Introduction
You get daily loads of information via the media. Therefore, it is important to understand how the media works. Who sends the message? Who is responsible for the content?
Media literacy refers to the mass media and their function in society. Free media is an important tool for democracy because mass media disseminates knowledge, news and information that affects you and everyone around you.
Journalism
The journalist's task is to review and inform. For newspapers, it is important not to become a mouthpiece of politicians, officials and interest groups, but instead provide different perspectives on a problem.
The media does not offer any absolute truths from any higher, unidentifiable source. As important as it is for journalists to take a critical view to sources, it is for you as a reader to relate questioning before the information in the media. In order to distinguish between good and questionable information you can check the source credibility, trustworthiness, fairness and references by considering the following questions:
• Who is the sender? Is it the newspaper or radio / TV news or own News? Do they have a correspondent in place or have they got the material by someone else? Is it one of the paper's journalists who have written, or a freelancer?
• Where are the pictures? Are they taken now or it is archival images? An example: After the events of September 11th 2001, when hijacked planes flew into the World Trade Center in New York, some television news showed Palestinians who romped and were happy. When a reporter went there it turned out that the people who had been filmed were excited for something completely different and their joy had nothing to do with the terrorist attacks. The video clip was taken out of its proper context and used to "see" something that is not at all true
• What choices have been made? You should conduct yourself critical to the selection of news made. Why have you chosen to publish this news do you think? Who is it that makes a statement? Who is making the statement will of course affect how events are described
News media
How do we find out news? In the 1950s, people read the morning newspaper, listened to the radio, spoke briefly on the phone and talked to the neighbor. Some of these media are still used. In the 1970s and 1980s television and evening and magazines were added. Today, we have the Internet and mobile phones as key media news.
When people talk about the news media have often newspapers a prominent role. We usually distinguish between different types of magazines. But all the news is not mediated through newspapers. A lot we take in through radio, television and the Internet.
What is news?
What is news and what factors affect the selection? Mass media scholars say that the media primarily concentrates on people, dramatic events and confrontations between different parties.
Examples of people's business leaders, politicians, famous persons in authority, movie stars and other celebrities. These people are valued either as interesting in themselves or as representatives of a certain opinion, certain group of people or a particular interest issue that the news media focuses on.
A dramatic turn of events could be an accident, attack, war or something unexpected happened
But it is obviously not so simple that an event is interesting only because it contains a famous person, something dramatic has happened or a confrontation. Even more crucial is it that media scholars call the principles of proximity.
The principles of proximity says that an event is more interesting for the reader if it is close in time, space and hens own life situation. What controls what we perceive as an interesting novelty is thus of how close the event is in time, how we identify with it and how close to us the unfolding geographically.
Great news agencies
You can see where a newspaper have downloaded their news because the news agency often stand by as a source. Some of the world's largest news agencies are:
• AP (Associated Press, United States)
• UPI (United Press International, USA)
• Reuters (UK)
• AFP (Agence France Press, France)
These four news agencies deliver to most international news and employ thousands of people. They often have branches in all the world countries and affects largely to that reported as news around the world.
The criteria for news reporting of an event must be objective and requires that two conditions are met - objectivity and impartiality.
Requirement of objectivity requires that financial statements must be true and consistent with reality. The news reported must also have relevance, which means that the event is given a reasonable novelty space. This is important to avoid excesses that could mislead the reader.
The requirement of impartiality in turn means that the news release should not take a position on the hen must be objective. As a condition of objectivity is that there must be a balance between the different parties' approach. The balance also means that no material facts must be silenced. That news provision should be neutral means that the journalist must not take a position for a party, for example, in a conflict.
Information vs. propaganda
The media contains both information and propaganda. To see the difference between them can be difficult because the boundaries are not always clear.
Information is often about information and facts of various kinds. But since someone first made a selection and decided the information or facts that should be included as are almost all the information biased in one way or another.
Propaganda is, on the other hand, a method used to deliberately influence us to like something in a particular issue. Propaganda is also used to strengthen a certain idea or make it more widely accepted. Users of propaganda often do it in a form so that it looks like the information. If people became aware that they were reading was propaganda, they would probably get bored pretty soon.
Advocacy
Advocacy means that opinions are formed of individuals and groups. Opinions are possible by people communicate and thereby changing thoughts and opinions. Our views are affected by the following factors:
• The environment: Who we are communicating with, what environment we are in and what culture we have.
• Importance: The more important question for us is the stronger opinions, we are likely to have.
• Competence: If we have great knowledge of the subject, we usually also have their own opinions on the matter.
• Opinion leaders: People who influence public opinion. When a famous person expresses itself in a question often formed an opinion of people who think the same
• multipliers: People who are closer to the individual. These people therefore affect people on a more personal level. Some examples of multipliers is an acquaintance, a local politician and your boss.
