Law in Contemporary Society

View   r4  >  r3  ...
LilyVoFirstPaper 4 - 28 Feb 2009 - Main.PatrickCronin
Line: 1 to 1
 
META TOPICPARENT name="AaronShepardFirstPaper"
Added:
>
>
CONFLICT version 3:
 I. Innocence 1. Innocent? 2. Does innocence matter?
Line: 26 to 27
 What the media does here is changing the world using words. In my view, journalists are implicitly expressing at least two opinions: First, it is better to kill guilty people than innocent people. Second, it is better to kill men than women and children. Since these statements may be controversial, they are not expressed explicitly. They are well packaged and transmitted indirectly. However, there is a good chance that the reader will consume this viewpoint and internalize it. Most consumers are not asking the questions I just raised above, they prefer to accept the views (implicitly) expressed. The journalist helps the consumer in his passivity by not expressing his point of view directly.

That being said, I am not quite sure whether every journalist actually knows what he is doing or whether the reference to “innocent women and children” is a mere reflex: suicide bombing automatically entails innocent victims. (Whenever the German government promises monetary help to the victims of natural catastrophes, such help is necessarily “quick and unbureaucratic”).

Added:
>
>
CONFLICT version new:
 As you might have guessed, the attitude just described not only applies to journalism, but to everyday life – we are surrounded by implicit views, opinions and values every day. Most people however do not seem to realize this fact (or did you ever question the “innocent women and children” statement?). Be it gender stereotypes perpetuated in television (in the news, TV ads and TV series) or other political or moral statements portrayed by society. Why do so many women still chose to stay at home and look after the children instead of pursuing their professional career (and having the man staying at home)? Is that due to a completely conscious decision or is it due to internalized and unquestioned traditions and views shown in almost every TV series? *

Revision 4r4 - 28 Feb 2009 - 02:27:39 - PatrickCronin
Revision 3r3 - 28 Feb 2009 - 02:20:41 - PeterHaberrecker
This site is powered by the TWiki collaboration platform.
All material on this collaboration platform is the property of the contributing authors.
All material marked as authored by Eben Moglen is available under the license terms CC-BY-SA version 4.
Syndicate this site RSSATOM