Adventures with Ideas: Truth, Beauty and the Paradoxes of Life
Juliet Bennett's Blog
  • About
  • My Story
  • Research
  • Photography
  • Modeling
  • 2009
  • 2010
  • 2011
  • 2012
  • 2013
  • 2014
  • 2015
  • About
  • My Story
  • Research
  • Photography
  • Modeling
  • 2009
  • 2010
  • 2011
  • 2012
  • 2013
  • 2014
  • 2015
  • Home
  • Random Life Stuff
  • A Critical Perspective of the Media: Reading between the lines

A Critical Perspective of the Media: Reading between the lines

23 Nov ’11 Leave a Comment Written by Juliet Bennett

Johan Galtung says that it’s not so much what is being said, but what is not being said. Today my class will be reflecting on the use of language and stories in the media.

Discussion questions:

  • how do stories in the media impact our understanding of the world?
  • how can we learn to “read between the lines”?
  • how can awareness of narrative help us be more critical of media and politics?
  • what is the story’s raison detre? ie why was a story told, what is the narrator is getting at?

Julia Bacha – One Story, One Film, Many Changes.

Chomsky – Manufacturing Consent (students to watch at home…)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PQhEBCWMe44

Reading between the lines

Checklist for careful thinking:

  1. What is the source?
  2. What is the basic message?
  3. What is presented in support of the view?
  4. How is the message being conveyed?
  5. Who stands to gain? p. 28

Shaky foundations:

  1. Bold assertions
  2. Untrustworthy authorities
  3. Reasoning with the wrong facts
  4. Rationalisation
  5. Downright lying
  6. Faulty premise for an argument
  7. Hasty generalization
  8. Mistaking the cause
  9. False analogy
  10. Ignoring the question
  11. Begging the question
  12. Attacking the person not the argument
  13. Pointing to an enemy
  14. Misusing statistics
  15. Meshing fact with opinion
  16. Misusing terms whose meanings have changed p. 32-35

Formula for Propaganda: Scapegoat term = Groundless accusation in future + glittering generality. Eg Terrorists/Socialists threaten/plan to attack the political system/supermarket/middle class p. 58

Monitoring the media: prominence/space; use of photographs; sources; angle of the story; information provided; viewpoint of the reporter; reoccurring words p. 59

Propaganda techniques:

  1. Twisting and distortion; depicting black and white
  2. Selective omission
  3. Incomplete quotation
  4. Persuasive devices eg doctored/clipped photos , testimonials, generalities eg “He has American support because Americans always choose the wrong side”; name calling; innuendo eg. he had been promised a good job; baseless speculation

Between The Lines – Eleanor MacLean, 1981, Black Rose Books, Quebec

For further reading see my blog entry on Critical Discourse Analysis – click here

 

Random Life Stuff
philosophy
Similar posts
  • My policy wishlist for Australia’s re... — As of 2020, scientists estimate a remaining cumulative emissions budget of 400 gigatonnes of greenhouse gases measured in carbon dioxide equivalent (GtCO2e) to keep global average surface temperature within 1.5°C of preindustrial levels (Rogelj et al. 2019).[1] Business-as-usual adds 40 GtCO2 to the atmosphere each year, using up our 1.5°C budget in 10 years. The budget estimated to correspond with [...]
  • 2015 in review — ‘Repetition produces a gradual lowering of vivid appreciation. Convention dominates. A learned orthodoxy suppresses adventure.’ [1] “Without adventure civilization is in full decay. … in their day the great achievements of the past were the adventures of the past. Only the adventurous can understand the greatness of the past.“ At the start of 2015 I was writing an article on [...]
  • Reframing your mind: changing negativ... — “Whatever you want to succeed at, you need to replace any negative scripts you might have with positive ones” (Ash and Gerrand 2002: 7). We need to reframe our minds, changing negative stories to positive stories, one micro story at a time. Eve Ash and Rob Gerrand’s (2002) Rewrite your life! is a book full of tips on how to [...]
  • Taming the beast: technology, corpora... — Have we reached a point in the processes of industrialisation, globalisation, and corporatisation in which we have lost control over our culture, our lives and our shared future? Looking at my life, the lives of those around me, the media and global politics and economics, I think we have. It seems to me that technology controls us, rather than us [...]
  • Slave to society — Society draws us into its world of the trivial, making us slaves to the superficial, the menial, its time-wasting ego-based self-absorbed naval-gazing meaninglessness. It is evermore relentlessness with its inescapable myriad of communication paths that bath you in guilt. “I haven’t replied to this.” “I haven’t called that person back.” “I have to do this.” “I must remember that.” The [...]
Psychology of Violence and Peace
Conflict Resolution Techniques

