Bullshit Assertion

2019 ◽  
pp. 263-286
Author(s):  
Ben Kotzee
Keyword(s):  
Mass Media ◽  
Political System ◽  
Harry Frankfurt ◽  
Contemporary Culture ◽  
Short Article ◽  
Theoretical Account ◽  
The Media ◽  
The Mass Media

In his short article “On Bullshit” (1986, republished as a book in 2005), Harry Frankfurt diagnoses a distinctive problem of contemporary culture: that so much of it is bullshit. Today, bullshit abounds in advertising, politics, the media, and the academy; for this, Frankfurt blames the mass media, advertising, the party political system, and some currents in academic thought (notably postmodernism). More than diagnose a widespread problem, however, in “On Bullshit” Frankfurt develops a theoretical account of the nature of bullshit. In his account, Frankfurt holds that bullshit is, like lying, a dishonest assertion; however, he makes clear how bullshitting is different from lying and holds (startlingly) that bullshit is more dishonest than lying. In this chapter I consider bullshit as a distinct perversion of assertion next to lying. I hold that understanding bullshit and lying as perversions of assertion sheds light on assertion and how it functions.

The Mass Media and the Policy Process

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Annelise Russell ◽  
Maraam Dwidar ◽  
Bryan D. Jones
Keyword(s):  
Public Opinion ◽  
Mass Media ◽  
Policy Process ◽  
Agenda Setting ◽  
Political System ◽  
The Political ◽  
Mass Public ◽  
The Media ◽  
The Mass Media

Scholars across politics and communication have wrangled with questions aimed at better understanding issue salience and attention. For media scholars, they found that mass attention across issues was a function the news media’s power to set the nation’s agenda by focusing attention on a few key public issues. Policy scholars often ignored the media’s role in their effort to understand how and why issues make it onto a limited political agenda. What we have is two disparate definitions describing, on the one hand, media effects on individuals’ issue priorities, and on the other, how the dynamics of attention perpetuate across the political system. We are left with two notions of agenda setting developed independently of one another to describe media and political systems that are anything but independent of one another. The collective effects of the media on our formal institutions and the mass public are ripe for further, collaborative research. Communications scholars have long understood the agenda setting potential of the news media, but have neglected to extend that understanding beyond its effects on mass public. The link between public opinion and policy is “awesome” and scholarship would benefit from exploring the implications for policy, media, and public opinion. Both policy and communication studies would benefit from a broadened perspective of media influence. Political communication should consider the role of the mass media beyond just the formation of public opinion. The media as an institution is not effectively captured in a linear model of information signaling because the public agenda cannot be complete without an understanding of the policymaking agenda and the role of political elites. And policy scholars can no longer describe policy process without considering the media as a source of disproportionate allocation of attention and information. The positive and negative feedback cycles that spark or stabilize the political system are intimately connected to policy frames and signals produced by the media.

AUTISM IN THE DISCOURSE OF THE RUSSIAN MASS MEDIA: CONSTRUCTING OF THE IMAGE OF A HUMAN WITH ASD

2020 ◽  
pp. 37-43
Author(s):  
Saveleva Zh.V.
Keyword(s):  
Mass Media ◽  
Early Stage ◽  
Autism Spectrum ◽  
Media Discourse ◽  
Adults With Autism ◽  
Video Clips ◽  
The Media ◽  
Inner World ◽  
Spectrum Disorders ◽  
The Mass Media

The prevalence of autism is growing, the problems of stigmatization and discrimination of people with autism spectrum disorders in society are exacerbating. The mass media play an important role in enlightening and reducing stigmatizing effects, in connection with which the goal was formulated to study the construction of images of a person with ASD in the mass media by the method of qualitative and discourse analysis of video clips from the federal channel. According to the results of the study, it can be argued that the range of characteristics used to describe people with autism in media discourse is diverse, but in retrospect, dominant interpretation models can be identified. At an early stage, the prevailing image of a person with ASD was deprived of the quality’s characteristic of normotypical people who do not want to leave their world. People diagnosed with autism were referred to as the intolerant category of "autistic". Since 2013, there has been a discursive turn, within which the category “autist” is replaced by tolerant speech patterns, adults with autism get into the lens of the media, the topic of uncommunicability as a property of a person with autism is replaced by the intention of the lack of opportunities to communicate, one of the reasons for which is social exclusion. In television stories of recent years, the mass media are actively constructing the image of a person with autism spectrum disorder through his inner world, through the advantages that a person with ASD can have due to his characteristics. However, it cannot be said that there has been a complete change of the image: the old cliches, as a rule, manifest themselves at a more latent level of grammatical constructions and semiotic meanings.

