Headline: What's black and white and red all over?
Throughout my years of school I would always hear the riddle what's black and white and red all over. The answer was always a newspaper. At the time I never got the joke just because I didn't realize all the bad things that go around this world. When i looked at that picture that riddle automatically came across my mind. When you first look at a newspaper it doesn't seem like much, but once you start reading it you learn about all the bad or toxic things that are happening. Another view is that we are making it to where our lives are built upon social media. It has become a need for a lot of people and can be very hurtful. It can cause people to have a bad self image of themselves and become depressed. A lot of bullying nowadays happens through social media which can cause other people to tag along and do it to others. It causes a chain reaction of people just degrading others and its very unhealthy
I would say that this illustration is a very creative representation of how our lives rely solely on the spreading of information through any sort of media, in this illustration the newspaper, but also any other outputs that we can (or cant) rely on. The holes left out of this stack make me think another point to the illustration may be leaning towards how if we lose that source of information, society would be panicked as it falls, just how it would if the newspapers were removed from the wall in the illustration.
I think that this picture means that the world looks to the media for information, and we tend to build on the possible lies and it suddenly becomes the foundation of what we stand for. All the truths are hidden, put in the dark and are barely getting out because we basically LIVE ON the fake news. All this ignorance is what we live on.
This image shows how society is built around media and information. In the image, newspapers are being taken away, leaving holes in the foundations of society. I believe that this is a comment on the current relationship between the government and the media. As soon as the media publishes something that the political class doesn't agree with, it is labeled as "fake news". Eventually, every single credible news source has been labeled fake news by one group or another, leaving the public with nowhere to turn. Because the public doesn't feel like they can trust the news, they become woefully uneducated and begin to make political decisions based on lies, fear, and intimidation, not based on educated opinions.
After reading the article, it dawned on me that though news papers have a duty to investigate and inform the public, they are businesses and they must make a profit on order to pay their journalists and other operating costs. They have an obligation to their shareholders and board members to make a profit which has the potential to skew news. This is why the practice of "clickbait" has become to popular in the media.
In my opinion, the government should take steps to save papers like the Chicago Tribune. Subsidizing publications like the Tribune would lead to less corporate greed in the media and allow for the reporters to keep doing what they do best, exposing corruption and negligence on behalf of the people, without worrying about bottom line profits.
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I think that this image portrays how news and media have shaped the foundations of how we perceive society and ourselves within society. With the explosion of the internet and social media, news platforms are able to reach people of all walks of life and more people in general. Information and news shape many ways we perceive society and the modern world that has benefited us tremendously through awareness. However, that is not to say that there are very important outliers: misinformation. Our perception is our reality, and many people’s realities are formed through news platforms that may or may not be biased or factually wrong. This can be extremely dangerous in society when, for instance, you have world leaders who use unreliable news sites to support their arguments and agenda. There are a lot of gaps in the way we read and process information, that is why it’s important to understand the rhetoric of information and news.
(Part 1)
This image is saying that the media, a part of free speech, is the foundation of our society. Having the ability to say what you want is so powerful in the hands of the people, and greatly limits the control of the government. In the technologically driven world of today, the presence of the media can be found everywhere; it’s on the tv’s, on the phones, and on our driveways every morning.
Even though this image depicts society being built upon the media, I do not believe this image is praising the media. The gaping holes in the image that grabbed my attention remind us that the media is not perfect, and that it has some pretty large flaws. Some issues I have witnessed is the biased reporting and spread of misinformation by the media, especially with coverage of the president. When we can label a media source with a political affiliation, how are we ever going to get objective news from them. The media has to be fair in their coverage of all issues, and when they stop doing this, people begin to lose faith in them. The media has a job to provide objective news to the people, and when this job is compromised to certain political agendas, the people have been failed. With a compromised media, people will begin to read and believe in headlines that are manipulative and simply wrong. This is extremely dangerous and corrupt, and that the fact that we stand complacent is alarming.
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(Part 2)
Another problem I think this image alludes to is the coverage of issues that are simply not important. Why have we focused on issues that are so trivial and that barely affect anyone. No one wants to talk about the actual problems, no let’s worry about how a social justice warrior got their feelings hurt. I doubt the media will ever cover how Christians are the most persecuted religious group in the world; no they are just Easter-worshippers, right? I doubt the media will talk about how gun violence has been steadily declining; no, wait, there was that mass shooting where one person was injured. The media loves to create an issue where there isn’t one to push a political agenda, something that has gone addressed far too long in this country.
