LEGITIMATE rape??

Todd Akin

With the amount of hatred directed towards this man, it is incredible he has not simply burst into flames,   disintegrated or been hit by a car. Alas, the universe does not work that way, no matter how LEGITIMATE it may be. 

Todd Akin, a Republican Senate nominee from Missouri, recently expressed not only a purely offensive belief and repulsive view, but utter ignorance. The politician stated that in cases of "legitimate" rape, women's reproductive organs shut down. Therefore, he believes, there is no need for abortion. Irrelevant of one's religious, political or personal stand on the issue of abortion, such ignorance towards an integral part of a women is unacceptable. Explaining himself on his belief that women do not get pregnant from rape, he said  “It seems to me, from what I understand from doctors, that’s really rare." 

Firstly, before the question of what sort of doctors this disturbing man has been talking to arises, I think the statement 'legitimate rape' should be deliberated. It is clear, in Akin's defence, that he is not inferring that rape is legitimate, however in his wording he has uncovered a serious topic. What makes a sexual assault worthy or unworthy of being called a legitimate rape?   

In Australia, over half of all females have experienced "at least one incident of physical or sexual violence." The statistics for such crimes differ country to country, however worldwide they are far too high. Rape is, quite simply, an issue of consent - there is no legitimate or illegitimate way to 'bypass' consent. Such derogatory, and frankly sexist claims only force more shame onto those who have suffered from sexual assault. A blogger addressing both her own rape and this outrageous statement summed up the anger and hurt such a proclamation can cause: "the reason the Internet is exploding over #legitimaterape right now is because every woman knows deep in her heart this feeling of shame I am writing about."

This level of ignorance is certainly not the first or last displayed in politicians, however one would think that, in the advancements of women's rights over the past century, people would think twice before trying to blame to victim. Unfortunately, this case is just the tip of the iceberg, and there still exists a derogatory attitude towards victims of rape. This sentiment echo's that of the 'provocatively dressed women' attracting rape theory passed around Australia not too long ago. It has now surfaced in Canada, with a Muslim cleric campaigning for politicians to ban women from dressing for rape. In response to a string of sexual assaults at York University, Al-Haashim Kamena Atangana wrote this to the Torronto Sun:

I wanted to mention that the reason why these sex attacks are continuously happening is because the Canadian laws, which gives too much freedom to women, are the cause of these sex attacks. It has been revealed that every 5 seconds a woman is being sexually assaulted in North America. Women in North America are falling victims of the Democratic Freedom that you they passionly believe in. The reason why a woman gets raped is because of the way she dress. Women dress so provocatively so much that they receive too much attention for themselves and that attention at times leads to death.  

It is tragic that victims of sexual assault have to endure the taunting remarks of such ignorant people, in addition to the trauma associated with an attack. While Akin has revealed to American politics, and the world, his chauvinistic and uninformed disposition, it is uplifting to see the public backlash around such a sensitive and controversial topic.     

  

Lecture 6 - Comercial Media

Talk about premonitions! Having just written about the responsibility of the media, and the controll and power they wield, the issues raised and discussed at the week 6 lecture could not have come at a better time.

This weeks lecture was the first of a two part series. Commercial media this week, public media next. The description of the type of media really sums it up - it is COMMERCIAL. Profit driven, commercial media is less about the journalists and content than it is about advertising and making the big bucks. Just as the advertising web model of 1.0 has died out, Bruce hinted at the eventual decline of commercial media for the very same reason - people are sick of ads!

The most important issue raised, I believe, was the control certain major players have over what news the public is exposed to. With huge companies such as News Limited and Fairfax owning what seems like the entire media of Australia between them, what hope is their for unbiased reporting? This has been brought to light with the recent attempt by Gina Rinehart to control the board of Fairfax News.


However, after my last lets-slam-the-media post, I feel the fundamentals of commercial media, the majority of media that the public is exposed to, need to be considered. While propaganda and bias is a serious threat with the monopoly of media in Australia, and the world, under the current system commercial media is advertising based and therefore needs to attract the public to be viable for the advertising companies.

This weeks reading, Margaret Simons' The Content Makers, illustrated the inner workings of such commercial television stations as channel seven and nine. There is immense competition between channels for view ratings. Both channels have directors and teams which analyse ratings, and can therefore work out exactly which stories rate, which stories people change channels on and even which channel they turn to afterwards! With all this technology, there is no doubt that what is shown on stations such as these is very much dictated by the public. It is, therefore, what the public wants to see; but is what is shown on television stations entirely in the public interest? One look at the type of coverage political, environmental , foreign affair and business issues in comparison to the trivial feel-good stories tells us otherwise.


