John made a good point about how staged images are becoming synonymous to their real-life, in-the-moment counterparts. Setting aside the entire issue of old versus new media, stagnant circulations, decreasing viewerships, and everything else that's plaguing print and tv journalism, we have to come to realize that a lot of what we take for granted in terms of "multimedia literacy," as it were, is easily recognizable to our experienced and educated minds as (as John put it), "cheap entertainment [...] to garner interest."
But for the average Joe, a scene from 24 could very well represent what real life means to him: chaotic, staged--to his disadvantage, and all-together surrealistic. (I personally have no idea what the average Joe would think about 24 though.)
Having said that, I would like to question whether volleying criticism at, say, FOX, is in our place. Being aware of what some of us might perceive as irresponsible journalism (or general image presentation) is all well and good, but if we were to impose our own interpretations of what is or isn't realistic onto someone else is, I would dare to argue in the extreme, a blatant violation of First Amendment rights. I'm not proposing that criticizing a broadcaster equates to violating Constitutional rights, but I am suggesting that if criticism were taken to the next level and evolved into a means to make available only certain types of images at certain times, we would have in our hands a very, very dangerous entity--be it the government, a corporation, or a news broadcaster.
I place hope in the invisible hand. I have enough confidence to say that the forces between profit-driven media will be checked by public welfare-conscious news providers (i.e. The Christian Science Monitor, The Guardian, and The Associated Press, just to name a few). It seems only natural that such a dichotomy exists in our world of divisiveness, especially since the media is really getting shafted by the rapidly changing technology it faces. Maybe someday someone will start a revival of photojournalism and replace images of, say, 24, with real-life images at least.
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I'm very glad that you are commenting on John's post about Fox/24 -- part of the point of the blog is precisely to provoke communication among class members! I think there is a significant difference between analysis and critique and the type of 1st Amendment violation or censorship you are worried about. I would argue -- in fact this entire class and program is predicated on the argument -- that it is *imperative* for us to be able to intelligently, convincingly critique the the materials presented to us in news media, entertainment, advertising, etc. It's interesting that the same book is being used in both of your classes -- I will be interested to hear if it is being used/discussed differently in the two contexts.
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