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Essay Subject: A review of the book MEDIA MESSAGES AND MEN which deals with the ethical ...... More...

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Paper Abstract: A review of the book MEDIA, MESSAGES, AND MEN, which deals with the ethical aspects of mass-media communications and the implications of mass media for the culture. Paper Introduction: The Purpose of Media Messages and Men The introduction of Media Messages and Men New Perspectives inCommunication makes clear that the text is not intended to replicate themission of typical college-level journalism textbooks which is to instructaspiring journalists in the techniques of reportage and the editorialprocess Rather their avowed purpose is to discuss principles of thediscourse of media and raise what come down to the ethical and moralimplications of the uses to which mass media are put It unpacks thefinished product of Text of the Paper: The entire text of the paper is shown below. However, the text is somewhat scrambled. We want to give you as much information as we possibly can about our papers and essays, but we cannot give them away for free. In the text below you will find that while disordered, many of the phrases are essentially intact. From this text you will be able to get a solid sense of the writing style, the concepts addressed, and the sources used in the research paper. Rather, their avowed purpose is to discuss principles of thediscourse of media and raise what come down to the ethical and moralimplications of the uses to which mass media are put. An example of that would be thebe-first ethos of the breaking story, even if what is reported is rumor andnot fact. Inthat connection, the authors comment that headlines are so often "twisted,biased, distorted, and otherwise rigged, that one is led to believe thatheadlines bear about as much resemblance to their stories as the storiesbear to the reality they purport to report" (197). The critique of mass media as the source of too much information that cannot be absorbed by any sane person and that threatens to overwhelm the ability to live a coherent life might have been made, not just in 1971, when the book was originally published, but last week, when the blogmeisters were weighing in on the Election of 2 8. Film at eleven." The actualstory, of course, could be about anything from the necessity of washinghands after potty-time to an epidemic of spinal meningitis; the principleof previewability remains. Again, the instruction, whetherexpress or implied, is one that demands media-savvy from the consumer ofmedia product, who is meant to be alert to discern the wheat from the chaffin order to be ready to enact the duties of good citizenship and socialcohesion. The idea of what supports mass media enters into the authors' analysisof the shape that media products take. Yet in another sense, there is about the book a double effect. They sound a note ofalarm in the influence of mass media that are all out of proportion totheir relatively small size, in terms of numbers of practitioners. A related example isthe very well-made and world-historical film Triumph of the Will,manifestly having the 1936 Berlin Olympic Games as its subject but in factbeing a latent paean to the Reich as irresistible force and immovableobject. The Purpose of Media, Messages, and Men The introduction of Media, Messages, and Men: New Perspectives inCommunication makes clear that the text is not intended to replicate themission of typical college-level journalism textbooks, which is to instructaspiring journalists in the techniques of reportage and the editorialprocess. If these points are the principal thrust of the authors' argument, then the text does achieve its goals. Indeed,in the first chapter, one of the major themes is that the culture is beinginundated and bombarded with too much information, most of which cannot beabsorbed and much of which cannot be seriously or thoughtfully analyzedprecisely because there is too much to keep up with. Referring chiefly to magazines,journals, and newspapers, they cite single sales, subscriptions,advertising, and subsidy, with advertising from the private sectorconstituting one major aspect and government subsidies, in the form ofpolitical ads, the other (175). In constructing the text of Media, Messages, and Men: New Perspectivesin Communication, Merrill and Lowenstein, who at the time of writing wereprofessors of communication and journalism at the University of Missouri,Columbia (a noted journalism school), more or less alternate chapters tobuild their critique of the extraordinary power of the mass media--for themtelevision, radio, magazines, books, and newspapers--to have an impact onthe perceptions and behavior of the American people. For if as of pre-Internet, pre-cable 1971 the plethora of books, TV shows, movies, and magazines put everyone on information overload, what can be said of media in the Information Age--from the 24- hour news cycle to such extraordinary phenomena as MySpace.com? A further pointemerges over the course of the text, which is that because somedissemination of information emanates from sources that are unreliable,either because of bad faith or mere incompetence, not all media are equallytrustworthy. They worry the most aboutmass media for the masses; for example, they distinguish between what theyevidently see as worthy and thoughtful books and "cheap books" (14), thelast named evidently suitable only for the masses, which are indirectlycharacterized as opaque to the joys of seriously expensive books. The synthesisof the dialectic seems to be at work between the two extremes of advocacyin the case of responsible organization. There are, of course, more pernicious examples from historical fact:One is reminded of the famous Nazi film The Eternal Jew, which proclaims anattitude and agenda that seek to dehumanize one particular group of humanbeings and inflame the hateful passions of another. For the present, the 1971 edition holds interest as something of a historical curiosity. One would hope that a revised edition of this text would help make sense of what changes like that mean. But precisely by reason of the content of the critique, the book has a certain antique quality. It unpacks thefinished product of the media-generation effort and seeks to supply ameasure of media savvy to the student and consumer of media artifacts. A hypothetical exampleof that might be a headline on the cover of the National Globe thatbreathlessly touts (for example), "Oprah's Secret Torment," and it turnsout that (let us say) the story inside reports on the time (if it everhappened) that Oprah's butler lost her lucky socks in the laundry. Work CitedMerrill, John Calhoun, and Ralph Lynn Lowenstein. That informs the authors' concept of "previewability,"the name that they give to enabling a media audience "to know what theywill find inside the total message presentation" (22). The challenge to recipients of communications, as Lowenstein andMerrill characterize instances of media product, would be the ability todispassionately decode the latent content of a report, whether as aninstance of total invention on one hand or errant race hatred on the other. The synthesis makes for unendingscrutiny of responsible media production. A whole range of examples could be marshaled to illustrate theethical/moral argument of the text, but that would detract from its largerpurpose, which is to foster a sense of awareness about the manifest andlatent purposes of media as artifacts of culture. Advertising is particularly powerful(political ads, while ubiquitous in a way, are--thank goodness--seasonal).The impact of advertising is difficult to overstate, they explain, chieflybecause of "its concentrated power" (27). The same is often true of the linkage between editorialcontent and what could be called the "sell copy" of that very content. Anotherexample might be a short TV spot that has the local newscaster saying,"Your child at risk of disease in preschool? These twoextremes constitute an ethical dialectic, which means that media sourcestend toward ultra scrupulous and perhaps boring presentations or toward thefilm-at-eleven hyperbole in an anything-goes ethos (251ff). That idea forms a part of the critique of pornography, although it canbe argued that with pornography one is frequently in a position to previewthe contents--if only because of a known quantity like a magazine title(Hustler) or a movie lasting eight instead of 12 minutes titled Swingin'in the Rain--and can choose to take or leave the sheets between the covers.Where propaganda is concerned, on the other hand, there is frequently alatent attempt to tantalize, obfuscate, or conceal meaning and intent bythe use of words meant to valorize or build trust in the source or sponsorof the information. Media, Messages, and Men: New Perspectives in Communication. In other words, the book can be read as prescient, a cautionary tale. New York: David McKay Co., 1971. The response of media organizations themselves, say the authors, is totend toward legalism on one hand, and antinomianism on the other. The information explosion has enabled more people at more levels of good and bad faith and at more levels of quality to hold forth at greater extent for more self-serving needs and to (possibly) less purpose than at any time in history. In a sense, seeing is not believing for all too many mass-media presentations. If this paper is not what you are looking for, you can search again: Search for: or Click here to request an essay written just for you.

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