To see if the "leading classes" are controlling the story, it is more important to look at the different modes of documentation, who is using them, and how they can function to shape a story. We will be looking at written articles, videos, and social networking to determine who controls the news.
WRITTEN ARTICLES (Soon Woo Kwon)
He was portrayed as a war veteran who was in support of the Occupy protest with many people. NYT and LAT described him as a war hero who has been injured by the evil in this case "the Police" or "the authority." However, some argue that what really injured Scott in the first place is unknown.
Many newspapers have been arguing and publishing to the readers that Scott was a peaceful protester that got unnecessarily injured by the police force.
While many papers said that Scott was part of a "peaceful protest," The Huntington Post reported that the demonstrators were getting out of hand. The Hungtington Post reported that the protestors threw rocks and bottles which may or may not have invoked the police.
VIDEO (Sheila Cheng)
When I was researching the topic, searching for videos and stories regarding the incident, all I could find were blog posts, videos, and new stories all portraying the marine-Iraq-war veteran as a martyr that was injured by the police who were shown/spoken as terrorists and the ‘bad guys’. I searched for awhile to try and find information/reports from the police’s side but was unsuccessful, which was very interesting since there were so many renditions of the popular videos on various other websites supporting Scott.
The video links (see above) all seem to come from bystanders who were witnesses at the scene. Some were edited to provide more proof that the police brutally threw the gas canister at Scott but edited only to a point of clearly showing where Scott was and how he ended up injured. The new stories that were also shown regarding the incident was clearly biased as well towards Scott and bashing the police and how they overstepped their boundaries.One of the stories on the RT websites clearly was portraying a skewed version of the story by interviewing Sergeant Shamar Thomas, US Marine Corps and using his stories to further escalate the brutality from the police force towards Scott. He essentially says how Scott served his country and yet instead of being injured in Iraq, he gets hurt at home by being a peaceful protestor. The anchor seems very professional and yet is clearly biased, which is interesting and leads to those ‘leading classes’ who are ‘controlling the news’.
None of the videos I found show the police perspective, and each video sticks to a single viewpoint.
SOCIAL NETWORKING (Cale Seis)
It can’t be said how much the leading classes are controlling the news without looking at the control people have over the news. Probably the most powerful tool people have to express their opinions is the internet through social networking.
News broadcasters are bound by facts, they need to use factual evidence, and whatever they leave out and include is up to them. Individuals can use emotional and anecdotal arguments. I first learned of the Scott Olsen story on Facebook through my brother-in-law. He is very liberal and is a supporter of the Occupy movement. He posted a report on the event by Fox news. His thread on his Facebook page included him criticizing FOX as well as his friends commenting with similar opinions. Many of the comments on this video on youtube are anti-occupy movement, or anti-Scott Olsen. My brother-in-law had this to say,
“this type of "reporting" is why fox is not really news, in the unbiased, just the facts ma'am sense. this is political theatre aimed at comforting and reassuring a center right worldveiw. notice how they cut the scene right before the cop throws a flashbang into the crowd trying to rescue scott olsen? notice how the title of the peice is "not clear how scott olsen was hit or who might have done it ."
By adding his commentary to the video, it turns the story in his favor.
It is clear that people can take an image and make it their own. How much of discussion is controlled by the source? Often times, discussions can end up being very biased, with one side feeling rather empowered. Sheila’s vimeo video has an example of this kind of discussion. If you scroll down in the comments, you will find a comment by Roy Skousen. Notice how he tries to get people to look at the evidence critically as he defends the Oakland police force. His argument is well thought out, but he is met with vulgar name calling and dismissal. People don’t argue with facts here, they react with anger. The video works as proof, an imagined reality that can be replayed over and over, and feels like “truth.” People whose view sides with that of the video are suddenly heard more than people who oppose the video. In this case, the video has control over the people who try to interpret it.
Emotionally engaging pieces of evidence garner the most unanimous responses, while reporting that is trying to be unbiased tends to get mixed results. Soon's Huntington Post article has a discussion section that is split down the middle, with people sharing other articles or news reports on the event. In this case, people have been inspired by this article or others to go out and find other views of the event to form their own conclusions.
CONCLUSIONS
Different modes of reporting have their own advantages for someone attempting to control the news. Written articles and videos 0ffer the ability to slant stories easily. A writer's word choice plays a huge role: demonstrator sounds a whole lot different than protestor. A photographer's choice of people to photograph makes all the difference in interpretation. We have seen in class how many occupiers are shown as hippies or vagrants.
In Soon's articles, he shows how Scott is labeled as a war veteran and made into a hero. People in comments have refuted this many times. For example, some claim Scott is the founder of the site ihatethemarinecorps.com. One man posted a supposed flickr account of Scott Olsen's displaying marijuana plants, and called him a drug dealer.
In the vimeo video, we saw first hand footage of Scott Olsen being injured by an object coming from the police line. But in this video from FOX that was shared on Facebook, the video cuts the same footage right before the cop throws another grenade into the group of protesters.