 


So, is it the public or the media monopolies dictating what content is publish, and in what manner issues are reported?  

Afgan Girl

Everyone knows this picture, right?



This is an interesting case of a photo encapsulating an entire event, an entire part of history. For 17 year the woman was unknown, an enigma of an entire war. National Geographic has found this young girl, now a woman, and has published a very interesting article about the 'Afgan Girl' whose sea green eyes "are haunted and haunting, and in them you can read the tragedy of a land drained by war." Read about it here.

I know it has been said far too many times before, but a photo really is worth a thousand words!

Responsibility of the media

The media is, arguably, one of the most influential forces in today's society. Media and advertising (which have traditionally gone hand in hand) both dictates and follows pop culture. I have always been aware of the responsibility of journalists to report the truth, however after reading the non-fiction work Blink I am even more so. Malcolm Gladwell is a New York city journalism and writer who has written extensively on the subject of 'new media'. He authored The Tipping Point, which was the first work to address the modern concept of sharing information instantly online - basically how and why a video can get 100 million views in a week. His latest book Blink addresses first impression. Snap judgments, or what Gladwell refers to as 'thin slicing'.

It is a very interesting book and well worth the read, however one specific chapter really struck home and seemed particularly relevant to my course. Gladwell writes about the theory of priming. In one experiment, students were asked to solve a linguistics problem. Within one of the problematic piece of text, subtle descriptive words were scattered such as 'Florida', 'grey', 'wrinkled' and 'lonely'. Students who completed this test, as opposed to other control tests, walked out of the room slower than when they entered. Psychologists have realised that the unconscious dictates behaviour in accordance with associated words, concepts and feelings. In other words - these students didn't realise they were behaving 'old', their unconscious dictated them to.  

This is certainly interesting, but the concept of subliminal messages is somewhat outdated. However, this has unimaginable consequences when applied to the media. In another experiment with American students - half African-American students, half Caucasian-American students - psychologists presented all students with the same test, but told half of each the African-American and Caucasian-American students to imagine they were black, disadvantaged youths beforehand, and the rest that they were upper-class white professors. Through simply thinking of these stereotypes, the differences in both test groups were striking. The 'professors' got 55.6% of the questions right, in stark comparison to the 42.6% of the 'underprivileged black youths'. Of course, the students, as a whole, were equal in their intelligence and ability - the only difference was the associations their unconscious formed with the stereotypes.

Sure, positive think can make a student perform better at a test, that believable and hasn't got too much to do with the media, right? Stereotypes, however, are largely at play here - and the way in which stereotypes are maintained and spread is almost solely through widespread media. Finally, in a last experiment, the unconscious association of the mind were further tested in relation to race and sex. Words such as kitchen, corporation, home, capitalist, were listed and subjects were asked to assign them to one of two columns, one labelled 'Male or Career', the other 'Female or Family'. The second time round, subjects were asked to assign the exact same list of words to two columns, however this time the columns were either 'Male or Family' or 'Female and Career'. The second time, participants took far longer to assign the words to their respective column. This is due to the mental associations we all have with male and career, and female and family. This same test, called an IAT, was reproduced to reflect the unconscious associations we have with race and certain attributes. The author, Gladwell, who is and African-American, writes that he did not believe that he harboured any negative feelings towards his own race. However, after taking a race IAT, the results showed that he took longer when associating positive attributes with the 'black' column than with the 'white' column.

These finding are beyond scary. The though that you and I are 'conditioned' to associate certain attributed to particular members of society unconsciously is devastating to those fighting not only for equality, but against damaging stereotypes. This also highlights the impact of the media in 'conditioning' the public - not purposefully (it is not a conspiracy!) but through the choice of which stories to print, and how they portray minorities in the press. Certainly gives us all something to think about!




**This is an interesting interview with the author: http://www.gladwell.com/blink/index.html

Weather is more than just small talk!

After the last lecture on picture stories, I thought I might just post a few incredible National Geographic photos. Of course I wish I had taken them, but no. So, here they are:

It is such a skill to photograph something so devastating as weather and natural disasters, with such beauty and respect. These photos are beautiful in themselves and do not result to sensationalising the issue as is done far too often in mainstream media. The images not only respect the event and the damage done, but still manage to maintain a human element within the composition. I am in awe of anyone who can do this!

