In communication and media studies, the term “mass” is often applied to media audiences. How applicable is this term in the light of John Thomson’s statement that “messages transmitted by the mass media are received by specific individuals situated in definite social historical context” (1977:33)?Examine this issue with reference to the ways in which concept of the ‘audience’ have changed over time in relation both to technologies and to social institutions.People live in a modern cultural society where is full of mass communication including newspapers, radios, televisions and the internet, etc. As the mass communication has increased and developed constantly, so that people provide something or are provided. It seems people all become mass communicators and audiences.I would like to talk about the definition of mass communication and what kind of functions mass communication has. Next I will underline an active / passive audience defines; also explain how the audience has changed andtransmitted to the other listeners who would be listening and decoding the message. The basic rule of communication is unidirectional. It means that the sender can pass the message on the receivers and the receivers can send the message but the receiver can not obtain the message to the first sender.Tony Schirato and Susan Yell (1996: 1-21) suggest that no one are exactly similar as others in terms of “gender, sexual preference, age, religion, occupation, wealth, political affiliations, entertainment interests, social values, ethnicity, educational qualifications and cross-cultural experiences”. According to David Morley (1986:150), although males and females watch television at home, the idea of home differs between each gender. The meaning of home is defined as a place of freedom and relaxes from labor by males; on the other hand, females consider that home is further as a place to housework. As a result, males think themselves watch television is more general than women’s viewing. Imunication has a discussion of public problems/ troubles to find a solution or give a caution with a huge responsibility of social communication. The world correspondents are the great example. Every day the newspaper is published the international news over world such as a struggle between Israel and Palestine. The news article is not only written the news, also conveys how about the people’s life, and warns the war’s misery and the future after the war.The meaning of ward ‘audience’ is similar to ‘receiver’, but which forms a clear definition. Denis McQuail (1997:2) comprehends the meaning of audience with categories as ‘by place; by people; by the particular type of medium or channel; by the content; by time’. He also goes on to make it clear that audience has “its own customers, rules and expectations about the time, place, and content of performances; conditions for admission; and so forth” and sort of “content varied according to social class and status” (1997:3).The audience firns, radios, the audience also has changed and defines “as consisting of those who possessed the reception equipment” (McQuail, 1997:4-5). The invention of Internet affected to the media became to two or multiple way as a cyberspace where more personal, social is.The audience is received messages which are passed on to them with the medium of text or the text itself. In this term, the audience is defined passive when the audience receives the massage which is transmitted without any criticism or personal opinion about the message. Thus, the audience becomes more like useless machine than an able human. On the other hand, when the audience offers any recognition and intelligence in the procedure of receiving the message, the audience is active who has their own ideas, experiences, and behaviors.The active audience develops a new style of communication with the media in many ways where they can communicate and meet people on televisions, films, radios, and the internet. The new communicatcharacters of television drama were whom the housewives know, it is a sort of para-social relationship which makes people closer to the mass communication.I tried to define the meaning of mass communication and audience. The mass communication is both a mediator and a part of society. The audience is as a receiver to refer ‘by place; by people; by the particular type of medium or channel; by the content; by time’. As technologies developing, the mass communication has developed and increased from the mid-15th after a media text’s invention. At the same time, the audience is larger, huger, more individual, and more social as well.ReferencesBriggs, Asa (1972), “Prediction and Control: Historical Perspectives”, in K. J. McGarry (ed.), Mass Communication, Clive Bingley, London, p. 83.Meyrowtiz, Joshua (1997), “The Separation of Social Space from Physical Place”,The Media Studies Reader, O’Sullvian, Tim & Jewkes, Yvonne (eds.), Edward Arnold Ltd, London, p. 46.McQuail, Denis (1997), Audienc 1