scholarly journals The Big Brother Naija TV Reality Show as Coordinate of Media Functions and Dysfunctions

2021 ◽  
Vol 17 ◽  
pp. 61-72
Author(s):  
Bolu John Folayan ◽  
Olubunmi Ajibade ◽  
Olubunmi Dipo Adedoyin ◽  
Toyin Segun Onayinka ◽  
Toluwani Titilola Folayan
Keyword(s):  
Mass Media ◽  
Media Content ◽  
Big Brother ◽  
Reality Show ◽  
South West ◽  
The Media ◽  
Basic Functions ◽  
The Mass Media

The mass media play at least five basic functions which include news dissemination, surveillance of the environment, correlation of the components of the society, entertainment and transmission of social heritage.  Sometimes, disruptions and impairments do occur in the performance of these roles and some of these basic functions become dysfunctions, which turn the media into purveyor of negative values. The present study investigates how popular the Nigerian TV reality show, Big Brother Naija (BBN), is perceived by its viewers. Three hundred heavy viewers of the programme were surveyed from Lagos and Ede, South-West Nigeria, and their opinions and attitudes were sought regarding; why they like or dislike the programme; the gratifications that those who like the programme derive and whether the BBN, as media content, is generally functional or dysfunctional to the society. Sixty-six per cent 66 (33.7%) of respondents like the programme because it entertains. Half of the respondents, 99(50.5%) dislike ‘immoral aspects’ of the programme. The viewers affirm that the eviction part of the programme was their highest form of gratification.  Most respondents, despite public outcry against the programme, consider the programme to be “functional”. Findings reinforce the postulation that TV viewers are not passive consumers of media contents.

scholarly journals Catholic Church and the Italian public television. An enduring relation with an interlude: the Council

2015 ◽  
pp. 179-199
Author(s):  
Federico Ruozzi
Keyword(s):  
Mass Media ◽  
Catholic Church ◽  
Public Television ◽  
Second Vatican Council ◽  
Media Attention ◽  
Vatican Council ◽  
The Media ◽  
The Mass Media ◽  
The Church ◽  
The Catholic Church

The article presents the entanglement of the Catholic Church and the media by focusing on the case of the Second Vatican Council and the television broadcast of its events. The mass media attention of the council stimulated, according to the author, a double level: the media conveyed more information about the church event than it had ever done before, but at the same time, the mass media influenced the discussion of the council fathers. The article also analyzes, through the lens of the Council, the recent relationship between the Catholic Church and the Italian television.  

scholarly journals MEDIA AND PUBLIC TRUST TOWARDS COVID-19 INFORMATION

2021 ◽  
Vol 20 (2) ◽  
pp. 163-176
Author(s):  
Muhammad Yunus Patawari
Keyword(s):  
Mass Media ◽  
New Media ◽  
Public Trust ◽  
Online Questionnaire ◽  
The People ◽  
The Media ◽  
The Mass Media ◽  
Media Channels ◽  
And Behavior ◽  
Attitudes And Behavior

Mass media is one of the leading sectors in handling COVID-19. Amidst current health emergency, public trusttowards the information conveyed by the mass media is the key to successful mitigation. Various types of newsregarding massive COVID-19 reports in several media channels have the potential to cause information bias whichends in pros and cons. Insubstantial debates in varied media are counter-productive to the efforts of various partiesin educating the society to avoid misinformation. Based on this, it is important to know the media that are referencesand that gain public trust in seeking information. This study examines the level of public trust in information aboutCOVID-19 in the mass media, both old and new media, using an online questionnaire methodology on May 3, 2020,which was given to 60 respondents. The results show that the respondents’ level of faith in television is higher, but itsconsumption by viewers is much lower than that of online media (news sites and social media). The results showedthat viewers still deemed television a reliable reference for information. From these data it was found out why themedia are rarely used by the people but are able to gain high trust in the eyes of the public. The results of this studyare expected to provide an overview of the attitudes and behavior of the community in understanding COVID-19information so that relevant parties can make appropriate policies in the perspectives of media and communication.

