/Turn Rant On: Does mass media have any obligatio…

/Turn Rant On:

Does mass media have any obligation to the general public regardless of where their funds come from?

Could we ever really expect an unbiased view in any reporting?

I always say there’s three sides to every story: My version, your version and what really happened.

The only true way to report anything (in my opinion) is to allow every side to have an equal voice (at all times) and let the readers decide the facts for themselves. To make it fair, i suppose all sides would have to pay some sort of fee that would allow each “side” to have a voice… that would get rid of the question of financial backing giving the right to filter the news.. or would it?

Guess i still need some time to mull this over. In a way, [grrr devil’s advocate!] i believe that the reason these financial backers and governments support mass media is exactly to further along their agendas. If they pay for it, what makes it wrong? If i paid for adspace to sell fur, shouldnt i have the right to do so behyond any other “side’s” opinion of fur? But then, perhaps by not professing my agenda as “unbiased news” is what makes the difference.

I do have to say that I agree with Elly on her comment that they should at least have the guts to admit that the information is skewed to their benefit…would allow readers to read it with the proverbial grain of salt. At least we would know that its “their” facts…

Fork in the Road Lately, ive been thinking about …

Fork in the Road

Lately, ive been thinking about self-sabotage. What is it that drives us (subconsciously) to screw things up when things are going well? I have been victim of this mentality on more then one occasion, and have seen it around me as well. Is it that it is really easier to fail then to succeed? Where does the comfort lie in short changing ourselves the good things (even if it means having to work a little harder?) Or is it simply a question of the fear of changing the way things are? (whether it is good or bad perhaps is actually irrelevant?) Either way, there has to be a reason why so many people chose the wrong path when things are going well…i just dont know what it is at the moment.

If only we lived on paper…as a document that did…

If only we lived on paper…as a document that did not eat, need clothing or get sick (and require medicine..) or any other unexpected happening that costs money…

(warning: this post contains personal information!)

I check out my student loan information, as i do with obsessive regularity, and realize that the government has revoked some of my bursary they had awarded me towards my studies. I cannot understand this since i have not received the maximum benefits for a person in my ‘category’. I call the AFE to find out that i made too much (HAHAHAHHA) money last fiscal year and they had to deduct the difference…after doing all the calculations of bills i pay out, and add the loans & bursaries – recalculated- awarded with the income i made working, it seems that $47.39 a week is sufficient for a family of three for groceries, clothes and other personal necessities… hmm.. wonder if the government officials who made that decision would like to try it for a few weeks…

Needless to say, i am fuming…with the end of my degree sickingly in sight, i am faced with yet another potential ulcer to get this straightened out. The AFE does have an “Exceptional Case Application” that you can fill out and apply for at least the money they took away..a (very) detailed budget and about 10 letters to explain why you find yourself in a situation that may jeopordize the completion of your degree, in other words, beg and we’ll think about it…

Back in the 1800’s-ish, when university was offered to the upper class elite and their children, the idea was that education was a privelege…these days, students and other groups are fighting to make it a right.. theoretically, we have made leaps and bounds of progress to allow the not so priveleged (sp?) to get an education with government assistance, although i understand the idea that education should be a right, i feel the government still sees it as a privelege…the last time i called the AFE to straighten out financial details, the voice on the other end told me that if i couldnt afford to go to university, i had no right to expect the government to pay for me..to be fair, the woman today was much nicer, but i still get a twinge of frustration at the entire system.

So to bring the conversation up to speed, a few th…

So to bring the conversation up to speed, a few things that i have been mulling around in my head the last few days…

Noam Chomsky – Been looking at this [amazing] man in two of my classes (media, technology & culture as well as EthnoLinguistics), but i ask myself a few questions (always a devils advocate – when elly is not here that is..) He criticizes elite powers serving their own needs, but i cannot help but think that he is an intellectual elite .. putting him up there on the same scale as those he criticizes. Dont get me wrong, i agree with the majority of his ideas strongly, but i just cant help thinking about a book i read last semester for my Industrialization class called “Nickel and Dimed: On (not) Getting by in America” by Barbara Ehrenreich. The majority of the american population fall on the wrong side of th poverty rate and dont have time to start a revolution (or the energy for that matter) .. anyways, its just been making me think about the luxury of education – sadly, the people who really need to hear Chomsky’s messages dont have the time to hear it.

A somewhat related commentary, cross-disciplined theorists and their interpreters. Reading the Chomsky in a Political Science class, his ideals of mass mediated thought control and propaganda generated by the elite to line their pockets while keeping the masses pacifed and how society should look towards rising above it sounds a tad familiar…. Marx, Stuart Hall, or any other concept of ideology in a capitalist state? But when the commonalities were pointed out, our professor was hasty to deny the similarities. Why?

At this point in my education, everything seems to be interconnected.. seems to me there are only 5 core ideas out there that have been expanded on, disected, altered and reiterated in different terms..Steven Seidman touts the end of sociological theory – there is no universal (and useful) theory in sociological theory that covers every society in every corner of the world, but it sure seems to ring true in democratized society, no matter the discipline, at least to this gal!