The Age is one of the most famous and popular daily newspapers in Australia. It had been published since 1854 by John Cooke and Henry Cooke. The Age includes a variety of genres such as business, world, sports, travel etc. The Age includes reporting on local, national and world news by experienced journalists, international correspondents (Wikipedia 2005).The Age publishes several magazines - for example, Good Weekend, Sunday Life!, Fashion, Prestige Drive, Uncorked, Footy - which also is providing a main online resource as part of Fairfax's growing websites. The Age website provides lots of photographs on news. It also has for over 400,000 visitors and over a million page views of The Age each week (The Age 150th 2005).First of all, Journalist Ed O’Loughlin has been a Middle East correspondent for Australian newspapers The Age and The Sydney Morning since November 2002. O’Loughlin has reported for news on both sides- Israeli view and the Palestinian view, in the Israeli-Palestinian coTom Donnelly of the American Enterprise Institute, a neo-conservative think-tank. He says Donnelly directs to Iran as ‘more the status quo power’ in the area in relation to the United States. Also Iran could make a point of doing this project of local revolution as well. Both journalists wrote about what the Iranians actually want are not nuclear weapons but the detection of Iran's position in the influence chain of command of the Persian Gulf region, however, O’Loughlin’s article is a feature article that goes in-depth into the situation, suggesting signs of a country possessing nuclear weapons.O’Loughlin always seeks to provide a thoughtful snapshot of the anxiety of life in Iran under President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's strict policies. On May 15, 2006 Ed O’Loughlin reported that President Ahmadinejad has established a massive complex of prayer centre. He reported Iran President could not find any ‘revolutionary past’ with his drastic policies, or in the nuclear amenities extend across ern countries such as USA trusts that Iran has a plan to developing its nuclear weapons, even though Iran President Ahmadinejad had sent a letter to USA President Bush, hoping to resolve "the current vulnerable situation”. He quotes Iranian Foreign Ministry Mr Asefi’s sentences that Iran had never attacked to Israel, but US has supported Israel's attacks on Palestinians and in Lebanon instead of helping Iran.On May 5 2006, Purnell Murdock reported, ‘Bush: Iran Defying World with Ambitions for Nuclear Weapons’ on Washington. He reported that Bush’s had announced “The objective of America, our European allies, Russia and China is to deny Iran a nuclear weapon… Iran wants a negotiated solution to the standoff.” On the other hand, on the next day, O’Loughlin writes ‘Life, death and lure of war’ on Sydney Morning Herald that ‘Iran claims that its nuclear program is aimed solely at peaceful uses, and that it has the right to develop uranium enrichment.’he adds Iran would support for ‘Iraqi Sranium, ‘Iran admits to producing higher grade uranium.’ There have even been talks of planned nuclear beat on supposed Iranian nuclear facilities. He says Iran could have concentrated uranium more than Iran’s briefing to the UN nuclear supervisory organization, but it is still less than the compass needed to make nuclear weapons in conformity to Iranian official speech, also adds USA and Iran had talks on Iraq. It clearly gives Iran the right to enrich uranium. The contract obviously declares that nuclear weapons should reduce. Not doing so would intimidate and threaten the peace of non-nuclear states. Although O’Loughlin admits that he believes the Iran’s dangers having unclear weapons, he is always criticised and repeats that - Iran’s intentions are peaceful - with the worries such as the mainstream media always presents. Many people who are against the USA believe that ‘American imposed democracy’ is a myth. O’Loughlin argues that Iranian have seemed themselves bordered by USA mililear weapons. O’Loughlin says it would take decades of accusing Iran of trying to develop nuclear weapons. He argues that a reexamination of Iran's history over the last thirty years advices that Iran surpasses at surprising its own public and the world. Moreover nuclear inspectors have not found a weapons program. He also suggests that Iran Ahmadinejad Government could progress to achieve such a transformation of fundamental cultural worldviews and to achieve liberal democracy. But, he writes, until then, there will be continued resistance.ReferencesG, Porter. (2006, 13 May – last update), “Iranian nukes not the real issue”, Asia Times,Available from: HYPERLINK "http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/HE13Ak01.html" http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/HE13Ak01.html(Accessed 2006, 14 May)M. Kelley. (2006, 4 April – last update), “ HYPERLINK "http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2006-04-18-war-games_x.htm" War game will focus on situation with Iran,” USA Today,Available from: h 1
