"There's Waldo!": The Problem with Framing

I am sure that everyone remembers picking up their favorite book from the elementary school library, Where's Waldo, and the disappointment they had when their know-it-all friend, Steven, would point out where Waldo was before you even made it to the southern hemisphere of the page!

Framing acts like your friend Steven. As you can see, I included a picture of a page from a Where's Waldo book where I have already circled Waldo.

Like framing, my circle draws your eye to where I want you to look, which makes your job of searching through look-alikes for a half hour way easier and less rewarding. Also, I may have even directed you to the wrong Waldo, you don't know, you can't see the picture very well!

From media, we get an indelible red circle around the points THEY want to emphasize in a story previously concocted to be dramatic enough to hold our attention and get our money.

Let's refer to the Waldo picture again: the look-alikes in the picture all point us in the right direction of Waldo, you get warmer and warmer by ruling each one out. If media were to give us the bare and useful bones of a story (the look-alikes), without the dramatic adjectives and hyperboles and the opinions drawn for us (the red circle), we would be able to rule out more and more (getting warmer and warmer by ruling out the look-alikes) until we come to the conclusion of what we believed on our own (finding Waldo for ourselves).

But instead, we get an already circled Where's Waldo picture, our minds are made up and we learned nothing.

Thanks Steven...

Rape, Guns & Women - Where Are Our Hearts?

Lauren Kruger-Patchin
Blog #7: Rape, Guns & Women - Where Are Our Hearts?
3/12/13

As I've already mentioned, I am taking a women's gender studies course this semester that compliments this course very well. Today I did an assignment that I wanted to share with everyone. In class today we talked about violence and anti-gay hate crimes. Now, I want to talk about women being raped in violent attacks. This also ties in nicely to our lives because of the BSU "gunman" incident yesterday... Going to this link and watching the videos is seriously worth your time. I can't believe some of the things they said to this woman who just shared her rape story. How does society not value women more?

This was my discussion on the link from my other class...

I would like to discuss a particular article from Bust Magazine. While I found many of the articles on the website attention-getting, I found this one to be very timely with an issue concerning women - more specifically college women, like myself. And with the recent "gunman" scare at BSU, this is a hot topic.

The title: "Wanna Avoid Rape? Carry A Concealed Weapon, Says Rape Victim."

The title alone was attention grabbing. I couldn't tell if they were promoting gun use or trying to make it sound obsurd.

Rape and gun control are big issues when it comes to women's rights. With all of the mall, school, and movie theater shooting over the past year or so, gun control in general is a huge topic. So what happens if laws prevent women from carrying them on college campuses? Many college campuses already ban weapons. Ball State, obviously, is one of them... being as a huge search was held the other morning when a man was spotted with a gun.

The way I see it, people doing something bad with a gun will carry the gun whether it's allowed or not. People who could stop the crimes will only have a gun for protection if the law allows it. How does that make sense? The bad guy will have a gun either way, but if guns aren't allowed no one can stop them.

The woman in this article, Amanda, owned a firearm but did not have it with her the day she was raped. She said if she had it with her, things could have been different. When she asks, how does making her defenseless save them from a violent crime, I couldn't have agreed more. Making weapons illegal in certain places won't stop the people with bad intentions from entering those places with weapons. It only endangers those who follow the rules and need protection.

Lawmakers argue that they are trying to protect students and teachers from feeling uncomfortable by having her carry a gun to protect herself.. EXCUSE ME? You rather keep people from feeling "uncomfortable" instead of preventing a rape?! They bring statistics into it and say they aren't on her side, but if it could prevent ANY of the rapes, it's worth it. They argue that he would have turned her own gun around and used it on her... Her reply: "He already had a weapon of his own, he didn't need mine." SO POWERFUL. I feel for this woman. What a tough crowd. Where's the understanding and sympathy - even from the woman senator!

I give props to the man in the last video. He is a man standing up for this woman. It's great to see. I can't believe the woman who was arguing it!

Here is the link if anyone is interested in this article.

http://www.bust.com/wanna-avoid-rape-carry-a-concealed-gun-says-rape-victim.html

Scary Thoughts

Today in class we discussed the Matthew Shepherd story, which was very scary to think about. It is sad that society looks at gays and straights in two different worlds. Yes they are two different choices, but they are still people and anyone with a conscience should know what was done to him was terrible! It is scary to imagine that something that severe posses people to do something so dramatic. If they are doing this to gay people what makes you think they won’t do it to a straight person? People are crazy today and because of things like this extra steps are needed in order to remain safe and keep our loved ones safe. It is sad to know that because of Matthew being gay and suffering so long for what happened to him received so much attention, whereas numerous kids are dying on the south side of Chicago and nobody seems to care. This isn’t just the first time something like this has happened and I am sure it won’t be the last. It is just very scary to see the extremes some human beings will take in order to feel more in power or to really show how they truly feel about a subject or a person. Besides the article being disturbing, there is a video of the incident on YouTube and that also brought a little more light to the article and made it a little easier to understand. It was a very interesting story to read, but I just don’t know how anyone couldn’t feel bad for what happened to Matthew and how is family is still dealing with the issue today. 

Media as a corporation

A professor once told my class that a journalist’s aim was “To comfort the disturbed, and to disturb the comfortable.” Although the original quote was from Finley Peter Dunne, it is still used when talking about journalism, and even art now. The mantra goes along with what the media thinks "people want to hear." I still think about this quote whenever I think about what stories journalists want to cover. 

When the media only talk about superficial problems and “news” that’s what people think about. Those are the issues that get brought up in politics with the decision makers.  Politicians are rarely bringing up real issues.  Then the journalists don’t cover any either. They never talk about climate change. And as was brought up in class, they never talk about real problems of other people than white, middle-class.

