The West Wing
Technology is growing fast, as is the new generations branching off with new forms of media and devices that provide us with the news. News and politics have had difficulty when informing its public and community of the events that happen in their community. Now the media and news are growing to reform to the earlier generation’s way of receiving the news and events related to them, by using media and popular culture. According to Wodak, for politics to air and to engage and intrigue its public, it must need scandal, rumour, and speculation (45). The West Wing, is a clear example of where the news and politics enter into the world of entertainment, but still informing its audience of the political world and events they may face. I will be analyzing The West Wing television series in relation to the representations of gender, race, and politics with support from examples and scholarly sources.
The West Wing, is a show that is set within political parameters, focusing on each character with their own side stories, with a main emphasis on political events and how it gets dealt with within the White House. We have the president of the United States played by Martin Sheen, having a team made up with C.J. a female is the White House press secretary, a strong and stern woman that seems to show highlights of assisting everyone within the White House, who is also shown as the saviour of the team and who takes the fall when faced with the media public (journalists).
The office contains Leo, Toby, Josh, and Sam, which are all part of the White House staff, part of the team. The four male figures mentioned focus on certain aspects dealing with the president and their image in the news and media coverage. The team mainly cons...
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This essay will discuss how national attitudes towards the working-class and the impoverished are represented in American Television. The purpose of this paper is to comprehend that television shows are not solely designed to entertain consumers but also contain a hidden agenda whose task is to protect certain ideological perspectives and therefore constant framing strategies take place. The paper will commence the analysis by discussing how males and females are represented in the television show Friday Night Lights, secondly it will look at the
Kurtz, Howard. "Jon Stewart and Kumar Go to the White House." The Washington Post 13 Apr. 2009: 1-2. Print.
Imagine, if you will, a time that seemed innocent... almost too innocent. Imagine a nation under whose seemingly conformist and conservative surface dramatic social changes were brewing, changes as obvious as integration and as subtle as fast food. And imagine, if you will, a radical television show that scrutinized, criticized, and most importantly, publicized these changes, making the social turmoil of a nation apparent to its post-world war, self-contented middle-class citizens. But what if this television show was not as it appeared? What if it masqueraded as simple science fiction, and did not reveal its true agenda until viewers took a closer look? Let us examine how such a television program can become a defining force in the culture of a nation, a force that remains just as powerful almost forty-five years after it first appeared. Let us investigate the secrets of... The Twilight Zone.
39 Wilson, Clint and Felix Gutierrez. Race, Multiculturalism, and the Media: From Mass to Class Communication. Thousand Oaks: Sage Publications, 1995: 45.
Media directs the thought processes of society. Daya Kishan Thussa says, “US popular culture… is steeped in Hollywood spectacles on war, battles and conflict, as evidenced by the international success of films about war, conflict, and battles between good and evil,” (p.265 reader). Hollywood –the media—portrays war as a conflict between good and evil, redefining war and conflict to be something that is black and white, with a sure winning side. The show 24, produced after 9/11, at the start of the War on Terror, represents a conflict between the good and the evil by paralleling the distrust and suspicion of the real world with the distrust and suspicion of the world in the show. By using elements such as windowing, zooming and panning into faces, dark lighting, and slow, eerie music, Season 2, Episode 1 of 24, creates an atmosphere of suspicion and distrust similar to post 9/11 United States that explains why officials tried to resolve conflicts even without all relevant information present.
In the first paragraph of Laurie Penny’s essay “What to do when you’re not the hero anymore” she tells the reader how she recently went to see the new Star Wars movie. To her surprise a female character, Rey, fought off a bad guy as an equal. Hollywood has incredible power in how messages are portrayed in books, TV shows, and movies. It is no secret that media representation normalizes the reality of white male power. Penny explores how it is becoming more common to see a women lead in books, movies, and TV shows, rather than the stereotypical male.
“ Television often provides politicians with more attention turning them into more celebrity than politician” (Hart). This holds some truths in some situations television does over publicize some politicians , but this always is not a bad thing. The modern day politician is suppose to receive a plethora of attention due to their important public figure. Some television networks do sway towards parties , but not all of them. If anything a viewer can watch the network that reports exclusively on his or her interest rather than the interests of the people from another political party. When placed under this public spotlight the true character of the politician is revealed , and the public can get to know them in depth. “Politicians have the choice to abuse their public figure to derive attention or use it for acts of good” (Bazalgette) . This ultimately comes down to the morals of who we chose to represent us. Television plays an important part but at the end of the day if a politician is gonna mislead the public he will do it. Television acts as a checker to make sure the public cannot be fooled so easily. Above all television has helped propel our modern day society into realms that were before thought to be impossible to
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"Kennedy, John F." Television in American Society Reference Library. Ed. Laurie Collier Hillstrom and Allison McNeill. Vol. 3: Primary Sources. Detroit: UXL, 2007. 65-76. U.S. History in Context. Web. 13 Jan. 2014. Source.
"Kennedy, John F." Television in American Society Reference Library. Ed. Laurie Collier Hillstrom and Allison McNeill. Vol. 3: Primary Sources. Detroit: UXL, 2007. 65-76. U.S. History in Context. Web. 13 Jan. 2014. Source.
Johnson, Allan G. The Gender Knot: Unraveling our Patriarchal Legacy. Philadelphia: Temple University Press. 1997.
One of the greatest exports of American culture is American media. American media is one of the most widely distributed and consumed cultural forms from the United States. This means that not only do Americans consume large quantities of their own media, but many other countries in the world consume American media, too. People in other countries will not interpret or understand the media in precisely the same ways that Americans will and do, nonetheless, many aspects of American culture and American reality are communicated to numerous viewers as part of the content in the media. The media is an important tool in the discussion of race, class, and gender in America. It takes a savvy viewer to discriminate between and understand what media accurately represents reality, what media does not, or which aspects of experience are fictionalized, and which elements ...
The American President is a romantic comedy that takes place in the White House during primary season. The president is hoping to be reelected and to pass two bills, one on gun control and one on fuel restrictions. During this movie, the president meets Sydney, a lobbyist, and goes out with her, and because of this he takes a hit on his ratings. The American President shows many different themes covered in politics and government 101, these themes are the rolls of the media, polls, primaries and elections, and the process of introducing a bill to congress. This movie also shows the relationship between the executive branch and the legislative branch while detailing the relationship the president has with interest groups, and his White House staff. While covering all this the movie The American President shines a positive light on politicians, this movie showed politicians having a genuine concern in human life and truly wanting to improve life. This movie wasn't all optimism though, it also criticized some politicians for muckraking and it criticized the media and the American public for thinking that the private lives of politicians is their business.
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Gauntlett, D. Hill, A. BFI (1999) TV Living: Television, Culture, and Everyday Life, p. 263 London: Routledge.