Media's Construction of Reality

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Media's Construction of Reality Media has the ability to influence opinions by publicly ratifying or vilifying the motives and activities of any group and uses this ability at its own discretion. A nuisance protestor can easily become a hard core activist, depending on the perspective. As the owners of the media have a vested interest in the global market place, ' (…) [in] 1998 five transnational corporations controlled the vast majority of the media content' (Wiseman 1998, p. 75), the perspective is somewhat bias. Bonney and Wilson attest that: 'most of what the media report as having happened did actually happen. They do not, in general, fabricate the facts. What they do, rather, is to report them from within the dominant perspectives on the social realities of the day.' (1988, p. 11) Fowler (1996, p. 2) also points out that news, in a capitalist society, usually agrees with the ideology of the controlling groups as news is an industry that has its own commercial interests at heart, and far from neutrally reflecting social reality actually promote the "social construction of reality." The ideology of the media is the determining factor when it comes to what news society actually hears and from whose perspective. THE MEDIA ========= Windschuttle (1990) claims that news is a broad but selective interpretation of society through a mediating ideology and in a capitalist society social control and cohesion is maintained not by force or coercion but through ideology. The Collins Dictionary of Sociology (1995, p. 163) defines deviance '[as] any social behaviour which departs from that regarded as 'normal' or socia... ... middle of paper ... ... in Contemporary Society. Cited in Johnston, H. and Klandermans, B. (eds.) (1995) Social Movements and Culture. London: UCL Press Ltd. Mitchell, B. 2000, 'Violence at World Forum, police warn', The Weekend Australian, 8 July, p. 9. [Online]. URL: http://www.lexis.com/research/retrieve Pakulski, J. (1991) Social Movements: The Politics of Moral Protest. Melbourne: Longman Cheshire Pty. Ltd. The Australian 18 March 2002, p. 6, 'Clashes follow EU talks.' [Online]. URL: http://www.lexis.com/research/retrieve Windschuttle, K. (1990) The Media: A new analysis of the press, television, Radio and advertising in Australia (3rd ed.) Australia: The Book Printer. Wiseman, J. (1998) Global Nation? Australia and the politics of globalisation. United Kingdom: Cambridge University Press.

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