8) Find a "news" story from the Onion News Network, and compare it to a contemporary news story of clip from a "real" news source. Discuss them both in terms of gatekeeping and agenda-setting functions, as well as the breakdown and reevaluation of discourse that Baym talks about in his article.
It is seen in Baym article, “The Daily Show: Discursive Integrations and the Reinvention of Political Journalism” we learn about the rise in “fake” news such as The Daily Show. He says, “The 2004 pew survey found that 21% of the people ages 18-29 say they regularly learn about news and politics from comedy shows such as Saturday Night Live. Another form of “fake” news comedy is the Onion News Network. I found a video called “AA Destroying The Social Lives of Thousands Once-Fun Americans.” This clip is a parody of actual news, and it pokes fun at the biases new channels use such as gate keeping and agenda setting. Gate keeping is the process of when the media filters out what they say to the general public. Doing this allows them to create their own bias over news stories. A reporter can decide which sources are chosen to include in a story or what stories are printed. Agenda setting is the theory that the news media have a large influence on audiences by their choice of what stories they consider are newsworthy and important for the public to know. This creates a huge bias as the media can choose not to broadcast an important message or a story. These two techniques are being made fun of in this AA video. In this video we can see that they are trying to imitate a real news station. The beginning shows a graphic of the date, and a capital building, which is very similar to news channels. This video in terms of gate-keeping is poking fun at issues in society in which the media doesn’t report. Although this video is clearly a joke, we can realize how ridiculous the news is, as this video is reporting something as crazy as AA making people not fun and boring. This video makes fun at what is shown in the media. Another video I have is from ABCNews. When I was looking for a serious video, I came across the most popular videos, which was in fact this one. The background and opening is very similar to the “fake” news. It is interesting to me that this video was aired nationally. Although this could be a very serious issue in surrounding areas of the happening, this in most cases, would not affect the general public. News channels like ABC news practice gate-keeping and agenda setting to preserve their image. This video could be implying to the public that they are never safe, and that crazy happenings such as this one, happens in reality. Though agenda setting society starts prioritize what is important through what is shown through the media, such as this video. It was interesting looking at the most popular videos, which included issues that I at least find, not informational and important but rather for entertainment, such as a video of Oprah addressing lesbian rumors. In conclusion, Baym states, “It concludes that The Daily Show can be better understood not as ‘fake news’ but as an alternative journalism, one that uses satire to interrogate power, parody to critique contemporary news, and dialogue to enact a model of deliberative democracy.”
AA Destroying The Social Lives Of Thousands Of Once-Fun Americans
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