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This illustration is saying that our society is built up by the media, but there are definitely holes or ‘caves’ in their stories. If anything substantial or insubstantial happens anywhere in the world, the news covers it, but I believe that this picture is mainly focusing on the insubstantial. Your eyes are not drawn to the piles of real news on which society stands, but the gaping holes in between. This picture was created not to pat the media on the back for doing a great job of building up society but to revise what is news and what isn’t. More and more reports on unimportant topics come in every day to the point where, just like the picture, the news will become the foundation of society no longer. Our news-reliant cities and towns will collapse because of the gaping holes of ‘fake news’. Our people no longer will be counting on the media to know what is going on because they have to read through pages upon pages of ‘What’s going on with Kim Kardashian?’ or ‘Here are 9 ways to get men to like you’. If nothing is done, our informed and open-minded societies will fall into the gaping abyss of insubstantial media.
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The new is everywhere. It’s thrown onto our driveways almost every morning, it blares from T.V.’s every night, iIt impacts people’s decisions concerning issues both in relation to government affairs or their personal lives, and it gives a voice to people in local communities who, without it, would remain unheard.
Our society, no matter how modernized and high-tech it becomes, is dependent on journalists that investigate and inform us about what really goes on in the world beyond the picture-perfect facade it expects everyone to believe. The only problem is that most local newspaper publications are currently being threatened by hedge funds according to the related article.The foundation that we rest on is crumbling underneath us, and will break away completely, if we don’t do something about it.
This image kind of makes me think about how the internet is so frequently used to spread news and media, but how no one really goes out to buy a paper copy of the newspaper anymore. The newspaper used to kind of be the only way to get current information, but now the internet has changed that greatly.
I think that this image portrays how modern society is reliant and built on the news and media. The news is everywhere—on the tv, in the newspaper and online. Considering this modern era, people of all ages hear about the news either one way or another. The events we see and hear about tend to affect our daily lives as it influences our thoughts. For instance, I tend to think about how my life would be affected if the events I have heard about had happened to myself. Although some of what we hear in the news tends to not revolve around many people’s lives, I still believe that they change the way many think and feel in that moment in order to reflect on the situation being shared.
@Asha Amin, The media fuels society. It helps inform us of political, economic, and environmental issues. If we didn't have the news, we would be even more apathetic to other situations. The media allows people to get involved like with the Australia fires recently. Without the news or social media, there wouldn't be a way to help others.
Media does have an impact on the way we view life. I like how you mentioned media influencing our train of thought at the moment. I also enjoyed your thought that we depend and revolve around the news.
After looking at this image, I believe that it is a representation of how we in today’s society rely heavily on what we see on the news. The newspapers symbolize society’s dependence on the news to be able to keep us up and running by informing us of what is going on in the world. They serve as our foundation for allowing us to form our view of the world. Without the newspapers holding up the houses and cars, the people using them would fall into the abyss. In other words, if our main news source was found to be lying or giving out fake news, our world as we know it would crumble and we would become more skeptical of what is going on around us. I personally agree because I tend to form my opinions based on what I read and see on the news. I would agree that news-especially now with it being available to us digitally-has a lot of power in influencing how a person thinks.
The picture is saying that our society is built upon a rickety platform of what news sources tell us. The news helps to shape our perceptions of things and those who control it can feed us whatever information they want. Like bricks, the news is part of the building blocks of our society; whenever a large group of people do something together, like a protest or a rally, the news will have likely had a hand in making that happen.
Some of the slots for “bricks” in the picture are missing, indicating a lack of information. It may mean that some people are misinformed or uninformed. Some things also probably aren’t reported on, so a large number of people could be that way. If the news only shows one side of a story or is biased, the people may just believe that that’s the only side to see. The houses are placed above the stacks of newspapers, which seem as though they could just cave in because of the holes. If someone saw the holes in the story and dug into the news and their sources to try and find the truth on their own, the news’s carefully constructed wall of lies would come crumbling down.
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@Elliot Wells
Thank you so much for explaining the true meaning of what this picture is. At first, I thought it had something to do with the old newspapers, but never would I have thought so deep as to think of the meanings you talked about. Looking at the picture now, I can see everything you’re describing so clearly. News stories really do keep us informed to a point where we believe almost everything they tell us. They always say that their information is from “credible sources” but who are we to know if whatever they’re saying is made up or not.
Your comment about the lack of information explaining why there’s holes in the wall is very well thought out as well. The houses could also represent the homes of the rich and famous celebrities that rely on those stories to keep them afloat. Without the news, they would have to do more work to stay relevant.