Photos from: http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2012/09/extreme-weather/extreme-weather-photography?source=photomaindl#/14-hillside-reservoir-before-after-670.jpg

Lecture 5 - A picture is worth a thousand words.

Getting back into the swing of things again, Bruce spoke this week about picture stories. Having been afforded the luxury of a portable lecture last week, I apparently forgot how much of a rush it is to get to the other side of uni in under ten minutes; I was quite late! However, I instantly knew we were discussing photos and images because of the photos on the slideshow.

It is this universal recognition and reaction to pictures which makes them so powerful. The first thing most people do when faced with a beautiful sight, a family reunion, a travel destination, is to remove a camera from wherever and take a few happy snaps. How can you describe the absolute beauty of a sunset over a temple on the east coast of Bali better than a photograph? Not to mention the many connotations associated with such a scene - one could not describe every persons feelings towards a place, however a photo will allow a viewer to establish their own feelings (although this can be cleverly manipulated with clever photography).

Bruce mentioned cave drawings and primitive illustrations, how as humans we are instinctively drawn to, well drawing and visually recording life. These prehistoric illustrations communicate to us modern day humans as no other form of 'media' would or could.

Fast forward many many years, and we come to the internet. The first photo on the web - what could it be? It was 1992, so perhaps Boris Yeltsin, the Barcelona Olympics, the Berlin Wall or the aftermath of Tiananmen Square? Nope, it was this:

First image on the internet

What about the first video? Surely it was a cat. Wrong again! Representative of the old 1.0, information based web, the first ever video on youtube was a boring, informative piece to camera about an elephant. Personally, I think it is a bit of a let down. Not that I like the cat videos or anything!

Despite the slightly disappointing initial contributions to online photos and videos, the concept has revolutionised the field of journalism. Combined with the increasing accessibility of cameras (my current phone takes a better picture than my first camera), recording and reporting news has never been easier. This also presents a whole new world of citizen journalists. Which is an issue for another day - I am undecided on that one!

So, all in all, what actually makes a good photo, in stark comparison to the 100 billion selfies on facebook?

"If it makes you laugh, if it makes you cry, if it rips out your heart, it's a good picture."
                                                                         Eddie Adams, Pulitzer Prize-wining photojournalist.

Right to Information.

After a series of disasters this morning, I finally made it into uni for yet another one-class-Thursday. I swear the only thing with more difficulties than sinet timetables is government bureaucracy! As we all sat blank faced, no one seemed to want to answer the question posed by Neal Waddell: Was what Julian Assange did wrong?

"There is no right or wrong answer guys!" Neal encouraged us.

Although I'm sure part of the cause of silence was the general student follow-the-pack routine of not answering, it is in large a complicated situation which is difficult to provide a yes or no answer to. Should the public know about the actions of the government? Absolutely! The government, for the public's sake, should aspire to be as transparent as possible. However, this is where a black and white issue becomes somewhat grey and hazy - what information is in the public interest, and what information would only cause harm to nations and individuals? Furthermore, who should decide the nature of such information, as surely the government has a biased agenda. A few questions to ponder. 

To be honest, I don't think their is an outright answer to these questions, and the media has and will continue to evolve in relation to government trends, policies and workings. However, the media's attack on, essentially, itself has been interesting to follow. As has the Australian government's reaction and lack of consulate help afforded to Assange. This cartoon sums up the odd reaction of the media to the wikileaks 'scandal'.   

    

The thing that jumps out at me about the way in which the Australian media has treated this case - by disowning an Australian citizen in support of the U.S government's right to 'have secrets' - is the relationship between government and media. I would have assumed that in a country where the press is universally considered as the Fourth Estate, the media would present a less biased view. Instead, the mainstream consensus presented in the media seems to be that of the government - to keep relations with the U.S as positive as possible. This case is simply another demonstration of the power of not only the media, but the power in controlling the media. 

Scary stuff!

Media Use Diary

As internet access expands in the form of new technologies, media consumption patterns are becoming more varied and individual. This ten day media use diary shows just how reliant my media consumption is on technology, with 68% of all media being consumed and produced on either my laptop or phone (Figure 1). Surprisingly enough, my smart phone provides the largest access to media (See Figure 1). Interestingly, over 20% (Figure 2) of the JOUR1111 cohort do not own a smart phone, demonstrating the vast differences in potential relationships with media consumption. 