Aspects of Heterosexuality in Western Media Forms; AdsMen and women are so different that it could be contended that they are entirely different species. That these behaviours patterns are so different is due to fundamental differences in how members of each gender perceive themselves, what they aspire to, and how they want to be perceived by members of either sex. These particular attitudes and beliefs can give rise to strong impulses that work as incentives, which can also be triggered to influence purchasing behaviours. Tuning in to these attitudes and values therefore lies at the very heart of the way in which advertisers tend to construct their subliminal and sometimes direct appeal. Nonetheless, it does not go unnoticed that many advertisers tend to objectify women more in order to achiever their goals.Adverts for the same products, when focused to different genders seem to be similar in appearance on the surface, but in reality have some very crucial differences, because “advertmodest ads. However, the more intense ones really know no bounds. In countries where the national television has a more lenient policy in censorship, especially in Europe, we see more objectification of the female image than ever before.The important thing to understand here is that it is a lot easier for the men to become more like that man as he has worked to gain his muscles, whilst for women to become the woman would be virtually impossible. Women are always trying to improve their appearance and they define their sexuality in male terms (i.e. how they want them to look), whilst men in turn compete for success and women. Men do not identify with images of men as easily as women identify with images of women, because it is not considered to be the norm of many cultures and societies. This is why men in adverts are shown to be doing the achievable; they often feature in a working environment or at the gym because it is what they can do and achieve. On the other hand, women would be pe results that could be presented by a scantly clad female.Women's bodies have been used whole, or in parts, to market everything from brassieres to wall paints. One effect of such ads is to give women unrealistic notions of what they should look like in their normal lives. After instilling anxiety and insecurity in women, the ads tend to imply that buying consumer products can correct practically any defect, real or imagined. Moreover, the women's magazines that could be telling the truth about such marketplace fraud are largely co-opted by their advertisers, thereby implying that it is all done for the sake of money. In addition to reinforcing sexist notions about ideal womanhood, ads directly exploit sexuality.Many products are pitched with explicit sexual imagery that borders on the limits of pornography. Not only do these ubiquitous images encourage us to think of sex as a commodity, but they often reinforce stereotypes of women as sex objects and also contribute to a resultant vilution for women started.In the 1920s, before people had learned to dread ring-around- the- collar and halitosis, blunt instruments were needed to instil the self-consciousness that would eventually fuel the consumer culture. Perhaps because today's audiences are more inclined to self-examination, contemporary ads can afford to be more subtle. Nonetheless, the Beauty Contest of Life never ends: “We'll make a non-competitive suit when they make a non-competitive beach,” reads the copy of an ad for Speedo bathing suits. Sadly, in all these equation, woman was to be the sole sufferer.Countless ads reinforce insecurity by asking women to review their faces and bodies as an ensemble of discrete parts, each in need of a major overhaul as they are by no means acceptable otherwise. An ad for foundation garments portrays two disembodied backsides and pledges “New improved fannies.” “If your hair isn't beautiful,” declares a shampoo ad, “the rest hardly matters.” Another ad emphasizes: “Why arenonsible for all this. And wherever money is a variable, changing the dimensions in a successful equation is much too difficult. The TV model is not shaped like most women. Moreover, she never ages; she is simply replaced with a newer, younger model. Why? A recent TV commercial for Nike and Foot Locker puts it succinctly: “You've got to be young and beautiful if you want to be loved.” Although Adweek's Marketing Week reports an increased demand for “older” models (defined by the advertising industry as females in their late twenties), most professional models are considered ‘discarded’ by the time they're twenty-four.If older women manage to make it into ads at all, visible signs of age are retouched out of their photographs and images. Thanks to the digital technologies and the increasing amount of computing being involved in image production, an elephant could be photographed and reproduced as a deer. Naomi Wolf invites us to imagine a parallel-say, if all photographs of blacks in adv