scholarly journals Factors that Influence Freedom of Speech and Self-censorship in Mass Media in Contemporary Russia

2015 ◽  
Vol 6 ◽  
pp. 110-120
Author(s):  
Oksana Olshevskaya
Keyword(s):  
Mass Media ◽  
Positive Impact ◽  
Political Influence ◽  
Freedom Of Speech ◽  
Media Freedom ◽  
Negative Experience ◽  
The Media ◽  
The Mass Media ◽  
The Government ◽  
In The Beginning

An attempt to define the degree of media freedom in contemporary Russia leads to contradiction between the declaration of the mass media freedom provided by the Constitution of the Russian Federation and the Soviet Union heritage of unequivocal control of the press by the government, described by Siebert et al. (1984) as the Soviet-Communist Press Theory. The reason for this ambiguity could be explained by the great deal of different factors that exert an influence on the journalism, such as features of mass media legislation, governmental control of the media, the diversity of media ownership, sources of media incomes, and traditions of censorship in Russia.  The current development of the media legislation in Russia shows no improvement regarding the freedom of speech. In the beginning of the third presidential term in 2012, Vladimir Putin has signed several laws that reduced the freedom of speech through the limitation of public assembly, criminalization of defamation in the mass media, and intensification of governmental censorship on the internet. On the other hand, the contemporary press freedom that appeared in conditions of the new market economy in the beginning of the 1990s has brought discredit as to the conception of an exclusively positive impact of unconditional freedom on the mass media since the newspapers, television and radio channels were controlled by several powerful oligarchs who used the owned mass media to spread and support their political influence. However, after the authorities’ reference in the 2000s the balance was not regained. As a result, the majority of the media outlets in Russia became co-owned or fully controlled by the government. Another crucial aspect of the mass media freedom as the cultural phenomenon should be kept in mind: seven decades of severe censorship could not be erased from the journalism professional community’s memory in several years. The negative experience of predecessors transforms censorship into self-censorship in modern Russia.

scholarly journals Влияние масс-медиа на сознание человека в пьесах Александра Марданя

2018 ◽  
pp. 153-164
Author(s):  
Maria Sibirnaya
Keyword(s):  
Mass Media ◽  
Mass Culture ◽  
Real Life ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
Contemporary Culture ◽  
Modern Culture ◽  
Factors Affecting ◽  
The Mass Media ◽  
Music Information ◽  
Modern Mass

Nowadays the influence comprehension of the mass media as one of the most significant factors affecting contemporary culture, acquires the special significance. All kinds of new information receiving by media channels obtain the stereotyped, frequently repeatedly cultural and axiological orientations, which become fixed in people's consciousness. Skillful manipulation of information makes the power of suggestion from mass media practically unlimited. Therefore, the public opinion is created by the mass media. Being so closely intertwined with the mass media, the modern mass culture is coming through all elements of people's lives. Moreover, it appears in the literary works, which reflect the influence of the mass media on the consciousness, mentality, point of view and decisions of the literature characters, using their set example in the literature. Odessian playwright Aleksander Mardan presents his characters in the context of the events, which entails new circumstances both due to the characters decisions and out of more extensive economic and political changes. One may notice the presence of mass media in the form of music, information broadcasts and press almost in all Mardan's play. One may track out the influence on the character’s consciousness and reveal the difference between the official version and what happened in the real life. Using the performance tool, there is the action in the play showing the influence of the stereotypes implicated by the mass media. The performance reveals not only the stereotypes affection influencing the mentality of the characters, but also the viewers whose interpretation of the play’s direction is not always critical enough. Therefore, the question about the relationship between the society and mass media, about the level of freedom in mass media from the society and concerning the influence exerted by mass media on the modern culture and the human's consciousness is repeatedly presented in Alexander Mardаn’s plays.

scholarly journals NARASI LIRIS FOTOGRAFI JURNALISTIK PADA MASA PANDEMI COVID-19: STUDI KASUS PROYEK FOTOGRAFI “STILL LIVES” OLEH THE NEW YORK TIMES

