solved Discussion Post #10: MEDIA So far, our reflections have been

Discussion Post #10: MEDIA
So far, our reflections have been onthe, let’ssay, “positive” spectrum. This week, our focus changes to the “darker” side of our culture. For many of you, this week’s reflection will force you to see beyond the “smoke and mirrors” of our media, political system, and often misguided understandings of our culture; looking at both domestic and international agencies.
Being honest, informing you on all of the lies being propagated by the media and our political system would take more time than we have in this course. Additionally, many of you would have a hard time believing the extent of manipulation and oppression being advanced by those in “control”. The truth is sometimes hard to believe when it forces you to accept that for the majority of your life you may have been lied to and seen more as a commodity than a human being. However, this can only change when you become informed and possess the critical thinking skills necessary to decipher fact from fiction and recognize your own oppression.
This is not to imply that all media is bad or is based on lies. On the contrary, media can serve as a valuable source of information. The key is possessing the critical thinking skills required to acknowledge our own bias, to look at an issue from multiple perspectives, and to try to find out who is the source from which presented information occurs. Not just who is presenting the information, but who is providing the information to the persons presenting the information.
Back to this week. The documentary you are assigned for this week will hopefully start to open your eyes to what is going on behind the scenes. I can’t pretend to know all of what is going on, nor how to properly connect all the pieces. What I can do is provide you with a starting point that allows you to begin to see the bigger picture for yourself.
Getting to this week’s reflection – You are to watch the very insightful documentary”Requiem for the American Dream”(can be found on Amazon Prime & other online sites). Heads up, this is a very dense documentary. I encourage you to watch it with friends and discuss its implications afterward.
Once you watch the documentary respond to the questions below. 500 words min. and feel free to write as much as you’d like.
(1) What is your overall takeaway from watching this documentary? Give specific details that indicate you watched this documentary in full.
(2) What is the connection between this documentary and the Culture of the United States?
Now, please watch this short video and then respond to the last question.
PBS:

(3) How do you feel about the current state of the U.S. media? Why do you feel this way? Can you provide empirical evidence to support your beliefs? (if so, please provide it)
For your peer responses, focus on questions 1 and 3. While I encourage healthy disagreements it is very important to me that you remain respectful to one another’s viewpoints. People are more than just their ideas. Separate a person from their ideas and the person still exists. Furthermore, ideas are fluid and can change with time, life experience, and exposure to new information. Personal attacks are never necessary and generally indicate that someone does not feel comfortable enough with their arguments, therefore resorting to insults. If you chose to disagree with a classmate, you are welcome to do so. Once again, just focus on the arguments themselves. I will step in as a mediator if I feel necessary.
Personal Opinion:
I recognize and acknowledge my orientation to the left. I share many values that could be categorized as both Republican and Democratic. For social issues, I do generally lean toward the left. For fiscal issues, I sometimes lean to the right. Regardless of my own opinions and beliefs, I find tremendous value in listening (not just arguing, but actually listening) to those who view the world different than me. From doing this, I am able to view the world from new perspectives I may have not thought of. If I agree with what was said, then I try to remain open to adjusting my own beliefs. If I disagree with what was said, my ideas become even stronger because I allowed them to be challenged and despite these challenges they still remain.
I feel that because of the complexity of the world, how subjective life can be, how much we don’t actually know in the grand scheme of things, the large amount of misinformation being presented, and all the special agendas behind the scenes, it can be very difficult to come to an “objective truth” on most issues. However, one way we can get closer to deciphering fact from fiction is to talk about it; for both sides to come together and have civil conversations that focus on the issues, not the person … just my opinion.
Below is one more video that you may find insightful. There are no questions pertaining to this.
John Oliver:

Reply:

