Jodelein Garcia

May 4th, 2018

Journalism 190
Circuit of Cultural Production Outline

The government’s management of news media affairs is a skewed process and system.
The government only wants to tell us what they want us to know. The media is something that
everyone looks at, so there has to be measures of what they allow us to see. Thus, allowing us
to think in a certain way for the government’s advantage/benefit.

I. The management of news media affairs is skewed.

A. “A focus on media production that excluded textual analysis would, in our view,
be as problematic and fragmented as a purely text-centered approach” (The
Struggle Over Media Literacy, 1998, p. 5).
1. If we focus on what just the text says than what it is actually trying to
say. What is the point of media? It is important to look more at what
the text is made out of, what are the ideas instead of what it simply
wants you to think. It is saying more than what you are reading. It’s
kind of like the idea of how people will believe what the internet says,
instead deconstructing and trying to understand other perspectives
and parts that we do not see. Do not let the media fool you.
B. “The type of media systems societies end up with are strongly influenced by the
political economy of the nation…” (Freedom of the Press for Whom, 2007, p. 8).
1. It’s important to note that everything that is published, no matter
what it is – even if the platform claims that it is “unbiased” is biased.
Politicians are motivated and fueled by lobbyists which are biased.
Thus, the government managing news media affairs will cater to their
lobbyists. There is always a bigger picture and reasoning to why
certain things are presented on the media.
 C. “If I am prevented by others from doing what I could otherwise do, I am to that
degree unfree; and if this area is contracted by other men beyond a certain
minimum, I can be described as being coerced, or, it may be, enslaved” (Two
Concepts of Liberty, 1958, p. 3).
1. Does the media really allow us to be free? Is the concept of ‘free
speech’ actually free the government limits us to what we can have in
the media? The idea of being ‘enslaved’ from this quote is a good way
to describe this, we are tricked to thinking that we have ‘free speech’
when we essentially do not.
II. The government only wants to tell us what they want us to know.
A. “Cultural values, which are often so taken for granted that they may be next to
invisible within the culture, may be national or local” (A Market-Based Model of
News Production, 1995, p. 306).
1. The idea of taking cultural values for granted stems from how we
allow the government and its management of media to shape us. We
are so used to letting the media feed us. We are so glued to our
screens whether it being on your laptop, your television, your tablet,
or your phone. Even the projector screens in our classrooms. We all
allow it to feed us. Instead of creating cohesive, coexisting cultures
between each other.
B. “…so the marketization of everything sharpens the sting of inequality and its
social and civic consequence” (Why we shouldn’t trust markets with our civic life,
Michael Sandel, 2013).
1. Due to the marketization of the media, it makes it difficult to believe
what is real and what is not in the media. It sort of deteriorates
people’s reliance on the media, but that’s exactly how the media
decides what it wants to tell us.
 C. “I’m getting more responsible, taking control of how I spend. But one thing I
can’t control is that every month a big chunk of my paycheck goes off to the
government” (The Story of Broke, Annie Leonard, 2011).
1. The anecdote from ‘The Story of Broke’ is a great analogy to how the
government gets to really nit pick and decide what they want to show
and tell us. They have the power, and we do not. We do not
necessarily have a way to decide what we see in the media and what
is “important” or “breaking news”. We can seek to find what is worth
to be “breaking news” but the issue there is how can we reach that to
other people.
III. The government benefits from us thinking homogenously.
A. “Frames used by the media to report the news, include ‘words, images, phrases,
and presentation styles’ (Druckman, 2001: 227). Gitlin (1980) argues that
journalists create frames based on their perception, selection, and presentation
of a particular event. Those with insider status are in a position to frame protest
movements in a manner that protects their own social position” (‘Have a Quiet,
Orderly, Polite Revolution’: Framing Political Protest and Protecting the Status
Quo, 2016, p. 4).
1. Since the government gets to decide our “frame”, that puts them in a
huge advantage. It “protects their own social position”, whatever it is.
In a way, that sort of irritates me. It’s corrupt in a way. Do we really
know our politicians? What do they not want us to see? Frames can
only show so much and who knows how much of the picture we are
missing. Thus, creates us to look into the same frame and this
distorted yet homogenous view of it because we do not know the
whole picture, but are all looking towards the same thing.
B. “People are seeing evidence about these kinds of risk and they’re assessing them
in a way that reflects the stake that they have in connecting with certain kinds of
 groups and what are the kinds of groups and how does this work” (Motivated
Reasoning, Dan Kahan, 2012).
1. If you really think about it, the idea of motivated reasoning isn’t very
healthy. How can we as a people move forward if we cannot even
break down these walls that we have no idea we are building up. I
think this is a great reflection of how we are currently functioning.
C. “It’s only when we feel we are under threat—especially what Stenner calls
“normative threat,” or a threat to the perceived integrity of the moral order—
that we suddenly shut down our openness and begin to ask for greater force and
authoritarian power” (The Psychological Research That Helps Explain The
Election, 2016, p. 4).
1. I think this is where the government really has us wrapped around
their finger. We have relied too much on the fact that the
government has the “authoritative power”, which they obviously do.
But we have relied too much on that fact, why keep and constantly
waiting for them to do something and instead keep fighting. It’s
irritating to think about how much the government has us creating
these similar views between each other.