Journalists throughout the world are exposing terrorism in the face of the danger. Press critic Jay Rosen states that “The logic of modern, present-day terrorism incorporates the new media…something journalists in the US and elsewhere really haven’t thought completely though” (McLachlan 2005). Journalists are ten times more likely to die than the quarter of a million American and British (Katovsky 2003:11). The Pentagon even sent an army of 2700 reporters, photographers and television/radio staff before cruise missiles attacked Baghdad on March 20, 2005. The US Central Command’s director of strategic communications, Jim Wilkinson, said that a historical event had just taken place (11). As his comments suggest, war correspondents work not only under extreme physical danger, but also face a range of political, technical, economic and military pressures.Foreign correspondents can go astray if they begin to sympathise with a country, its public and traditions. In Hodge’s opinion (1999:122) that it had a good chance of winning the war in Vietnam if the reporting had not disturbed the public’s spirit for the fight. They had new media tactics in October 1983 when they trespassed on the Caribbean island of Grenada purely to protect the public and to help in the recovery of democracy. They told journalists would not be permitted to collect news materials about this war so the whole attack took place in privacy. A few correspondents, who attempted to arrive at Grenada by motor boat, were forced to turn back when a US military plane ignited them (484). The key idea of the Grenada action –“uncovered invasion”- was perverted by administration lies, misreporting, privacy and journalistic opinion. Richard Keeble of City University in London said that “All the justifications provided by the Administration for the attack (dutifully reported in the press) were later deemed to have been spurious” (Knightley 1991:485). After the attack, David Gergen, White House communications directorm war areas. An experienced Australian reporter, Eric Campbell, said there has been numbers of conversations about maintaining honesty and independence when inserting journalists. He added that the truth is that journalists usually depend on the goodwill of whatever side the report is from. Campbell mentioned embedding was “an opportunity to see a snapshot view of a group of soldiers’ war” (McLachlan 2005). The American military had authorized more freedom for reporters than Campbell had heard of in other differences. He said ABC reporter Geoff Thomson as embedded journalists was about to report on a fire fight where American soldiers killed civilians though neglect. Campbell wrote this case did not include the kind of concession on reporting that people could suppose, “[Thomson] was able to interview the commanding officer, put that story together within the embedded unit and send it, form that unit” (McLachlan 2005).Jay Rosen, press critic, argued how the idea of embedding war corres 600 embedded reporters and 2100 unilaterals with lots of the unilaterals working for the more unrestrictive European press (14). Huge news organizations aimed to offer a balanced coverage by combining embeds with independents. Katovsky (14) watched how embedded and unilateral journalists experienced the same war in a different way: “An embed’s point of view was narrow and restricted. It depended on where the unit was camped and what it was doing.” Whereas a unilateral could “manager a broader prospective and talk to more sources, including Iraqis, but he or she often lacks the means and opportunity to get close to combat.”Early in the Iraq War, several unilateral journalists were killed by being too close to the fighting but two of the most lamentable media deaths in the US were embedded. The first was Michael Kelly, reporter for “The Washington Post” and the “Atlantic”, who died in a Humvee crash. The second was NBC’s David Bloom who died from a fatal bloodspot in his leg. It was a r94) made an analysis of the British TV news and the case for the war in Iraq. To analyse claims of bias, they contrasted the kinds of news reports against the number of stories including bibliographies that helped the government’s case for war. They found that embedded correspondents’ reports were fewer, possibly to help the government’s case for WMD. But it was more likely that correspondents based at the official military conferences in Qatar wrote reports that helping the government’s case on weapons of mass destruction. The idea that embedded reporters would merely repeat government and military statements was confirmed to be incorrect. The reports of embedded correspondents are possibly more independent than reports from military conferences, in spite of their limited view of the war (294). Lewis and Brooks (in Allan & Zelizer 2004:295) believed that embedded reporters were “notably more likely than news reports in general to portray the Iraqi people as antagonistic to or suspicio]