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

TRUTH

BEAUTY

ADVENTURE

ART

PEACE

  • Popular
  • Recent
  • Comments
  • Is “God” a Fractal?
    15 Feb ’11
  • Is Lindt chocolate slave chocolate?
    11 Sep ’09
  • Creativism – a philosophy for life
    10 Sep ’09
  • Free Documentaries: The Truth Is Free
    17 Apr ’10
  • Coming to grips with the elephant in the room
    28 Jun ’10
  • Optimum Trajectory, swimming against the current, and man who stare at goats.
    4 Aug ’10
  • A short biography
    2 Sep ’09
  • Sex or chess? Peace, the world’s trump card
    13 Apr ’10
  • Alan Watts Fan Club
    3 Dec ’12
  • Big History Blog Series: Chapter 1 – The Big Bang
    25 Mar ’10
  • My policy wishlist for Australia’s response to climate change
    17 Jan ’20
  • Business leadership in climate change
    1 May ’19
  • A story of (mis)fortune: the farmer and his son
    8 Oct ’18
  • What is life really about?
    1 Mar ’17
  • Why the right (brain) is right…
    22 Feb ’17
  • New life: reflections on being a new mum
    29 Dec ’16
  • Orwellian Australia: the “[Un]Fairer Parental Leave Bill 2015”
    1 May ’16
  • Alan Watts’ ‘dramatic model’ and the pursuit of peace
    18 Mar ’16
  • A new lens to view the world: the world as process
    14 Jan ’16
  • 2015 in review
    1 Jan ’16

Adventures with Ideas... on Facebook

Archives

Categories

  • Academic (35)
  • Adventure (119)
  • Beauty (23)
  • Featured Posts (10)
  • Peace (124)
  • Random Life Stuff (102)
  • Truth (164)
Constitutional Recognition

Rights of Indigenous Peoples: A Personal Statement

As a "non-indigenous" Australian living on what was once the land of the Cadigal and Wangal Wangal communities, I wish to acknowledge the inter-generational responsibility that I feel toward the colonial past. As a beneficiary of "White Australia", to the Eora people of Sydney, I request your forgiveness. I stand in solidarity with your rightful demands to self determination and active participation in governmental decisions, and I hope I may learn from your eco-spiritual connection. May we, as Tom Trevorrow of the Ngarrindjeri puts it, learn to 'respect, care and share' the gifts that our planet offers us.

Tags

Alan Watts Atheism Big History Bridge Series Central America Chocolate climate change Conflict Transformation Creativism Ecology Europe God Health India India/Nepal inspiration Life in Oz Life philosophy Meaning of life Modeling My Brazilian My Christian Journey Narrative Narratology Occupy optimal trajectory Panentheism peace philosophy Photography Politics population Potentialism poverty religion slavery social construction South America The Pyramid Travel United States War What is God Wikileaks Yoga

Related posts

  • philosophy
    • Is “God” a Fractal?
    • Optimum Trajectory, swimming against the current, and man who stare at goats.
    • Joseph Campbell – The Hero’s Journey
    • Modeling Tips: Where to Begin
    • Are the laws of science and “God” the same thing?

Donation

evolve theme by Theme4Press  •  Powered by WordPress