A New Way of News!

According to our Mass Communications text, Media Literacy by W. James Potter, "News is not a reflection of actual events; it is a construction by news workers who are subjected to many influences and constraints." Everyday journalists have to make a decision on what should be reported. After that is selected they have to decide what the main focus should be. In some of the bigger news markets, journalists do not have enough time to explain in full detail what the story is all about; so what we actually see in the news is bits and pieces of news stories. In today’s society this problem is being solved by what is known as "CyberJournalists."
The idea of a CyberJournalist is that regular citizens of towns and cities are able to act like journalists on what’s going on in their area, and then they are published through these websites. CyberJournalist.net is a news and resource site that focuses on how the Internet, convergence and new technologies are changing the media. You can also find tips, news and commentary about online journalism, citizen’s media, digital storytelling, converged news operations and using the Internet as a reporting tool.
A citizen journalism site that I found was called Northwest Voice. The focus of this citizen journalism site is for it to be a new community newspaper and website-serving residents of Northwest Bakersfield California.
The Northwest Voice is a free newspaper that is being home-delivered to 21,700 Northwest homes every other Thursday. Their website is updated daily and includes even more news and pictures. The Northwest Voice is all about news that the citizens of their town can relate to because it’s local and told from their perspective. Readers, community organizations, churches and schools submit most of the information and pictures used. One thing that I found that was different on this site than many other news sites, is that it offers a section called "Meet Your Neighbors" which is a section dedicated to getting to know recent visitors to the Northwest Voice. You can create a profile that let’s visitors know a little bit about you and what you enjoy about the community.
This site only contains information about Bakersfield, California, which is different than some of the other news sites out there where it’s worldwide news, or even just state news. There are several resource limitations. The community does all of the reporting, and an editor writes a few articles with information about land development, home sale prices and other issues of interest to the community. Since most is written by the community though, that means there is a limited amount of high-tech footage being used. Most of the people in the community do not have access to the high tech equipment or news crews that is usually used by professionals. The site contains some news-framing influences because most people interested in this site are citizens of Bakersfield, California. Some articles are used to inform, whereas some advertise certain events that are going on that they think people will be interested in. It’s a great way to learn about area businesses, and keeps you in the loop of the latest local services, restaurants, and shops.
I enjoyed so much on this site. One thing that really made this site stand out is that the people posting have similar news perspectives because they are all reporting on what is going on in Bakersfield. This site was really easy to read, so that means that anybody of any age can read the stories posted and understand what’s going on in the area. One thing I found surprising was that there wasn’t a lot of bias. The posts include both positive and negative things about the town. For not having a lot of publishing background, I was happy to see that most of the articles were diverse and not all about the same topic. You can also find information on the site about celebrations, contests and cooking recipes.
I think the idea of having a CyberJournalist site for many different towns and areas, is going to be something that keeps growing in the future. I know I have something like this in my community and it’s a big hit. I look at the site atleast once a day, and get e-mails about breaking news.

Survivor: Fans vs Favorites

When Alexis from Survivor: Fans vs. Favorites said, "I think the fans versus favorites setup is the ultimate challenge because we have the favorites who have obviously played the game before, coming in here with experience. But at the same time you have us (the fans) and we know their game. We know not only their strengths but weaknesses too. So I think that puts us at a huge advantage."
I think what she said really relates to what we call "traps" in the media. It particularly relates to Trap 2: False Feeling of Being informed, because the problem is with the variety and type of information stated. She thinks because she saw how the favorites played the game before that the fans who watched them now know their strategies and are at an advantage, but what I think she doesn't realize is the power the media has to make the show look as "real" or "fake" as they want. I think Alexis is satisfied with her strategy which is based on what could or could not actually be true, and just because these players used a certain strategy in a previous episode does not mean that these Survivor Favorites will use the same strategy again.
If she believes that the fans are going to win just because they have watched the favorites previously can either go one of two ways...a fan will win and she will be right, or a favorite will win and she will prove to have fallen into trap 2. I guess we will just have to tune in and find out!

Experience & the Max Headroom Episode

As long as you have had good exposure instead of negative exposure to the media, most people will likely believe what they saw on TV. Most students in our class could relate to the episode of the Max Headroom series entitled "War" because of what is going on in our country today. Today, we watch the news and read magazines and newspapers to follow along with what is going on over in Iraq. Unless we are over there we are forced to believe that what we see and read is what is really going on over there.

In this episode, their society believed that a terrorist group had bombed an area and wiped it out. Instead, it was all a set up so that the news' ratings would sky rocket. This attack was fake and was a money scheme. The episode even stated that "Ratings are everything...if they don't buy this package someone else will. "

Society can't believe that everything they see or read is true. Most of us believe though, that since we've had only good experiences with the media then this time shouldn't be any different.