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@Elliot Wells
While I somewhat came up with an idea as to what the image was saying, I never really considered the meaning you developed. It is true that, in society today, most newspapers and their content tend to be influenced by the people spending money on the publication and distribution of the information. The people in power control the information presented, whether it's accurate or not. If people continue to ignore the holes, and refuse to fact check they're information, society is bound to come crumbling down eventually.
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I think that this picture is saying that today’s society is very reliant on news and the media. It is also shown by the pockets of missing newspapers that this foundation we are built on isn’t very strong or dependent. In other words, sometimes the news can be giving us information that isn’t right but we still rely on it. I agree that society has a heavy reliance on the media and news because it’s really the only way for us to get new information.
After only a few glances at this picture, I believe it is trying to say that society would crumble and fall without reliant information to hold it up. Society that, currently, is seeing an inflow of fake news and misinformation. We all rely on some website or news source for our information, the problem comes in when someone reposts or shares a news story they found (from an unreliable source) and then gaps in our news form- depicted as the holes between stacks of newspapers. In the modern era, we have to search for reliable information and there is so much misinformation spreading. This is causing the fall of many popular news forums and companies because they can’t keep up with both the move to digital news and the popularization of incorrect information. This leads to more and more gaps in our base of information, bringing society closer and closer to the collapse of life the way we know it.
This illustration depicts how our society is built around the culture of the media. The newspaper represents the structure for many households because it was the only source of information before the internet. This picture also shows the newspaper having empty spaces in between. I believe this alludes to how households are not utilizing the daily newspaper as much as they did back when the internet was not around. Because we live in a world that revolves around online media, newspapers do not have as much use and prevalence to this growing society. Now with a click of a button, you are able to access endless amounts of information.
What I believe this image is saying is that in today’s world, people are heavily reliant on the news and media, and that without the media reporting on what is happening around the world, society would fall apart. Beyond that the image depicts many empty spaces in between the newspapers, and I believe that is representing how unreliable the media can be at times. Personally I agree with this message because I do believe that the news is very important in today’s society because it connects people all around the world and because it helps spread awareness about major problems. I also agree with the argument that media can be unreliable because there have been many cases where key aspects of a story have been left out just so that the reporter can please their audience and also so that they can “bait” people into reading their stories.
@Muhammad Siddiqui I completely agree with your assessment regarding the structural and foundational depiction the newspapers have underneath the houses. I also think that as communities, whether local, national, or global, we depend on news reports to hear about the events happening around us. We can always choose to individually analyze these events ourselves, but we only have so much time to commit to properly looking into the sheer amount of things happening. We rely on reporters and news companies that look into these events as their jobs. Because of this, we are susceptible to whatever stand point or perspective the reporters may choose to take. We hope that they remain as unbiased as possible, but we will always be vulnerable to an extent. I agree that the holes in the foundation of newspapers represent this potential of misinformation or heavily one-sided information being fed to communities. Regarding whether communities would completely fall apart without news reports, I don't completely agree with this assessment. However, I do believe that without news we would become a much less developed and advanced society. As the image shows, news builds us up as a community, and without them we can only consider that we would become much less informed and suffer unavoidably.
The artist claims that our lives are run by the news we hear and believe which rests upon the questionable assumption that, How much of our lives are being manipulated by the media?. I would argue that our lives are more so affected by the media rather than any other conventional outlet at our reach. The picture portrays the newspapers as the earth and the cities built on the foundation of those newspapers. This is quite accurate in the sense that what we see everyday in the media-even social media- has a perceptual effect on our personality and opinion. The problem with believing the news isn’t necessarily wrong, it’s the fact that “fake news” can easily become spread around, influencing and shaping people in the wrong way.
When I first look at this picture I see the newspapers as a media source with s bunch of holes in it. Many people still use the newspaper to get their fix on what's happening in the news world but that doesn't mean it is always true. Cities still pump out their papers and people still trust what they say. One day that is not going to be good enough because that one source of news is going to rebound.
When I look at the news I tend to look at one source then go and facts check it against a few other sources. I don't like just leaving my one option be based off of one source.
The illustration pictured, is saying that there are many whole in the media that provides us with news and many gaps that make that news unreliable and untrustworthy. But although that news may be unreliable, there are cities and towns around the world that do rely on that news, they put their whole trust into what they hear from the media, but eventually that source is bound to backfire on them at some point, thus the gap as of newspaper under the building. This illustration may also be trying to say that there are so many inconsistencies and errors in the news we are provided with that someday, all that incorrect information we have been receiving will cause so what of a tragedy or disaster.