Ch. 15
“News is and always has been entertainment. But it has also been something more: a source of sometimes critically important information.”
This statement accurately describes the function of news. People want to be entertained in most every way, every day. News not only provides interesting and quite often extremely unique information for the average person, but it also connects them to something larger than themselves.
In today’s world where major media outlets are owned by even bigger multimedia corporations, the public doesn’t always take into account the viewpoint represented by the owners of a certain news group. Disney owns a movie studio, theme parks, and the ABC television network and, therefore, ABC News. Disney isn’t likely to let ABC news cover a horrendous story about one of their child stars who went bad, and if they do, they will probably seek to make it sound not as bad as it really is, or worse.
Hollywood and the news have had a long relationship, since the 1920s and 1930s. Hollywood stars now have entire magazines dedicated to covering their exploits, capturing their every move. People want to know what famous person is shagging what other famous person and so, news/entertainment is born. Stars do crazy stunts and the news covers it.
Ch. 16
All right, we’ve all seen them. You know what I’m talking about, those never-ending satellite vs. cable commercials on TV. Both offer lots of channels, way more than anyone can possibly watch in my opinion. Anyway, when cable and satellite came on the scene, they created a way for news to develop into a 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, news-spreading monster. Don’t take that in a bad way, that’s just the only thing I can think of to call these channels that constantly give people breaking news whenever they feel the need to tune in.
“With an explosion in the number of channels - arriving on cable, satellite and, eventually, on the Internet - came room for more specialized news channels: one, for example, emphasizing a more opinionated, more conservative point of view.”
Now, whenever you want, you can tune into a news broadcast that caters to your particular viewpoint on the world. Some want liberal, some want conservative. It reminds me of the time when there used to be two newspapers for the same area, one for liberals and one for conservatives.
News does open to something bigger than what it presents. A narrown outlet only leaves room to smother, expand. I feel like the news is aiming specifically to me when it reports on something I am intersted in, involving itself to the "average" person, but the story may be national news, that relates to more than just me.
I actually liked how the book tied the news and hollywood together, my ADD didn't kick in reading that section...WOW! lol
And the part you wrote about the satellite and cable was right on. I always hate those commercials, even though some have gotten creative over the years, but I like how you tied them into being like competing newspapers.
You're such a smartie Maddie!
Ah yes, News is our entertainment, I blogged about that all day yesterday and! I forgot that magazines always contain celebrities in them and absolutely everything they do! So this is news, you're right, has been since the 1920-1930's. Our generations are just used to it.