(純粹是讀書整理，可直接略過)
這星期的reading是關於War,我覺得”Journalism under fire: the reporting of war and international crises”Philip M. Taylor寫的最好。
Media’s traditional role is to inform, educate and entertain, but as new technologies are invented and competitive media environment(i.e., limited time) in a global market, the quality of reporting is doubtful. Moreover, how to report war crises is needed to learn for journalists nowadays. During the war, we need to examine the operational/internal aspects, journalism itself and the way to report, and examine the external aspects, such as what controls the media coverage. During the war, in order to control the media and make sure that media and the public will support, censorship of reporting is the most effective way for militaries/government. Government censor the writing, images and sound of media during the war and call that’s for security reason (security review), and therefore cause the tensions between government and the media. The reason to control the media is to ensure that important information will not reveal and most important is to sustain the public’s support. New technologies are invented, and it’s becoming difficult for the military to control journalists, but there’s still some ways to influence the media contexts. But actually the media still tend to support the military during the wartime. Some questions as below: Do media become a government’s propaganda? Media should support the government, help to sustain people’s support? Or should have a balanced reporting(like BBC, but annoyed the government)? And one more thing we should concern is journalists’ quality. Can non-specialised journalists fully understand all the causes and consequences in a war? If not, they can merely report one-side view, and we cannot sure that is true or not. “In real war, people dies, and in media war, the truth dies.”- a very ironical description.
Other articles mention about 911 and Bush. Magder indicates that even though we always say it’s a globalised world, people still focus on what happens in their own nations and the globalization brings us to a homogeneous culture, not diverse any more.(I can’t see the link between this and the war.) Anyway, the articles still talk about the new technologies, military’s censorship(how to control media’s reporting), and US’s strict “stat’s information arsenal”(security review) after 911. Kellner’s article is more interesting than Magder’s. Beside some repeated mentions about 911 and Bush, he points out that we should watch out what we broadcast. After 911, many inappropriate (even dangerous) speeches are broadcasted to the public, and actually that’s out of war hysteria, but not good to the society. Bush uses terms like ”evil” but actually the word is too emotional and who can decide which nation is evil. It is just a way to raise the war in order to bring fortunes to arsenal corporations, distract public’s attention from the decaying economics and promote his reputation.
The last Kats&Liebes’ reading introduces 3 center-staged topics in the media now: terror, disaster and war. Does marathon-reporting is necessary? Can journalists make reporting in quality and depth under marathon-reporting way?
Trip。 (4)