Infotainment: Audience Interest - Research Paper Example

INFOTAINMENT AND THE INTEREST OF AUDIENCE Abstract Infotainment is a way of making knowledge reachable to the audience in a way that makes the information interesting for the audience. There has been some criticism that journalists and channels have been receiving in case of the priorities that are being given by the journalists to unimportant news as the celebrity news’ importance over the important news of national interest. In this case the value of the necessary news seems to have been lowered by the channels and the media reporters. With the growth of media the people have more choices to make. Table of contents Introduction………………………………………………………………………………..3 Infotainment Phase ………………………………………………………………………..5 Infotainment audience and Paranormal………………………………………………….………………………..8 Criticism…………………………………………………………………………………..9 Conclusions………………………………………………………………………………10 References………………………………………………………………………………..11 Introduction The world is full of fresh happening events that can be of any nature and these are the events that in one way or the other effects the lives of people thereby the gain of information is the right of these people (Gans, 2004, p. 22). This is the period of technology and as we can see information is available to the people in many forms and through many sources. The newspapers magazines thereby the print media and the electronic media including the various TV channels are the main sources for the gain of information. Combining important information with entertaining news is known as the infotainment and this is the kind of information which is available through websites, print media and television programs (Johnson-Cartee, 2004, p. 12). It is said that the word infotainment is a new word as media is changing rapidly day by day as the technology gains more and more evolution these days. There has been a difference noticed between journalism and the infotainment. Journalism is considered as a collection and the availability of serious kind of information as for example the political scenario in a country or reporting of some important incident (Orlik, 2001, p. 10). News is a broader term that carries within itself firm professional journalism as well as soft part of the news including entertainment news and so on. Here two terms are generally used in this case, the hard news and the soft news. The difference between the two lies in the existence of the entertainment within the soft news. The hard news is the part that only deals with the serious topics as war, politics, crimes and the disasters (Overholser, 2006, p. 12). However in contrast the soft news is the category that deals with arts, entertainment including celebrity life style shows, and sports shows thereby information is being transferred to the audience by targeting the entertainment that is welcomed by the audience. Infotainment is nothing new to the audience as the audience has welcomed information with the entertainment in the past years however, the main thing to be noticed in this case if interest of the audience is the same or has it changed. The changes or else in the infotainment are the points that need attention (Wilson, 2004, p. 10). If the entertainment package, being part of information that is required by the audience, is welcomed than it can be assumed in this case that, the audience still have their interests in infotainment. Many people have been seen to be interested in the serious news when it comes with the entertaining substance linked to it. The infotainment may still be the main interest of the audience and it can also be understood that the audience might be needing more of the serious news nowadays as compared to the entertainment linked to it. As it has been noticed that the ratio of the entertainment in the serious news has been increased and priority is being given to the non-serious issues as the celebrity news as compared to news that links the citizens of the country to the political events within a country. With this ratio, the serious news seems to be losing its value. Therefore if this is kept in mind than the audience might be losing the interest in the entertainment part and may be need of the hard part of the news (Orlik, 2001, p. 12). Infotainment phase There have been some major changes in the field of journalism and this is considered to be one of the major changes in the field of journalism (Sinclair, 2004, p.55). The change is generally thought to have changed the values of news on the global scale. The change initially known as entertainment news is now known as infotainment and this has been the main reason of change in the value of news (Overholser, 2006, p.55). In relation to infotainment there are three main points that need to be considered and they include origin of infotainment and its occurrence in the modern times. The second point being the understanding of a fact that infotainment providers need to realize is what customers want and need in relation to news. The third part that is the most important one is interests of the audience in the news in the form of infotainment (Wilson, 2004, p. 50). Much of the research has been done on the beginning of infotainment and it is said that much of the infotainment had been introduced in the media by Rupert Murdoch who is considered to be the king of media and he is the person who has been copping with the blames since the start of criticism. However there are some authors who think that infotainment has not been brought on the media by just one man and it is actually the customers who are responsible for the introduction. Thereby some of the authors hold the customers responsible for the loss of value of the information over infotainment. It is said that the origins of infotainment is dated back much earlier than the 60s (Orlik, 2001, p. 44). The main argument that is rising with time is that infotainment is giving the viewers what they want. The economy has been linked to the rising infotainment publicity as the news is always linked with the celebrities and these are the people who are seen as the style icons by many people thus people like to buy things that celebrities tend to use thus marketing and infotainment go together (Musa, 2006, p. 33). Here it can be said that the infotainment had been able to gain attention of people by targeting there wants and style needs. This has suppressed the real need of the information for the audience. It is also said that the audiences might be tired of the