Thursday, December 10, 2009
Too Much Media?
For my last elective, I took a journalism seminar class that focused solely on the 2008 Presidential Campaign. I figured this class would just be another look at the election and the candidates involved. The class, instead, focused on the media's coverage during the campaign. We looked at what they covered and why. One of the main things we discovered was that the candidates personal life was at the forefront and their stance on issues was just an additive, if involved at all. My question is when did the media become a tabloid for celebrity gossip. These candidates have become "celebrified" and are nothing more than that. The media pounces on topics like Tiger Wood's latest affair or what the Jon and Kate are fighting about today. Does anybody really care about that stuff? I admit I'm a tmz.com addict, but is this a direct result of overexposure to mindless details such as "Did Tiger leave these flowers for his wife or are they for him?" Back when JFK was president, his affairs were never publicized to the world or made a big deal, but I remember back to 6th grade when Bill was drowning in the Monica scandal and that was all anybody could talk about. As time goes on the media gets more personal, so where does it stop?
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3 comments:
I am not sure where it will stop, or if it ever will. I have noticed that the public pays more attention to celebrities personal lives as opposed to issues that actually affect them. Maybe its because focusing on the real issues would be to much like facing reality. The reality is that we do not have an answer to many of the problems that we are dealing with and therefore choose to ignore the issue instead of addressing it.
The word celebrity basically has no meaning. Anyone cal become famous now because of social media. You can do basically anything from singing a funny song, dancing down the isle at your wedding, or cheating on your wife with lots of different women. As long as you know how to use social media effectively, you can become famous. I'm not really sure I'm a fan of this. Celebrities used to be special and have lots of talent. Now its just about social media.
I always wondered what would happen if radio was the only media we still used for presidential campaigns. I'll say this- President Obama would not have won so quickly.
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