1F25: Is the fake news the real news?!

 Is the fake news the real news?!

In the text “Media and Society” it defines Culture jamming as a form of media activism that subverts and reworks the intended meaning of existing media texts, or parodies major corporations, public figures and their media images. In the media there are different ways the media is dished out to society. In society people have different interpretations of the news and find different sources to retain information. In today’s society we have so many different ways to have access to information at any time. With our phones, tablets and laptops, we can simply search for anything that pertains to an interest and information the people want and need to know.

“The use of conventional and new media technologies for media activism and counter-hegemonic purposes, and it has discussed issues related to copyright law and the use of humour that arise in culture jamming (pg.226)”. In my opinion the media is able to reach their audience with drawing them in and the best way to do that is with humour. In many of the talk shows they touch on information that is news worthy, but instead of making it all info they had fun into to keep the audience watching. For example “The Dr. Oz Show”, in this show they talk about the importance of healthy eating, obesity and information that is news worthy. Instead of the show being all information for an hour, they display the info about having a healthy body through demonstrations, examples and games to win the prizes that the show is offering. In doing so, the show educates the people about eating healthy and instead of watching the news reports that are boring, they are retaining the same info and enjoying the show at the same time.

The mainstream media uses its ability to reach more people in a shorter time frame. “Email and other forms of computer mediated communication (CMC) have been celebrated as being both democratic and empowering mediums of mass communication because they enable individuals and smaller groups to get their message out to larger numbers of people without having to contend with restrictive policies and regulations or prohibitively expensive equipment and production costs (pg.216)”. Because our technology now a days works so well and is so powerful it could send out messages to people in society about upcoming events or important facts, instead of having to wait for the six o’clock news. The people have access to getting their news on the fly from all different sources such as twitter, Facebook, news app that could downloaded of all devices and so many different sources the people could gain access to.  

In the media it is a fact that stories always gets twisted around, and in fact what we think is the truth is most likely the opposite with bits and pieces of the truth. I think that this information is useful to the public sphere because it lets people have their own opinion on what they believe to be true and news worthy and what they believe not to be. Everyone loves a good story, for example Rob Ford. The allegations are true but people twist the story and take pictures, add captions to make more appealing to society. Mainstream media gives out news but instead of it being boring, they add a little fun to it.