"Leading classes" obviously have ways of slanting the views of people. But it seems people have found ways of getting over that. Chomsky and Herman may have been right in 1988, that the leading powers control history. But it seems the internet has given people a power. It has become incredibly easy to find different sources, look at all the angles, and formulate one's own opinion based on many sources. People will see what is left out in one article and will learn what has been twisted to fit a different point of view. They can share something and turn that report against the reporter. People have this power, if they only choose to use it.
The project as a whole is incredibly interesting given the number of different viewpoints explored. The use of social networking sites for information on the topic is, in my personal opinion, very beneficial to fully comprehend the news story. By incorporating the comments on videos and Facebook statuses you've really demonstrated how now more than ever we may be closer to finding the real truth rather than simply partial truths that often arise through innate biases. Through exemplifying social networking sites you have brought to attention the idea that the common people have more of a say in politics as well as what will end "in the textbooks." This idea in essence means that because so much information can be exchanged quickly in the modern world that people on a global scale can be well informed about current events and form more accurate viewpoints than they could simply through mass media sources. I found your project to be very informative and well done; the use of independent media sources and social networking sites was an interesting take on a project involving media and grand narratives.
ReplyDeleteGreat use of media sources in your project! I really like all the different angles that well, have different angles to them! I find it so interesting how the truth can be skewed in the media in such a way that you can hardly recognize the truth when it is exploited to the public. I especially like your mention of the photos and videos having swayed stances. When we think of the media swaying the truth we usually just think of a news anchor telling "his/her" side of the story or reading an article that obviously has an opinion on the issue. However we don't often think of the use of photos and video footage being swayed. So it is not only just what we read and hear but also what we see that gives us ideas of what the "truth" really is.
ReplyDeleteWhat I find most interesting about your topic is that it is such a small scale thing taken from this huge Occupy Wallstreet story. I think it's very interesting to see all of the different viewpoints that were expressed. It also makes you think twice about what is being shown to you through the different media outlets because like you guys had mentioned whatever the author feels is necessary to put in or leave out he or she will do that even if it means compromising the true story behind it all. I think the videos are very interesting too because I know generally for me when I watch videos I assume that what is there from start to finish is what happened but now I see that things could easily have been cut out, and who knows what it was? It could have been something that would allow a completely contradictory statement to what the author wanted to get across. Overall though I think your story was really interesting!
ReplyDeleteI think that this project did a very good job representing how it is both easy to skew a story with modern technology, but also have the full story come out. Fifty years ago not many people owned a video camera, now almost everyone has one on their phone or their ipod. This combined with the internet makes it very easy to cross check videos and see if there is another video of the same incident filmed from a different perspective, or if there is another version of the footage that is posted somewhere else that shows the same video but with different editing. This is extremely powerful for both trying to skew new stories and trying to inform people about the whole store. When this project talked about how one video cut before a grenade was thrown and another one didn't, it made me think of what would have happened before everyone had a video camera and before the internet. Before this was possible it would have been easy for someone to cut that footage onto the floor, throw it away, and no one would ever see it; however it is now possible for everyone to post videos of what happened which makes it much more difficult for the media to put their spin on things like videos which this project pointed out very nicely.
ReplyDeleteI found it interesting that you also found Fox News to be a biased source, I found this as well in my look at the drug testing for welfare. I really enjoyed you adding that internet has given people power. I find that to be exactly true. For our sources the source with the most accessible viewpoints was social networking. This source actually allows people who the article might be about to have access to represent there news. It is possible that social media is the most "true" form of reporter because people have free reign however at the same time there isn't fact checking when it comes to social networking. I really find it interesting the construction around this issue especially considering that there isn't a general debate with a list of pros and cons about a law but instead this is much more subjective due to the fact that there is no way to determine who is telling the "truth" about this event.
ReplyDeleteIt is amazing that this story has received so much media attention and furthermore, that the reporting and "truth" behind it is so diverse. It seems that each media source makes an attempt at a grand narrative through matter-of-fact reporting styles and possible edits of videos and/or images. I found it really interesting that his veteran status became a source of contention. Maybe I'm missing something but is it even relevant to issue at hand? It seems that by labeling him as a war vet and further a hero or villian, that maybe this fits with Stuart Hall's argument about classification. As was pointed out in class, there is a clear media portrayal of the members of the occupy wall street movement - "dirty, jobless, hippies" etc. Going back to Hall, he doesn't seem to fit into any of the types of protesters in effect he serves as a type of "matter out of place".
ReplyDeleteYour analysis of the Fox news reporter adding their take on the incident got me thinking about how news/history comes to be. It's safe to say that everything we read about and hear from these news sources is premeditated. From cue cards, to the edits of articles, facebook postings, etc., people and firms are able to finely tune their messages. This is an obvious form of media control. Thanks for the post!
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