1)
The media can be a very dangerous place. While I do say that, I do not mean the media is a means of falsifying the truth, but rather puts forth specific stories over others. This week we were instructed to watch the documentary called “Requiem for the American Dream.” The 2015 documentary follows an interview with Noam Chomsky and his discussions about the wealthy and powerful. At the start of the documentary I found myself trying to understand the importance of this documentary in comparison to the topic of this post, the media. But as minutes went by, the message was clear.
The best start to understanding the importance of this documentary was its title. When we hear the words “American Dream” we think about opportunity, chance, and success. We hear these stories about individuals fleeing their country in order to come to the United States for a better, more prosperous life. However, “Requiem for the American Dream” has showcased the flaws behind the system and the harsh reality of this so-called “American Dream.” The “American Dream” isn’t as obtainable as society has made it appear to be and this has to be the biggest takeaway of mine from this documentary. The media today depicts the United States as the dream place to live. You commonly hear the words and phrases about freedom of speech and democracy. Who wouldn’t dream of living somewhere where their voice is heard and actually taken into consideration. If only that were entirely true. The documentary was very quick to unveil that yes, all of these things may stand true, but only for a select group of individuals. The only people who have any chance in living out this “American Dream” are the powerful and wealthy, as previously mentioned. Everything our country does is for the rich, something Noam Chomsky explicitly stated at the beginning of the documentary. I found this aspect of the documentary to be connected to the Culture of the United States in that it is entirely based on money. Money and wealth have been made to be the “American Dream”, not what we see in the media. Chomsky explains that the wealthy and privileged are kept protected by all means. I found this to be very similar to how the media portrays such prominent figures in our own time. Money brings a lot of dirty laundry, and the media will refrain from showing that harsh reality. The media wants us to believe we live in this united country where all our voices are heard, but how can we forget the very state of this country within the last 100 years when minorities, POC, and women never even had a voice. The “American Dream” is not the fictitious dream we see in the media, it is the harsh reality depicted in this documentary.
After watching the video following the documentary, I thought about the current state of the U.S. media. I do believe that our current media is quite divided. It has become very easy to identify media sources that are left leaning or right leaning. The most common example of this is CNN and Fox News. It has become common knowledge that CNN is a more liberal based media source while Fox News is conservative. This is also shown through the people that each station welcomes on, something I similarly gathered from watching the short video.

Hi Nika!
After reading your discussion, I completely agree that the media of the United States is divided between political party! I too discussed that in my discussion on how it so clear to distinguish which news stations are right or left leaning and in high school, several of my teachers revealed to me how they watch a specific news station depending on what party they align with. One of my teachers who was clearly conservative was a strong follower of Fox News and I think that our nation needs to do a better job of re-establishing that these news outlets need to be unbiased.

2)

1. My overall takeaway from watching this documentary is that through Chomsky’s ten principles where he goes into detail about the effect of power and wealth on our nation, there is a large discrepancy between the obvious wealthy, upper-class community and lower-class group. These discrepancies create inequalities amongst both groups of people and show clear distinctions between those who hold power in our nation and economy and those who do not, displayed by not giving those in low social status equal opportunity. Overall, I think this documentary highlighted the idea that our economic system is headed in a downward direction and is in need of drastic improvements but there is potential for the American society to improve and overcome such economic issues.
2. The connection between this documentary and the Culture of the United States because money, power, and wealth are the key foundations of “The American Dream’ and the core values that our nation strongly upholds. This culture of overemphasizing wealth and power in our society is closely demonstrated throughout this film and it clearly reveals how although our nation is supposed to grant equal opportunities for every individual no matter their social status, that is not always the case. Many times, individuals who are in positions of power are the only ones who can attain and have access to the same opportunities for growth and success; that is a major flaw unravelled throughout this American Dream. We as a society are so focused on money and power that sometimes qualifications themselves are overlooked beyond belief, and this cultural issue is in need of reform. Although the purpose of the “American Dream” is for individuals to to come to the United States to seek out better opportunities, the exact opposite sometimes occurs, and only those in high class receive these opportunities, which is why the system is in need of a change and redistribution of power and wealth within our society.
3. After watching this video, the way that I feel about the current state of the U.S. media is that news channels definitely favor one political party over another and it is extremely clear when certain media outlets are biased. This overall is so extremely unethical because news outlets are supposed to be designed as unbiased and only present actual and reliable information to viewers, but instead, in today’s society, it is obvious that some networks are more conservative or liberal. The fact that this occurs when media outlets are simply supposed to just tell hard evidence proves that our media outlets are in need of some alterations and networks need to be redesigned to be unbiased and overall reliable. I have always learned this to be true through my previous educational experiences as many teachers throughout high school and government classes have told me how media networks can be biased and right or left-leaning, but this video confirmed what I have always been taught to be true and I recognize now why our society needs this system to be redesigned.

