Is the fake news the real news?!

The public sphere can be broken down into two sections, one being media coordinators putting out information that we as the viewers see as the truth and two the people under the leaders that have debates and share their opinions on this information.

This ties into the idea of the media’s consistent culture jamming which is described as being “the objectives …often include consciousness raising (raising awareness of social and political issues) as well as using the media to criticise the media and dominant culture” (214). The media uses what the news tells us and sheds it in all different lights, this is what you see in talk shows like Saturday Night Live for example. Their skits consist of parodies and jokes of a lot of quite serious topics and usually spin off and show their own opinion on it.

So would it be legitimate to suggest that satirical news reporting is a mainsteam form of culturing jamming? Yes it is, it presents the news in a “fake” light to bring the people of this generation the news they want to listen to. Culture jamming certain news topics in the media is a good way to make it less depressing as well and that’s why people stay tuned in, which in turn makes it a useful addition to the public sphere.

On the other side, sometimes these methods are seen as harmful and people do not tune into shows like The Rick Mercer Report because they see this news as rude or insensitive. This is because these news reports are shed in a softer light and sometimes that can be taken as they are not being taken seriously. In chapter 14 it states, “There can be serious legal implications” (224) meaning that when these shows exploit whichever news topic they are trying to put across they can sometimes come off as racist, etc so the culture jamming can also be a negative addition in some ways than others.

References

O’Shaughnessy, M., & Stadler, J. (2012). Media and Society, (5th ed.). Australia & New Zealand: Oxford University Press.