Reading, Hearing and Seeing is Believing - Essay Example

Reading, Hearing and Seeing is Believing Diverse audiences populate the globalised world that we live in where the media is saturated with layered themes and messages catering (surprisingly) to all. The languages of media permeate the discussion of almost every issue, from personal decisions to public policy. Ironically, in this age of information revolution the audience has also become a part of the consumer calculation with media advertising and cultural studies defining their audiences of journalism, fiction or popular media genres as target groups. The marketing views them as consumers of media products and target groups of advertisements, or as potential consumers for their products or services and its ultimately is about selling an idea. The interest to unite the audiences and consumer markets where the audience is viewed as "naturally" occurring grouping of viewers, listeners, readers and users of different mass media that constantly churns and cans news, programs, articles, films, internet sites and other media products that allow access to various politically placed audiences. The media text named ------- help us ask the very question about the relationship between media and communication systems and how media systems reinforce, challenge, or influence audiences or its consumers. How do media ownership, support structures, and government policies influence media behaviour and content Ultimately, can media's responses to market pressures and vice versa have both helpful and problematic effects on race relations The answer is always yes. Ever since, the beating of Rodney King and the ensuing riots the Media Audiences have formed a somber backdrop to America's "dialogue" on race. On March 3, 1991, officers from the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) stopped motorist Rodney King for a traffic violation, driving with two other raucous men. While being arrested and due to initial resistance, Rodney King was struck violently with nightsticks which was captured by George Holliday, a witness who videotaped the arrest, which later was extensively discussed written and broadcasted all over in local stations, like KTLA and commercial news networks world wide. Sergeant Stacey Koon, Officers Laurence Powell, Theodore Briseno and Timothy Wind were charged by such erractic behaviour, which drew a new racist grudge against the LAPD itself, after the indicted officers were acquitted. A riot broke out in Los Angeles. Streets protests and other form of subversive reaction to such police force gave away as people sought out an answer for democracy. Between April 29 to May 15, 1992, television networks devoted extensive resources and airtime to this uprising that helped it to fuel up more strongly and spread across in many parts of the city Quickest response came from the media and the BBC article sums up past news with manifold signifiers that help us understand point of view reporting. It refers to the video of the incident that became a proof of inverse surveillance (i.e. citizens watching police) where audience andprotester organizations were formed nationwide to safeguard against future abuses. Although supportive, within a month after the riots, popular TV show "L.A. Law" shows video tapes depicting the riots and rioting violence by protesters involving a plot in which major character Stuart Markowitz (Michael Tucker) receives a near fatal beating from a rioter. This may be read as counter reactionary or racist again. A recent book called "Rethinking Rodney King" by Lori Leibovich suggests "that the beating that shook America may not have been as black-and-white a case as it appeared".1 Salon also suggests that "Judge [Joan] Klein -- whom I respect -- had been very active in Los Angeles politics and thought this hugely controversial case was hurting the cityBut she said in her opinion that [the case] should be moved out of Los Angeles, and out of the local media market." Now that is an interesting term, "media market". Somewhere the riot seem to have its roots within this media centric gaze, held at this case so closely that it triggered this anti-racial upsurge, even if the context was [benefit of doubt] hardly so black and white "racially" demarcated. Rodney King became the mouthpiece for justice for the black community. The book "Twilight" has similar motives. Equality is a state of the mind. It is a paradigm, which has been constantly repressed or suppressed by various belief systems who maintain that humans can be segregated into various groups based on their physical attributes. In Twilight: Los Angeles, Anna Deavere Smith draws upon the issue of suppression as she tries to give voice to scores of real life characters in their quest for equality. Presented in a mosaic set of the violent aftermath of the trial, verdict and acquittals of the police officers charged with beating motorist Rodney King in 1992, Anna Deavere Smith illustrates how the complicated issue of marginalization still exists in the very nucleus of a super power such as the United States of America. She weaves her narrative intricately through a labyrinth of human emotions as she brings together adversaries, victims, eyewitnesses, and observers who have never stood within the same four walls, let alone spoken to each other. The gamut of characters she delves in ranged from the LAPD Police Chief Daryl Gates to a gang member. From Korean storeowners to a white juror, from a Panamanian immigrant mother to a teenaged black gang