Hi Alexa,
I really enjoyed reading your post and recognized a lot of similarities between our discussions! I could not agree with you more and truthfully believe the basis of this country is money and favoring the wealthy. Society has painted this picture of what the “American Dream” is, but reality has not followed through in portraying that picture. Individuals have been made to believe that this leap of faith is their greatest chance in life, but as you mentioned, this is not always the case for those who seek these better opportunities. Further, I could not agree with you more on your discussion of how the media and its news sources have become increasingly biased. This was also something I highlighted in my own post as it has become crystal clear. Great post!

3)
The media is a channel where certain things get “weeded” out depending on how important they are deemed for society to view. While this does not necessarily mean that every piece of information one can find online is false, it still should make us question whether or not we are getting reported back on everything (or only simply the stories the media wants us to see). In the film we got assigned for this week, “Requiem for the American Dream”, the viewer follows Noam Chomsky in an interview where different subjects based off the “American Dream” are discussed and analyzed.
My biggest takeaway from “Requiem for the American Dream” was when Noam Chomsky began to explain his ten principles. Behind the name “The American Dream” is a concept that in reality, only realistically works out for the white and the wealthy. Essentially, he begins to dive into the fact that no matter how hard one can try to work for this American Dream, the playing field is so uneven that one cannot get close enough to that reality without already having those tools to begin with (money, family that lives in the United States, suburban house, a wealthy extended family, etc). However, this concept is something people interested in sociology and communication do tend to know. With that being said, the impact of media itself onto this concept is so important and very rarely talked about. Overall, this documentary has highlighted the fact that there is a major issue with the power structure in the United States, and it is done so subtly (for the most part).
“Requiem for the American Dream” connects to the culture of the United States in an obvious way. Noam Chomsky continuously mentioned that the wealthy are the people in society that stay the most protected, and everything is done for the sake of the rich. This puts worth values to human beings, even though technically we are all “equal”, right? Money is a way to gain power, and in a capitalistic society like the one we are in, money becomes the most important thing, especially for those who already have a lot of it (and want it to stay that way). The media, as shown in this documentary, will pick favorites with what pieces of information are important enough and not important enough. An example I have been seeing of this travel through the internet is the missing person case of Gabby Patito. During the month of August, there were so many missing people (most of them being POC), however, the only missing person media that truly went viral during that month was surrounding the case of a white girl. The media chooses whose life is more worthy of discussing, and it is disgusting!
In the final video we needed to watch for this week, I instantly went back to how it felt watching the news in 2016 and 2020. Obviously, the nation is incredibly polarized in a way that is different from how it used to be. The left and the right can both be radical, and that is typically how they have become to be depicted on most news channels. CNN and Fox News can report the same protest but send out wildly different messages, and since we are raised to prefer one or the other, the one we chose is the news we will intake as reality.

Hi Andrea,
I really enjoyed reading your post and seeing our similar discussions! Much like you, I also started my discussion by recognizing how the media handles stories and what they decide to report. As you said, the issue with the media is that they put forth specific stories over others, not that they falsify the news. I agree that this is a major issue when it comes to our media. You provided a perfect example with the Gabby Petito case as yes, she was a missing white girl that had the world following her story while disregarding POC who were going through the same thing and the same exact time. I followed the case myself and while scrolling through articles on CNN, which we both also discuss when talking about how split media is, there was other articles hyperlinked throughout specifically related to how society was ignoring these POC cases. Great post!