Figure 1

Figure 2

To my generation media consumption, in particular the news, is no longer a conscious habit as it is to my father, who reads the paper, watches the morning and evening news and checks his emails daily and like clockwork. As a uni student, my day to day schedule is vastly varied and as a result, just as no two days of my week are identical, my documented media usage is surprisingly erratic in some regards. Radio, for example, was never something I thought I listened to, however through being forced to consider all of my media consumption it became clear that a vast portion of my media consumption was listening to the radio while driving. In fact, my one conscious habit of watching thirty minutes of the morning news over breakfast was outdone by radio (See Table). Therefore, in particular with the portability of media exemplified in my usage of smart phones (Figure 1), my media consumption relies heavily on the type of day. As seen below in Figure 3, reading the newspaper is a luxury afforded on lazy days, whereas news apps are heavily utilized on rushed days and while catching the bus.

Figure 3

Despite my lack of daily routine, this log has displayed certain habits of mine which I was previously unaware of. If asked prior to starting the media use diary what I spent most of my time on the internet doing, the reply would have most likely been “apart from uni work, you know just surfing – websites, videos, blog posts.” Upon scrutinising the results of this log I was quite shocked to discover this was about as far from the truth as possible. It seems as soon as I open my laptop, I unconsciously direct myself to similar, self-tailored and familiar sites. Take the blog posts for example, not only were most posts I read similar in viewpoint and subject, but they were all from limited authors – the bloggers I had subscribed to. Same with youtube, instead of casually browsing youtube, I again automatically narrowed my exposure to different content by only viewing videos in my subscription feed. News, which should be fair, hard-hitting and non-biased (right?!) was viewed mostly from the same few websites, spewing out similar viewpoints and content. In fact, out of all logged internet usage, only 7.9% was spent ‘surfing’ (Figure 4). 

Figure 4

  

This figure is apparently consistent with the JOUR1111 cohort, of which only 15 listed general surfing and browsing as their activity most done online, demonstrating the concept that technology and the 3.0 web interface is personalising not only the internet, but people’s media consumption. The way my browser is designed makes this so simple to do. I log onto my computer and Google Chrome instantly pops up. With that comes a homepage full of the websites I frequent the most. Within those websites, most contain ‘subscriptions’ or feeds, all of which I can pick and choose what I view, and even what appears. Especially in the consumption of news and opinion, this can be critical in the way it can ‘blinker’ people’s logic, beliefs and judgements.

Facebook is a significant influence in today’s world, and it is where I feel I differ most from the trend of the cohort. With 43% of the cohort spending most of their time online on facebook, my facebook usage is comparatively diminutive (Figure 5). Out of all internet usage, only 8% is spent on facebook, making it one of my lowest ranking frequented sites (Figure 6). The reason for this is my attitude towards news.

Figure 5

Figure 6

While over 61% of JOUR1111 students use facebook to check the news, my use of facebook rarely exceeds chatting and sending messages, checking photos and events and to keep in touch with friends overseas (Figure 7). On the other hand, I am among the 78.2% of students utilizing online "newspapers" - and it is no surprise why (Figure 7). As a journalism student, I value news. However as a busy student I also value my time, and as a result have adapted my need for news to fit into my busy schedule. As mentioned before, my smart phone is heavily used (Figure 1) and reliant on the activities of the day. It is, therefore no surprise that I receive the most news from my phone (Figure 8). This represents the adaptability of news media, in that while print media in the traditional form of newspapers is, arguably, a dying industry, the practice of journalism and people's need to stay connected to their world through news is just the opposite. While some may lament the fall of the traditional newspaper, if not for online content and resourceful news apps, I would receive much less news than the 16.6 hours I did consume over the ten day period.     

Figure 7

Figure 8

Finally, the survey results show that the average JOUR1111 student spends 3-4 hours online, every single day. I answered 3-4 hours, putting me right in the average category. However, upon reviewing my results, it appears I considerably underestimated the significance of the internet in my day to day life. In total, I used the internet for a total of 2642 minutes across the ten days. My actual media usage for all categories exceeded my expectations in the number of minutes I spent consuming media a day. I consumed a massive 7161 minutes of media throughout the log - or nearly 12 hours a day! Upon double and triple checking these outrageous results, I realised that a persistent pattern of media usage explained all. I watch TV, I check my emails or messages on my phone, I look up information for my next lecture and I glance over a textbook - all at once! This 12 hours a day is not singular media usage, most consumption occurs in conjunction with one, two or even three other media activities.

