures inside the heads of these human beings, the pictures of themselves, of others, of their needs, purposes, and relationship, are their public opinion.”

External factors that impact news

- Lack of curiosity on our part

- Censorship and news selection

- Lack of eduction/time to be interested in/ engaged in news

- Cost of covering stories

- Lack of time to cover everything and to cover it in detail

-Language is not neutral or objective or perfect

INTERNAL FACTORS

- Filters- we select what to notice and we are creative, filling in the gaps.

- stereotypes; our culture defines what we see. We define first and then we see

Lippman notes

LIPPMAN NOTES:

CHAPTER 1

People were carrying on trading, ordering supplies, manufacturing orders etc- not realizing that Europe was at war.

So they carried on operating in an imagined environment which was obsolete.

Knowledge and pseudo environments

We know the larger world indirectly. We are not in the war torn northern areas. So we do not see drone attacks.

We treat the shadows as if they are real

We treat our image of the world as if it is reality.

Does burying your child at the beach under a lunar eclipse cure polio?

Looking for India travelers found America

We act according to what we think is reality even though this may not be actually true.

But our actions have real consequences. We thought we were heading towards India we were actually heading to America and this had enormous consequences- ask the native Americans.

Constructed personalities

We think we know Famous and important people. Lots of audiences roam around thinking they know everything about their celebrity crushes. But even the celebrity’s personal assistant doesn’t really know this person. This person is a constructed personality. Constructed in pieces by interviewers, magazine articles, youtube videos and blog comments. Michael Jackson, wacko Jacko with never land ranch and bubbles and children who wore masks later Jacko the paeodophile. And now the king of pop the legend.

Myths

in times of peace it is hard and rare for masses to fall behind symbols without argument. In peace time we enjoy greater autonomy in what we choose to follow- this may be because we’re too busy with our own business to care about important national symbols. But in times of war- Hitler becomes a symbol of tyranny, and it is easier for such symbols to become very powerful. Symbols distort reality because they channel our thoughts in one direction down one path and prevent alternative frames.

So far we have spoken about things we do not know but have feelings about – Michael Jackson, Hitler, the cure for polio and the location of America/India.

You and I have never been to Iraq or Palestine. We have not met Einstein. We were not in the Mutiny/war of independence. We never lived during a Raj- ruled by an alien race.

The only feeling that anyone can have about an event he does not experience is the feeling aroused by mental images of that event.

Write down on a piece of paper how the following events make you feel

How do you feel about the lawyers’ movement

The ashura blast in Karachi

Musharraf’s coup in 1997

Partition 1947

For each of these events make a list of images that come to your mind when you think of these events.

Now you know what Lippman means- certain events and people we do not know- we still have feelings, opinions about them.

These feelings, ideas, images make up our counterfeit reality. The following four ingredients go into the recipe of our counterfeit reality

1- the casual fact

2- the creative imagination

3- the will to believe

this is why it was so easy for Indians to believe that Pakistan was behind the Mumbai blasts.

while the pseudo environment lies between us and the real environment- our actions are real so they have real consequences.

The real world/ environment is too big and too complex and too fleeting (experiences don’t last long)

If we tried to deal with all of these details

And grey areas

With a fresh unprejudiced mind

We would collapse.

So we need models of how things work- i.e the model of super-powers and third world nations, failing states and conflicts.

We need to simplify complex reality so we can deal with it. i.e so we can learn what we need to know and move on.

So an action is distinct from different from how we view that action. There are two things- the action that happens and how we understand what happened are different.

The pyramid comes here.

What people do- what actions they take are based not on certain knowledge but on pictures of the world that he has in his head. Pictures like- America is a super power and India is evil.

Propaganda is “the effort to alter the picture to which men respond.” We feel about an even a certain way- we have a certain picture of it- i.e Kashmir. Picture of Indian atrocity, religious persecution, an Islamic issue. If the govt wanted to change the picture to for example- a fight over natural resources (river) solveable by compromise and in the greater good if solved. It would use propaganda to get us to see the issue in a new way.

Propaganda is a loaded word- but it does not have to be a negative thing.

Sometimes governments need propaganda in the national interest.

A good example of the above is Marxism. When Marxist ideas spread- the picture men (and women) had in their heads about economic class systems and the place each person had in the world – was disturbed- changed.

Ideologies such as Free market = enterprise and you get what you deserve/work for

And Socialism = equality and brotherhood and common property

Are great examples of propagandas that impact how we act upon the world and how we picture the world.

The free market vs socialist ideology also tells us another thing- that we need theories in order to make sense of a complicated reality. Why do Economists come up with ideas about the Tragedy of the Commons; Diminishing returns etc

Because people/humans try to make sense of complicated reality by simplifying it, making a model of it and reducing it to variables about which we can generalize.

Similarly ordinary citizens who are not economists and experts also have to make a simplified picture in their head of what the world is like- that world which they do not meet and experience but one they need to have a sense of.

External Limitations that stand between us and the real world

i ) Limitation of social contact (we don’t meet everyone or everything we have opinions about

ii) shortage of time for news and information- we are busy

iii) Distortion due to space limitations on media and because language and vocabulary are not perfect (remember Shaugnessy said language is not neutral)

iv) limited vocabulary.

v) fear of facts that might threaten the established routine of our lives. If Americans before the civil war had accepted that their African slaves were human beings with souls then life would’ve turned topsy turvy (which it did once slavery was abolished) can you think of a similar issue which we are reluctant to face upto? What about corruption in our society? What about crime?

