Saturday, April 13, 2013

post 4



In our day and age today there are many ways t obtains information and this information is obtained through the internet. The internet is now a new way for us as people to gain different perspectives in the information that we process to day. Mainstream media sources tend to have some form of an agenda that can lead to certain bias in topic or stories that are on the air. In an alternative media they can pick and choose what topic can air because of the fact that they have the power to. They can air topics or stories that mainstream media outlets normally do not air because of either the topic has some connection to their sponsors or that the organizations themselves do not deem the topic worthy or mentioning it on air.
                An alternative news outlet that I had found that was as good as other mainstream media was BBC news. BBC news is a publicly funded news organization that gives the news to the public on a daily basis. As a publicly funded news organization the company has control over what they want to say or do on the air because there are no corporations that are telling them what to do. However since it is funded by the people they have a voice of what is on the air that they want to see.  Since BBC news is a section of the organization of BBC it does in a way tell them that there are some limitations but the organization itself is not hiding any stories from people.
                In the article Catherine Saalfield says that “I teach kids how media works and powerful it can be and how they can use it for their own ends”. (Saalfield 67) In a way this applies to the success of BBC news because of the fact that the organization has gained a reputation as a news organization for the way that they display the news. BBC news shows the news from a global perspective rather than that of a domestic one like here in the United States.  It is through the fact that they display that global perspective that they are respected because there really isn’t a form of bias that comes to it when you’re showing it from the perspective of the world.  According to Bell hooks “Strong texts work along the borders of our minds and alter what exist. They could not do this if they merely reflect what already exist”. (Hooks pg2)  In my opinion what hooks was trying to let the reader know that the news is suppose to tell you what happens and not sensationalizing it to paint it into a different light.
                In conclusion, in our day an age today the media is shown to have certain perspective on stories. These stories can be shown to have a bias in the mainstream news organizations like Fox and NBC but alternative news organizations like BBC news show a global perspective that shows stories that happen around the world. Alternative news outlets like BBC just show the news from the perspective from their own opinion.  Publicly funded outlets has its advantages like BBC because of the fact that the people have a say in what is on the air and there is not pressure from corporate sponsors.                

No comments:

Post a Comment