Analysis of Debating Democracys The Media: Vast Wasteland or New Frontier? :: Democracy Debates Media Essays

Analysis of Debating Democracys The Media Vast Wasteland or New term? In Debating Democracys The Media Vast Wasteland or New Frontier? Jarol Manheim and Douglas Rushkoff present opposing views of the media. Both authors raise the passs of what the media represents and what messages the media tries to send to the public. Is the medias coverage of events just for entertainment esteem or do the reports have political content and value? Are the viewers capable of distinguishing between the medias glitz and the real facts? Do different sources of the media system actually portray different views and stories? A key question is how typical objective reporting is. If the knowledge can easily be obtained elsewhere, it is possible to conclude with pluralists that citizens have the tools to govern themselves more or slight democratically. If, on the other hand, there are serious shortcomings, one might agree with the power elite group camp that the people, because they have insufficient mea ningful information, wield less power than they could and should.Manheim claims that the media is not as diverse as it claims to be. He states, Though for competitive purposes they might have us believe otherwise, most American word of honor organizations have a great deal in common with one another . . . they define news itself in essentially the same terms. (Manheim, 1991) He argues that the media entertains the viewers rather than giving them information that is relevant and socially important. Manheims view about what the mass media system actually does to the news is similar to what W. Lance Bennett lists as the quaternity main media biases fragmentation, normalization, personalization and dramatization (Bennett, 1996). These biases are described by Manheim as the media system rendering the content of the news less burdensome by packaging it more attractively (Manheim, 1991). Contrary to Manheims views, Rushkoff looks at how the viewers are able to use and on a lower floors tand the medias messages. Rather than viewing the media as a mass system composed of the elite who view the public as a commodity, Rushkoff believes that the people strive to shape and understand the world through the messages the media portrays. Furthermore, he claims that the media is merely a reflection of the inn that the viewers themselves have created. The viewers have the ability to choose which medium of media they will use (Internet, network, newspaper, etc.). Rushkoff says that the news has now become interactive and the people (particularly those under forty) have come to understand the medias symbols better (Rushkoff, 1994).