member, from beaten truck driver Reginald Denny to Congresswoman Maxine Waters along with other black, white, from Asian to Latino characters all aptly portray the myriads of pressures of a fractious age. It is interesting to note how Anna Deavere Smith resonate the theme of equality in her text with the issues of race, racial prejudice, anger and hatred. In its depiction of the anguished soul of a city and a nation in crisis , the text offers an etymological explanation of the problems of racism as it presents the discourse of race struggle in the perspectives of ethnocentrisms and xenophobia. In the psychological exploration of her characters, Anna also shows the effects of reverse racism along with the fear of being oppressed. It reminds us the fact that racism is not merely an aberration of displaced aggression, but a pervasive form of institutionalization, which exists even today. Twilight: Los Angeles emphasizes the threat of murderous violence, which lies latent in an exploiter-exploited equilibrium. The text cannot be defined by any particular umbrage but points out the heart of darkness embedded at the very core of civilization. And the fight against Rodney King's case was seriously mounted due to this very media support against such atrocity. The Footage of the Rodney King incident was used in the title credits of the movie Malcolm X. The novel Nigger Heaven by Carl Van Vechten was banned from Orange County libraries following the Rodney King riots. Within a few weeks after the riots, Dr. Demento, whose radio show always includes novelty recordings dealing with current events, played a poem titled "The Revolution Will Not Be Televised" By Gil Scott-Heron. Between growing competitions for audiences' time, whose media experiences are dominated by less of news and more of video games, less of radio but more of the internet and cable channels like Comedy Central and MTV as compared to old-fashioned print and television, media is constantly devising ways to built up a consumer base. White-dominated newsrooms made for the white-majority localities serve distinct function of obfuscating ethnic awareness and cut them off from ethnic and youth communities, thereby segregating mass audience into distinct oblivious consumers who cannot grow a conscious taste beyond what is offered to them. Rodney King's case helped media to use a growing deployment of resources that served fresh interest of the market to some extent. Because TV is a global and swift communication device, it can also be used as a global and swift misleading device. So, what can we do to protect ourselves from such information wars Doubt everything we hear Criticize everything that is learned, read, and seen This is the true democracy, and we will not turn our backs on it, not matter the cost. Even when events like the LA upheaval happen. By segmenting the audience into ethnic specific rigidities, media generates and help to serve those groups' information needs. It is concerned with class power, media elites, ownership patterns, the audience commodity, and government-lobbyist relationships thereby helping to map power in the communication industry, by mapping of media ownership of audiences and thereby profits. Often media institutions and also media studies talk about consumption of media products instead of reception or interpretation of media texts. This implies that media texts are already seen as products to be sold to the consumer audiences. The merging of the concepts of audience and consumer target group is part of a phenomenon called commercialization or promotional culture, as Andrew Wernick (1991)2 calls it. This means that the principle of advertising communication has spread to all social communication, also to non-commercial fields. Thus, mass media may not always be designed to challenge or modify the social and political structure of a nation, either in a one party state or in a democratic society. It plays a crucial role in forming and reflecting public fantasy and therefore commodifies them: it communicates the world to individuals, and it reproduces modern society's self-image. Media both controlled and escalated public grievances, as it became a tool as well as a victim of manipulation. In political behaviour, opinion leading tends to correlate positively with status, whereas this is not the case in consumer behaviour. Hence, in case of political behaviour, the general conclusion that the media merely fixes (confirms) people's opinion, cannot be always supported. Although a sizeable portion of mass media offerings-particularly news, commentaries, documentaries, and other informational programme deal with highly controversial subjects, the major portion of mass media offerings are designed to serve an entertainment function. These programmes tend to avoid controversial issues and reflect beliefs and values sanctified by mass audience. The Rodney King incident similarly had many repercussions, which nevertheless helped to bring a repressed and crucial issue to the forefront, but the concentrated and closed discussion on the white-police beating up a black man was either ironically dramatized for media profit, or it did truly helped settle black issues. But, did it really Works cited 1. Choice of Media Text: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/2119943.stm 2. Salon, http://www.salon.com/news/1998/03/13news.html more full and detailed review March 13, 1998 3. Wernick, Andrew (1991) Promotional Culture: Advertising, Ideology and Symbolic Expression. Sage: London. Read More