CHAPTER 6

In this chapter Lippman talks about the problems with testimony- see page 49. Why is it so hard for us to report what we saw? Why are we so often wrong when reporting an event we witnessed?

In the previous chapter we talked about how we operate in a counterfeit reality with respect to parts of the world and people we do not know directly. Now we are talking about how we even make mistakes when we witness things ourselves.

Anthropologists, scientists etc try to observe with blank minds- i.e with no prejudice. We cannot do this everyday or we will die. As we grow older from baby-hood we learn how to name first and then observe. i.e we learn how to use shortcuts and pay attention only to certain things ignoring others.

So reality depends on the habit of our eyes. That’s why its so much fun to read Sherlock Holmes- because he observes details ordinary people don’t. we see what we look for – what we are used to seeing and what we want to notice. So your female friends are more likely to notice your new earrings or the fact that you used ribbon on your kameez instead of lace but your guy friends are more likely to notice that your car’s fan belt is making a strange sound or that you have a particular type of cell phone.

We also pick out what our culture has defined for us. Which is why gorahs often look so funny to us when they show up wearing t-shirts with shalwars. And all short skirts are too short for our eyes, while Miss Pakistan offends our eyes with her bare skin much more than Miss Russia would.

Artists have always taught us how to see things. A sunset, a vase. That is why non-professional artists always make the same typical art subjects- a series of mountains behind which a sun is setting, or a girl carrying a matka.

How would we know what a badshah salamat looks like if we hadn’t seen Mughal miniatures. Imagine for a few moments the following images which artists have taught you to see a certain way:

Dragons

Sword fights

A landscape

A king seated on an elephant or battle of Panipat.

Unicorns.

Unfortunately since art has such a limited impact on Pakistani culture its hard to bring out too many examples that are not from the realm of science fiction and fantasy.

Similarly literature creates stereotypes too. For example tropes is a word used for a character that is described in such a way. i.e the buffoon, the evil witch, the innocent princess, the well meaning fool.

Indian movies take full advantage of such stereotyped people.

Have you seen Johny Lever playing a character called Musharaf ?

Sri Devi was always the ditz and Juhi Chawla was always the sweet bubbly girl.

This chapter also talks about the impact of photographs and films. Photos have more authority Lippman says because we tend to assume they have little human meddling. This is probably less relevant today as we all know about air brushing and photo shop. But we still find a lot of people looking at publicity images and reaching the conclusion that Kareen Kapoor has really great skin.

About films Lippman says that watching a movie requires such little effort from us as the activity of observing, describing, reporting and imagining have all been done for you and even judements are made for you as villains are conveniently ugly and act evil etc.

All you gotta do is stay awake.

Therefore films have even more authority over us and power over us.

You can read more about this idea which is a popular film related research topic and deals with the impact of suspension of disbelief……

Chapter 23 and 24

Now that we have a general idea of what Lippman’s on about: i.e. how hard it is to know the truth

1- because we do not experience the whole world directly 2- because we have to simplify, model and theorize in order to understand 3- because we rely on stereotypes

also because even for those details we do experience directly we tend to muck it up cause we have so many problems with our capability to observe. Culture comes in the way, habits come in the way, our gender comes in the way.

NOW – we will talk about how News organizations fail. They fail because they are humans with limits and shortcomings like us. But also because of the way they are set up.

How are they set up?

News orgs need to process a LOT of info in a VERY SHORT SPAN OF time and within a budget. If they get excited about everything that happens in the WHOLE world they will die of over excitement and exhaustion.

As an example : reuters and AP are two very common news sources for Paki media- go check out their websites and see how much news they have versus how little of it we cover in the Paki media

http://videopoint.reuters.com/

AP: search for associated press on google.

How do news orgs organize their day and their work?

They assign different duties to different people. So not everyone is looking for news. Only reporters go looking for original stories and not all reporters report everything- there are specialists. A business reporter ; a crime reporter; a political reporter etc.

The editor puts it all together according to certain professional norms, standards and practices.

Look at the following and try and decide where an Editor would place them : front page, back page, Metropolitan section, World Affairs section, letters to the editor or WASTEPAPER BASKET.

Parliament signed a bill. Cricketer Mohammad Asif scandal. Some dude in Guatemala swallowed a 50 foot python. US drone attack. Obama addresses old folks home. Woman in Karachi gives birth to 6 children. Loadshedding in Multan continues for 15 hours. Researchers find link between green peppers and cancer rate. Turkey tourism. Man shoots self after failing exams.

The decisions about what is important and what is not- who will do what job- how stories are written – how long headlines should be. How many headlines on a page. How many inches make a column-

These are all routines that make it possible for a newspaper boss to do his job fast and cheap

And another issue of great importance to most news orgs- you.

If the paper is full of stories no one understands or no one is interested in- the newspaper will soon fail.

This is why few people not of Pakistani origin or especially interested in Pakistan (i.e studying Pakistan as part of an M.A course) will read Pakistani papers. Even a shockingly small number of foreign diplomats posted in Pakistan actually watch Pakistani TV (I ask them every single time I meet one- hey what do you think of our tv channels?)