2021 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
pp. 113-124
Author(s):  
Aji Susanto Anom Purnomo ◽  
Novan Jemmi Andrea ◽  
Monica Revias Purwa Kusuma
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
Mass Media ◽  
Representation Theory ◽  
New York Times ◽  
Roland Barthes ◽  
Health Crisis ◽  
The New York Times ◽  
The Media ◽  
The Mass Media ◽  
Journalistic Practice

2020 is the year when the world is faced with a health crisis, namely the Covid-19 pandemic or also known as the Corona Virus. All aspects of life are affected by this crisis, the joints of humanity are faced with limitations. The mass media are intensively reporting various incidents regarding the Covid-19 pandemic. The stories are often accompanied by journalistic photos. One of the functions of photojournalism is to strengthen the story of what the media wants to convey. Journalistic photos during this pandemic usually feature scenes from medical activities, government policies and large narratives that are cold on empathetic human relations. However, different from most photojournalism in most mass media, The New York Times publishes "Still Lives" photography projects that are done by its photographers. The project presents a different narrative from this time of the pandemic. The “Still Lives” photography project is important because it presents journalistic photos that tell a domestic narrative that is close to the sides of universal humanity, namely the stories of the photographers' homes and families. This study aims to describe and interpret the “Still Lives” photography project as an alternative in creating a different narrative from photojournalism during the pandemic. This study used a descriptive qualitative research method based on phenomenology with Roland Barthes' main theory of semiotics and supported by journalistic photography theory and representation theory. The research results obtained a complete explanation and meaning of the “Still Lives” Project from The New York Times. The project according to the theory of photo journalistic is photo story based on personal experiences. From the analysis through the theory of semiotics from Roland Barthes and representation theory successfully obtained a result that basically projects “Still Lives” can be understood as a representation of the universal experience and feeling by mankind. Project “Still Lives” provides the representation of covid-19 pandemic through the mass media journalistic that show an alternative offer to journalistic practice to use lyrical narratives and personal experience in the story and more empathy in the mass publication of pandemic covid-19.

scholarly journals Unique information offers as a means of modern communication strategy

2021 ◽  
Vol 2 (25) ◽  
pp. 31-40
Author(s):  
Kirill V. Aksenov ◽  
◽  
Diana A. Bagdasaryan ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Mass Media ◽  
Communication Strategy ◽  
External Resources ◽  
The Public ◽  
Unique Information ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Media ◽  
The Mass Media ◽  
Article Study ◽  
Wide Potential

The article is devoted to the issue of communication strategy in the mass media and PR-departments in organizations of various orientations. The authors draw attention to the existing practice of similar, repetitive messages that fill the information space. This complicates the perception of information by the public and makes this process boring and uninteresting. As one way of solving the problem, it is proposed to focus on unique information offers in communications. The authors believe that a wide potential audience is not aware of truly unique information offers of the mass media or PR departments of companies and organizations. A unique information offer is lost in the conditions of the growing tradition to consume news information from the social media feed, subscribing to a large number of public pages, unless these offers are made by popular and well-known companies. For instance, the authors of the article study unique information offers made by the media service of a football club in March-June 2020 in the context of the coronavirus crisis and the absence of matches. This is one of the most popular Russian clubs, well-known even to those Russians who are not football fans. Moreover, the authors also examine the unique information offers of a beauty company, with some of them not directly related to their products. As a result, theauthors suggest that it is worth advertising not only products on external resources, but also unique information offers directly.

scholarly journals DICTION as a Tool for Studying the Mass Media

2014 ◽  
pp. 462-476 ◽  
Author(s):  
R. Lance Holbert
Keyword(s):  
Big Data ◽  
Mass Media ◽  
Practical Knowledge ◽  
Media Content ◽  
Diverse Range ◽  
Systematic Assessment ◽  
Message Tailoring ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
The Media ◽  
The Mass Media

This chapter offers a systematic assessment of DICTION’s ability to address a wide range of media content. Each of the media-related works in this volume reflects a unique mix of communication inputs, and DICTION proves itself able to generate valid and reliable insights on a diverse range of material. In addition, the chapter focuses on a series of challenges (e.g., Message Tailoring, Hypertext, Interactivity) and opportunities (e.g., big data) for DICTION in relation to the study of media content. The program and the researchers who utilize it need to continue to evolve with the changing media landscape in order to generate practical knowledge that is relevant to improving communication.

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