Here is a national news outlet that has talked about gun violence in Chicago. It’s a nonprofit station and this story is so well done. Please, listen to it if you have time. 

I think right now after seeing so many news outlets frame stories, mess up facts and only talk about superficial issues I’ve seen good examples of nonprofit news stations. England’s BBC is a good example of a nonprofit, government subsidies that covers more sides of the stories than most news outlets.

Public broadcasting and alternative news is so important for our country. Keep supporting public broadcasting!

What is normal?

In today's discussion of the Mathew Sheppard case it was brought up that the fact that he was a middle class white male, played a large role in how much media attention he got. It was said that on the south side of Chicago that X amount of children have died in 2012 alone and they get no coverage, but when middle class white kids were in the same situation it was on the news for weeks because of their class and race. I feel as if this is a false assumption. First of all because of the fact that the Newtown tragedy happened all at once, and second of all because it is not a normal occurrence. I am not saying that because the south side of Chicago shootings are more frequent that they are less important, it is that they are more shocking because they are unexpected. An example of the fact that it has nothing to do with race or class, is the story of Richard Szewka. He was shot down on the south side of Chicago on August 13th 2011 while visiting his wife's family. He was a white middle class male, his story didn't make the news any more than other shootings that night. The only newspaper article that went into details was the newspaper in his hometown because he was local, and the fact that his family made the attempt to get the story out. I think that this is a terrible thing because every single one of those people had loved ones, friends just like the family's of Newtown's victims but because shootings have become so normal on the south side of Chicago, no story is special anymore. I'm not saying Richard was special, but none of those lives seem to be as special as the lives taken in areas where it is less shocking. So I do not believe that Mathew Sheppard was big in the news because he was a white middle class male, I think he was big in the news because his story was shocking.



Here is the Article about Richard if you are interested: Richard Szewka

Media Framing....Good or Bad?

I wasn't very familiar with media framing until I read the article for today. After reading about half of the article I could tell that I was not a fan of it right away. The more I thought about it the more outraged I became about our country as a whole. The media is such a powerful manipulating tool for people in our country and this article showed exactly why.

I do agree what happend to Matthew was a tragedy, I am not arguing that. What I am arguing is how much and how extensive the coverage of the case actually was. Yes what happend to him was horrible and yes those guys who did that to him are absolute monsters and deserve their life in prison sentences. But my complaint is the lack of coverage other things in our country gets. The example I shared in class is perfect in my opinion.

For anyone that watches the news they know the south side of Chicago has been like Gotham City the last year and a half. Cops have no control over the killings and gun control their yet we rarely hear about the murders that are taken place. They are just numbers to middle/upper class white America. And on the other hand look at the Sandy Hook shooting. Now I know this is an extreme case because they were all kindergarten and 1st graders. But everyone in America can tell you what some of the kids look like and what their names are because of the extensive coverage we saw on every channel for a solid 3 weeks. But like I mentioned in class, no one can tell you any of the 65 kids ages 4-18 names that were killed in 2012 in Chicago. The reason for this is simple, our middle class and upper class families can relate with other white middle/upper class kids better than we can with kids in the slums on the south side. Is this right? Absolutely not, but its the harsh reality of the country we live in.

In my personal opinion I think that the media has WAY to much persuasive ability in this country on the average person watching the news. The way journalists and reporters word things can make people think a certain thing just like that. It isn't right and some of us as aspiring journalists like myself need to try our hardest to not frame things and therefore block out things of equal importance just because some people can't relate to them.

Extremists and Tolerance

I've always firmly believed that extremists "ruined" things for everyone else. The Matthew Shepard discussion in class kept that thought in the front of my mind. The Christian extremists, the anti-gay extremists, the pro-gay extremists, the feminists extremists, the college student stereotype extremists, the atheist extremists... They each destroy the way outsiders view the lifestyles and cultures. These extremists, the ones who base their lives around protesting the opposition make the rest of their lifestyle or culture look bad and negative. It's come to the point where we are all tolerant of each other (yes, I understand there are people who aren't tolerant of differences. Those are extremists, too!) instead of embracing the differences we each have to offer. The world doesn't need anymore tolerance. The world needs acceptance.

I grew up in a rural area with farmers and cowboys. My high school was noted for their FFA and "rednecks." I don't think it's a secret that "rednecks," "country folk," or southern people aren't as accepting to other cultures and lifestyles as they should be. Most of the time, rural areas are very conservative. My high school was also known for their very large, very active FCA, Fellowship of Christian Athletes. In my graduating class of 104 people, one was openly gay, one was openly atheist, and one was openly Mormon. I point out these students because they were the top three non-accepted lifestyles by conservative Christians in my area. Tolerance is what we were taught to do, but these students were far from accepted. I was brought up in a Christian home, who prayed when we ate meals, showed up to church together Sunday morning, and opened our Bible for guidance. Despite being brought up in my "tolerant" ways, two of those three students I mentioned were my best friends. My openly gay friend had grown up with me since we were in diapers. When he came out to me our junior year of high school, I wasn't surprised, but I was accepting and loving towards his decisions. My other friend was Mormon. Society has shaped our minds to dislike Mormons because they have "multiple wives" and they're a "cult." Not at all true, and I'll defend her for as long as I live. I bring this up because some family members weren't happy I had acquired these acquaintances. Eventually, my family grew to love my friends and accept them for who they were as people. But it was the extremist people of their lifestyles and cultures who ruined that initial thought for my family in the first place.

What am I getting at and why does this connect with Matthew Shepard? The men who beat up Matthew and left him to die were extremists. They had a hate so deep that they would kill for their beliefs and their thoughts. What happened to coexisting? What happened to acceptance? Why are hate crimes so prevalent in recent years? Where is this hate coming from? And how do we make it stop?