In our Mass Communication class about a couple weeks ago we viewed this video on the website, the Onion. The video was about the Internet crashing and a fatal message that appeared on everyone’s computer. They go on to explain that they traced it back to one guy; they said he had 35 windows open and explained what they were. The news broadcast goes on to say how it has affected millions of bloggers around the world. Someone calls in to the station to say that there life suddenly seemed incomplete and he didn’t know what to do. The broadcast goes on to explain how AFV is broadcasting 24hour videos to make up for YouTube and that people are handing out sheets on the street with diet tips, celebrity gossip and office poems. Clearly it is obvious that this news broadcast is fake and is merely there as an eye opener to the obsession that people have about the Internet. The video is absolutely hilarious and an excellent example of satirical news.
According to Wikipedia, Satirical news is
“Is a type of parody presented in a format typical of mainstream journalism, and called a satire because of its content. News satire has been around almost as long as journalism itself, but it is particularly popular on the web, where it is relatively easy to mimic a credible news source and stories may achieve wide distribution from nearly any site. Generally, the goal of news satire is to make social commentary in a form that provides entertainment. Because news satire relies heavily on irony and deadpan humor, it is occasionally mistaken for real news” (Wikipedia).
The Onion is a perfect example of a website to which is dedicated to presenting fake news with humor. A lot of the times the purpose of their videos or articles are there to serve as a reality check to the situation. It allows the reader to realize the point of view which “normal” news companies would not realize. This website is not there to be neutral; it is there to bring light to the situation and humor.
Most news companies, newspapers and journals are there to make you comply with what they are saying. All there information is well thought out and organized to draw you in and to believe what they are saying; it doesn’t matter what the message is as long as they are getting paid for it. If you really look into who owns these news companies, you can see exactly where the stance on a situation comes from. For example if you take fox news, you will find that Fox News Channel was created by Rupert Murdoch. According to Wikipedia, “Rupert Murdoch, who hired Republican political strategist Roger Alies as its founding CEO” (Wikipedia). For several years now Fox News has been criticized as having only conservative political positions and given who owns it and is the founding CEO it is pretty safe to say that their views come from those who own it.
When I was reading Ursula Franklin’s The Real World of Technology, I came across a quote which I believe explains perfectly what companies set out to do.
“Today’s real world of technology is characterized by the dominance of prescriptive technologies. Prescriptive technologies are not restricted to materials production. They are used in administrative and economic activities and in many aspects of governance, and on them rests the real world of technology in which we live. While we should not forget that these prescriptive technologies are often exceedingly effective and efficient, they come with an enormous social mortgage. The mortgage means we live in a culture of compliance, that we are ever more conditioned to accept orthodoxy as normal, and to accept that there is only one way of doing ‘it’ (Franklin, 17).
We are so conditioned to believing everything we see and hear; which is ironic because when we were growing up and still today we are told not to believe everything we see or her, yet we do. I don’t think I can help it, Franklin was right I am conditioned to accept orthodoxy as normal. Even though something may seem ridiculous when I am reading it, in the back of my mind there is a part of me that believes it. Our entire lives we have been conditioned to those who are in power; it no wonder why we are condition to believe what the media tells us.
Its are impossible selves who have been condition to believe the view which is presented. We find it impossible to separate the fake from the real.
Works Cited
Franklin, Ursula M. The Real World of Technology. Scarborough, ON: Anansi Press, 1990.
“Wikipedia.” News Satire 24 Nov 2008. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/News_satire
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