bad news and may be looking for the softer parts in the news. The need for softer part in the news has been realized because of the dominance that bad news gets over softer part of news that leads to the loss of meaning that the soft part holds (Johnson-Cartee, 2004, p. 45). Therefore the interest of the audiences has been seen to be increasing by observing that the audiences listen and take interest in the bad news being followed by the softer news. It is said that infotainment has been responsible for increasing the interest of the hard to reach audience. In this case the target audience is the one looking for the softer news however it has been said that the audience that is in habit of following the hard news is being undermined (Hudson, 2007, p. 66). Infotainment audience and Paranormal The case that has to be discussed here at this point is measurement of interest of audience in news in the form of infotainment package. There might be many people who are interested in only the news and there may be a class of audience only looking for the entertainment as the celebrity news (Wilson, 2004, p. 58). Audience has been seen to be of two kinds as the audiences’ interest in softer parts of the news and the other in hard part of the news. Therefore it is not necessary that infotainment is completely disliked by all the audiences as there is a medial line that can be expected from the audiences in terms of the interests from the audience. In this case as it has been said that softer parts of the news is the part that deals with the news as the entertainment news and so on it can be regarded as the paranormal (Pearson, Roberta and Simpson, 2001, p. 33). Influence on the audience interest Softer journalism is the part which presents as celebrity news, sensationalism and crime as something paranormal. This paranormal part is deal as news in softer journalism. Many critics have said that softer news dealing paranormal as news hurts the democracy in many ways. Moreover the credibility of major media organization is in danger when it comes to showing the paranormal material as news that not only diverts the interests if the audience but also drives away the main audiences that have been built since years (McChesney, 2000, p.58). The critics say that softer journalism or infotainment has made its way into the media as a reaction of the media organization to the decline that they have faced in the case of the readership and the viewership following since the least twenty years. The formula that is followed by infotainment makes use of the paranormal subjects where the addition of human interest, drama and sensationalism is done to create viewership base (Hudson, 2007, p. 70). Criticism We need to see that why the paranormal content in the news has displaced the harder part of the news to such a level that the interest if an audience for the softer part of the news is losing day by day. There are many criticisms in this case. Some say that the media organizations responsible for the introduction of the softer journalism in news and some critics say that the audience is the one responsible for the infotainment in the media these days (Wilson, 2004, p. 60). Majority of the people have lost interest in watching the infotainment mode of the information being spread by the electronic and the print media. As in these days the people are still in the need of listening to the hard news with the concept. Thus infotainment has started to make the people lose interest in both forms of the news, the soft news as well as the hard news (Gans, 2004, p.90). It has to be seen in a detail that at what price the harder news is being replaced with the softer part of the news. The details need to be noticed in this case by saying that what price do the journalist need to pay for the replacement of the important public affairs with the celebrity news and the entertainment packages. Goals and the aims that are associated with soft journalism are only the increase in sales and not to make the people learn what is happening on the global scale (McChesney, 2000, p.33). There has been a recent research from the field of political communication that clearly indicated that due to infotainment, there has been a great decline in the audience that used to watch the political news. With this, infotainment has been responsible to decline the public interest in public affairs as well as knowledge in the public affairs (Orlik, 2001, p. 64). The audience that has an interest in harder part of the news that includes public affairs as well as political affairs seems to keep waiting for such news content. On the other hand audience that seemed to have an interest in the paranormal journalism seems to have lost interest in infotainment as there are no changes associated with the celebrities that make the audience keep an interest developing (McChesney, 2000, p.88). Conclusions Infotainment can be blamed for being responsible for the audience loosing there interest in the news where the target had been to increase the declining interests. News is the broader term that covers the strict professional journalism as well as the soft part of the news including the entertainment news and so on. Here two terms are generally used in this case, the hard news and the soft news. Infotainment needs to look deep into the ratio that is being given to the soft news over the hard news as the audience is in need to hear the hard news as a main concern. References Gans, H. (2004). Democracy and the News. Oxford University Press US. Hudson, G., and Rowlands, S. (2007). The broadcast journalism handbook. Pearson Longman. Johnson-Cartee, Karen. (2004). News narratives and news framing: constructing political reality. Rowman & Littlefield. McChesney, Robert, W., (2000). Rich Media, Poor Democracy: Communication Politics in Dubious Times. The New Press. Musa, B., and Price, C. (2006). Emerging issues in contemporary journalism: infotainment, internet, libel, censorship, et cetera. Edwin Mellen Press. Orlik, P. (2001). Electronic media criticism: applied perspectives. 2nd edition. Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Overholser,G., and Jamieson, K. (2006). The Press. Oxford University Press US. Pearson, Roberta E., and Simpson, P. (2001). Critical dictionary of film and television theory. Taylor & Francis. Sinclair, J., and Turner, G. (2004). Contemporary world television. BFI. Wilson, T. (2004). The playful audience: from talk show viewers to Internet users. Hampton Press. Read More