Media is an inescapable part of modern life. The media we consume is always part of a larger picture, whether that be interests, society or issues of access. As technologies advance, the personal experience becomes ever more relevant. As my media use diary has shown, media use is heavily reliant on the activities of any given day. This assignment has confirmed some ideas already held, and challenged some views toward the way I consume media. In all regards, media is most definitely an important part of everyday life. 

Lecture 4 - Interviews

This weeks lecture was a nice, relaxing change.  With a lot of Uni work being from a textbook or lecturer, it is invaluable to hear a different perspective. I am feeling a little bit spoilt with all the guest lecturers within my program!

Listening to the 40 minute interview with abc radio journalists Richard Fidler and Steve Austin fittingly exemplified the power of the spoken word. Both journalists were passionate about radio and human experience, however they also shared some universal tips for engaging, thoughtful and interesting interviews. Being passionate about writing and interested in print media, radio was not a form of journalism I thought of as particularly relevant. B-grade celebrities on FM, conservative old men on AM - radio is to me noise in the car. Titbits of terrible music, corny ads and flashes of news "enjoyed" while driving, with the alternative being silence. In other words I considered radio's biggest competition to be silence.

However, as Steve Austin pointed out, good radio explores "the full gamut of human experience." This advise is relevant not only to radio, but to all forms of journalism. The platform of print media is drastically and rapidly changing, presenting new opportunities at every turn. As newspapers become blogs and online content, the ability to combine other, historically separate, forms of media increases. This is an exciting thought and opens the doors to a host of new media interactions.
    

Both interviewers-come-interviewees stressed the importance of understanding one's audience, and keeping the viewers/ listeners/ readers in mind at all times. This concept seems to be a common theme across all my subjects. As both men emphasised: an open, inquiring mind is invaluable, however knowledge is just as important - read, read, read!

Lecture 3 - Good old fashioned writing

A pen and paper is all you need! This week guest lecturer Skye Doherty presented a wonderful lecture on the written word. Having come from a print industry background, she shed a lot of light on the medium of text. I happen to love pen and paper. In fact I, rather regretfully, reckon I am probably responsible for the destruction of at least one entire forest with my shocking paper habit. It's just that, well I love the act of writing. I love the feel of a smooth pen on crisp, fresh paper. I love the look of my decade worth of perfected cursive. I love the many scribbles and crosses on a well worked prose. In fact, before publishing every blog post I copy it from my book - where I have already written it. 

This love of literal penmanship was not what Skye's enlightening lecture was on - however I feel that it is somewhat metaphorical of journalism. Skye mentioned that, unlike other forms of journalism - such as visual or audio - text does not need technology, expenses or equipment to produce - a pen and paper is all you need.

All too often technology consumes us. It overwhelms us, engulfs our natural talents and creativity (evidenced in facebook and instagram - photos of food? Really?!). Convergent journalism is the future - social media hyper localisation and citizens as journalists. Good writing however, will always be in demand. Above all, skilfully created, well thought-out and interesting writing will always triumph the lazy, quick and uninformative prose found far too commonly throughout the ever expanding web. It seems many internet publishers have yet to grasp the concept of less is more. While the literally limitless internet provides boundless opportunities for more in-depth analysis and discussion, this is no reason to fill the space 'just because', so to say. In short, although the manual word-length constraints typical of print media no longer exist, the need for well crafted, concise journalism has not simply disappeared. it may, in fact, have become even ore important within an ever increasingly instant society. Where information is instant, and as it becomes even more so, readers willingness to read large portion of text to receive limited information will surely decline.

This is where the inverted triangle comes into play. It's one of those theories that hits you over the head with its simplicity and effectiveness. As the diagram dictates, the most important information is put up the top of an article, graduating through to the least important information at the end. This makes perfect sense, but it is sometimes necessary to be reminded of these 'common sense' rules. As Skye mentioned - how many people actually read all the way to the end of an article? 

Skye's passion for the written word was inspiring. As I plan to pursue a similar career, this lecture was fantastic! She articulated the form of text as a living thing - able to be controlled and manipulated, unlike any other form of journalism. Both visual and audio media has certain limitations - there is an extent to which you can edit and manipulate, however text has no boundaries. Text is expressive, creative and fast!