Transcript Mass Media Content Milburn Psychology 335

Mass Media Content
Milburn
Psychology 335
W. L. Bennett
Components of media content
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Personalization
Dramatization
Fragmentation
Normalization
Effects:
– Limits range of acceptable political action
– Limits critical thinking capacities
Stories—Rome Airport
Ibraham Mohammed Khaled—how would you explain his
behavior?
• “It was supposed to be a suicide mission”
• “He has memories, but no regrets”
• “No emotion, no hint of remorse”
• Attribution Theory:
• Crazy (internal)
• Khaled: “I’m not the cause of anything—I was just doing
what any young Palestinian would do” (external)
• Continual struggle among political actors and media to
explain causality of actions
Stories—Libya bombing
• Reaction to bombing of Berlin discothèque
• Pilot:
– “I was assigned three targets and I hit three targets;
complete mission success”
• Bob Zelnick:
– “Political success as well as a military success”
• Omitted events from news story:
– Khadafi’s adopted infant daughter killed in attack
– French Consulate bombed
• Could you say of the pilot that:
“He had memories, but no regrets”?
• Actor/Observer difference on international scale
Stories—Sri Lanka
• Historical context provided:
• Tamils brought to Sri Lanka in 1800’s to work in
the rubber and coconut plantations
• Because of discrimination, they have desperate
economic life
• “There have been these kinds of atrocities by both
sides”
• What is the difference from the first two stories?
• Lack of U.S. interest allows media to have a
different perspective