You get daily loads of information via the media. Therefore, it is important to understand how the media works. Who sends the message? Who is responsible for the content?
Media literacy refers to the mass media and their function in society. Free media is an important tool for democracy because mass media disseminates knowledge, news and information that affects you and everyone around you.
Journalism
The journalist's task is to review and inform. For newspapers, it is important not to become a mouthpiece of politicians, officials and interest groups, but instead provide different perspectives on a problem.
The media does not offer any absolute truths from any higher, unidentifiable source. As important as it is for journalists to take a critical view to sources, it is for you as a reader to relate questioning before the information in the media. In order to distinguish between good and questionable information you can check the source credibility, trustworthiness, fairness and references by considering the following questions:
• Who is the sender? Is it the newspaper or radio / TV news or own News? Do they have a correspondent in place or have they got the material by someone else? Is it one of the paper's journalists who have written, or a freelancer?
• Where are the pictures? Are they taken now or it is archival images? An example: After the events of September 11th 2001, when hijacked planes flew into the World Trade Center in New York, some television news showed Palestinians who romped and were happy. When a reporter went there it turned out that the people who had been filmed were excited for something completely different and their joy had nothing to do with the terrorist attacks. The video clip was taken out of its proper context and used to "see" something that is not at all true
• What choices have been made? You should conduct yourself critical to the selection of news made. Why have you chosen to publish this news do you think? Who is it that makes a statement? Who is making the statement will of course affect how events are described
News media
How do we find out news? In the 1950s, people read the morning newspaper, listened to the radio, spoke briefly on the phone and talked to the neighbor. Some of these media are still used. In the 1970s and 1980s television and evening and magazines were added. Today, we have the Internet and mobile phones as key media news.
When people talk about the news media have often newspapers a prominent role. We usually distinguish between different types of magazines. But all the news is not mediated through newspapers. A lot we take in through radio, television and the Internet.
What is news?
What is news and what factors affect the selection? Mass media scholars say that the media primarily concentrates on people, dramatic events and confrontations between different parties.
Examples of people's business leaders, politicians, famous persons in authority, movie stars and other celebrities. These people are valued either as interesting in themselves or as representatives of a certain opinion, certain group of people or a particular interest issue that the news media focuses on.
A dramatic turn of events could be an accident, attack, war or something unexpected happened
But it is obviously not so simple that an event is interesting only because it contains a famous person, something dramatic has happened or a confrontation. Even more crucial is it that media scholars call the principles of proximity.
The principles of proximity says that an event is more interesting for the reader if it is close in time, space and hens own life situation. What controls what we perceive as an interesting novelty is thus of how close the event is in time, how we identify with it and how close to us the unfolding geographically.
Great news agencies
You can see where a newspaper have downloaded their news because the news agency often stand by as a source. Some of the world's largest news agencies are:
• AP (Associated Press, United States)
• UPI (United Press International, USA)
• Reuters (UK)
• AFP (Agence France Press, France)
These four news agencies deliver to most international news and employ thousands of people. They often have branches in all the world countries and affects largely to that reported as news around the world.
The criteria for news reporting of an event must be objective and requires that two conditions are met - objectivity and impartiality.
Requirement of objectivity requires that financial statements must be true and consistent with reality. The news reported must also have relevance, which means that the event is given a reasonable novelty space. This is important to avoid excesses that could mislead the reader.
The requirement of impartiality in turn means that the news release should not take a position on the hen must be objective. As a condition of objectivity is that there must be a balance between the different parties' approach. The balance also means that no material facts must be silenced. That news provision should be neutral means that the journalist must not take a position for a party, for example, in a conflict.
Information vs. propaganda
The media contains both information and propaganda. To see the difference between them can be difficult because the boundaries are not always clear.
Information is often about information and facts of various kinds. But since someone first made a selection and decided the information or facts that should be included as are almost all the information biased in one way or another.
Propaganda is, on the other hand, a method used to deliberately influence us to like something in a particular issue. Propaganda is also used to strengthen a certain idea or make it more widely accepted. Users of propaganda often do it in a form so that it looks like the information. If people became aware that they were reading was propaganda, they would probably get bored pretty soon.
Advocacy
Advocacy means that opinions are formed of individuals and groups. Opinions are possible by people communicate and thereby changing thoughts and opinions. Our views are affected by the following factors:
• The environment: Who we are communicating with, what environment we are in and what culture we have.
• Importance: The more important question for us is the stronger opinions, we are likely to have.
• Competence: If we have great knowledge of the subject, we usually also have their own opinions on the matter.
• Opinion leaders: People who influence public opinion. When a famous person expresses itself in a question often formed an opinion of people who think the same
• multipliers: People who are closer to the individual. These people therefore affect people on a more personal level. Some examples of multipliers is an acquaintance, a local politician and your boss.