The difference between the two lies in the existence of the entertainment within the soft news. The hard news is the part that only deals with the serious topics as war, politics, crimes and the disasters (Overholser, 2006, p. 12). However in contrast the soft news is the category that deals with arts, entertainment including celebrity life style shows, and sports shows thereby information is being transferred to the audience by targeting the entertainment that is welcomed by the audience. Infotainment is nothing new to the audience as the audience has welcomed information with the entertainment in the past years however, the main thing to be noticed in this case if interest of the audience is the same or has it changed.

The changes or else in the infotainment are the points that need attention (Wilson, 2004, p. 10). If the entertainment package, being part of information that is required by the audience, is welcomed than it can be assumed in this case that, the audience still have their interests in infotainment. Many people have been seen to be interested in the serious news when it comes with the entertaining substance linked to it. The infotainment may still be the main interest of the audience and it can also be understood that the audience might be needing more of the serious news nowadays as compared to the entertainment linked to it.

As it has been noticed that the ratio of the entertainment in the serious news has been increased and priority is being given to the non-serious issues as the celebrity news as compared to news that links the citizens of the country to the political events within a country. With this ratio, the serious news seems to be losing its value. Therefore if this is kept in mind than the audience might be losing the interest in the entertainment part and may be need of the hard part of the news (Orlik, 2001, p. 12). Infotainment phase There have been some major changes in the field of journalism and this is considered to be one of the major changes in the field of journalism (Sinclair, 2004, p.55). The change is generally thought to have changed the values of news on the global scale.

The change initially known as entertainment news is now known as infotainment and this has been the main reason of change in the value of news (Overholser, 2006, p.55). In relation to infotainment there are three main points that need to be considered and they include origin of infotainment and its occurrence in the modern times. The second point being the understanding of a fact that infotainment providers need to realize is what customers want and need in relation to news. The third part that is the most important one is interests of the audience in the news in the form of infotainment (Wilson, 2004, p. 50). Much of the research has been done on the beginning of infotainment and it is said that much of the infotainment had been introduced in the media by Rupert Murdoch who is considered to be the king of media and he is the person who has been copping with the blames since the start of criticism.

However there are some authors who think that infotainment has not been brought on the media by just one man and it is actually the customers who are responsible for the introduction. Thereby some of the authors hold the customers responsible for the loss of value of the information over infotainment. It is said that the origins of infotainment is dated back much earlier than the 60s (Orlik, 2001, p. 44). The main argument that is rising with time is that infotainment is giving the viewers what they want.

The economy has been linked to the rising infotainment publicity as the news is always linked with the celebrities and these are the people who are seen as the style icons by many people thus people like to buy things that celebrities tend to use thus marketing and infotainment go together (Musa, 2006, p. 33). Here it can be said that the infotainment had been able to gain attention of people by targeting there wants and style needs.

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