Compare two media systems; Australia and MalaysiaA democratic country essentially requires freedom of expression. Journalists or international correspondents are required to report and interpret accurate news, information and comments in a media society. They also are required having corrected and right opinions. The most important thing is that we offer a free press environment. Daily mass media and media companies believe that the public is openly hospitable and receptive to new ideas. Hence, I would like to compare and contrast two different media systems - one with self regulation, and the other one with a degree of direct government control over the media. This essay will analyse the pros and cons of each system of Australia and Malaysia.The business industry and labour councils consult a self regulation authority rather than submit to government regulation. The media of Australia have traditionally had free expression with various levels of regulation. This regulatory power occass the privilege of notifying the public and making the most of democracy. The basic ethics of journalism is that of respecting the facts and providing correct information to the public. For that reason, journalists have to be honestly, undoubtedly, independent and respect the rights of others (AJA Code of Ethics).Since media is always strongly linked to the government, these two groups require a lot of cooperation in order to support each other successfully. Thus self regulation is a consequence of the conflict between the industry and the system. So we need to change from the standard rules of the past in order to develop a free press and democratic society. Self regulation has both the choice and effectual means that politicians find to accomplish within regulating commercial communication. And self regulation is a stable system for useful and positive ways to supply moral and ethical media content. Besides, it can produce and distribute reliable information to support competition annd White, 1993).In contrast to Australia, Malaysia is one of the most strictly regulated countries because the control of the media society is under the government system. Former Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad, for instance, was named in the ‘Ten Enemies of the Press’ list for three years by the New York-based Committee for Protection of Journalists (Graham, 2005). The Malaysian media system is under the control of the National Front / Barisan National party which is an ethnic-based political party that has governed the country since independence.The Printing Press and Publication Act regulate the press in Malaysia with several laws. A case in point, only Malaysians may engage and work in newspaper companies. Furthermore the Minister of Home Affairs has not only the authority to delay or cancel a licence of newspaper company, but also to forbid the publication of reports and comments which arouse public sentiment or involve hostility towards national security policies. Likewise, publilaysia has a lot of sensitive issues (BBC, 1999). On the other hand, even though Australia is also a multicultural country, it uses self regulated media guidelines instead of government permits or control. Any Australian press can “claim to provide a general news service has full freedom of editorial comment” (APC, 2003). This means that journalists and correspondents in Australia are encouraged to write and report on political news with full freedom of expression. A by-product of this is that the public can expect to receive more accurate and balanced political news and reports.On the other hand, journalists and correspondents in Malaysia may be interrupted when they try to publish fair news and truthfully report on government issues. It is difficult to assert their basic claim to deliver information and maintain civil rights. A simple example happened on Christmas Day, 2001. The Sun newspaper published a cover story about a supposed plan of murder Mahathir and his then assistant, Abdlation within its media system, is far more developed than Malaysia. In my view, self regulation of the media is the best choice for a multicultural nation. This is because it improve and develops the value of democracy in the eyes of the public. In addition, freedom of the press is good because it allows journalists to report fair news and their own opinions.ReferencesAustralian Journalist Association Code of Ethic, Journalism and Media ethics,Communication Law Centre, HYPERLINK "http://www.comslaw.org.au" www.comslaw.org.au.Australian Press Council (2003) Reporting Guidelines,available form World Wide Web: HYPERLINK "http://www.presscouncil.org.au/pcsite/activities/guides/gpr15.html" http://www.presscouncil.org.au/pcsite/activities/guides/gpr15.html, on 13rdAugust 2006.Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade. (2005) The Media,available World Wide Web: HYPERLINK "http://www.dfat.gov.au/aib/media.html" http://www.dfat.gov.au/aib/media.html on 14th August 2006.Graham, B. (2005), Rough a