In Today's Society, reality is constructed through media which is influenced by many large corporations. Large corporations disguise their marketing intention and present only the positive factors of their product in order to attract consumers. A good example of this is the documentary film, "The Corporation," by Mark Achbar and Jennifer Abbott, where it explains how 9/11 was a bless in disguise, corporations use a new marketing tool called, "undercover marketing," and how Monsanto sold their product by hiding the negative side effects of the product.
In 2011, September 11th, the chaos occurred. The twin towers in U.S. has been destroyed by a hijacked plane. All media broadcast the chaos in the city and the two destroyed towers day after day. However, the thing that media did not broadcast was the price of the gold. The corporation seduced the media not to broadcast the soaring price for gold, and only to broadcast the horrifying incident, because if people find out about the price of gold is going up crazy, then the large corporations would lose a lot of money. Thus, the film explained the 9/11 as a "bless in disguise," and how corporations controlled the media to hide the truth behind the terrifying incident, by broadcasting same disastrous event over and over again.
Another reason of how corporation influence how the reality is constructed through media, is by undercover marketing. Consumers do not realize they are being marketed to. For example, a marketing company might pay an actor or socially adept person to use a certain product visibly and convincingly in locations where target consumers congregate. While there, the actor will also talk up their product to people they befriend in that location, even handing out samples. The actor will often be able to sell consumers on their product without those consumers even realizing that they are being marketed to. This is a one of the major factor how corporation influence the media to construct the reality for the consumers.
Another example of how corporation construct reality, is an event of Bovine Growth Hormone. Monsanto, one of big corporation had a product, milk, that had terrible effects on humans. The hormone within the milk that Monsanto sold, could give a person a cancer. Fox News reporters found out about this shocking secret, and tried to air this false claims of Monsanto's milk. However, Monsanto threatened the Fox News, and Fox News, which knew that they will lose money, agreed that they will not air the terrible side effects of Monsanto's milk, and fired their reporters. This incident demonstrates how corporations control the media for their own goods and set the reality for consumers where consumers only believe what they see through the media. By hiding the harmful effects of Monsanto's products, consumers, not knowing, will buy their products., which then the corporation will gain more and more power and money.
In conclusion, the reality that consumers see through media is controlled by bigger and stronger corporations that only broadcast and promote the positive factors of their product and consumers will believe what they are seeing through media and buys the product, not knowing what they bought might be not that safe at all.
The ABC News is owned by Walt Disney Company and The Huffington Post is owned by Arianna Huffington, Kenneth Lerer, and Jonah Peretti. Based on these information, bias of ABC News might be to persuade the reader to read their article with some fascinating, not-always-true facts. The editorial decisions of this article would be influenced by a need-to-stay-in-business, thus they might make the article more dramatic, such as wording of the topics, in order to make the article interest enough for the reader to buy it. Furthermore, there is a reputation in the ABC News, therefore this article would be seen by a wide audience. For the bias of Huffington Post, it might be that the media is actually trying to make the reader aware of what is happening around them, society, and the world because the article is self-published. They probably have many truthful facts about the article's topic, and most likely, the article was not created in order to make profits, but to give benefits to readers, because it is unlikely to be influenced by advertisers. The Huffington Post would probably seize a smaller audience compare to The ABC News, thus the reputation might be more depends on the quality of articles the media produces.
The ABC News article explicitly says that the Earth is at the risk of becoming destroyed, due to stronger and faster warming. The cause of the global warming is surely humans, and the solution for the global warming is to trust the people who have decades of experience who are saying that global warming is caused by humans, and also to reduce the carbon emissions. The Huffington Post article explicitly states that young generations, such as students, are taking initiative and fighting the climate change by all sorts of different, small yet effective solutions. This article states that younger generation might be more capable of fighting the man-made climate change than adults.
The ABC News article implicitly demonstrates that one of the causes of global warming is not all people living in the planet but, Australia with its carbon emissions and unclean energy source. Also in the article, it says that "science is being muddied in the media by many with no credentials," and also that we "need to get beyond the fruitless phony debate in the media." The ABC News is a mainstream media, and by stating this sentences, it promotes that The ABC News is a trustworthy media that contains actual facts and truths and other media are not "believable." The Huffington Post article implicitly says that adults should learn from younger generations about taking initiative towards global warming that was created by older generations. The article also shows how a normal people can save their planet from global warming by doing easy things, such as recycling and plating trees.
ABC News
The report warns global warming could cause global sea
levels to rise up to one metre by the end of the century.
Huffington Post
Getty: A child holds a poster during a demonstration urging
stricter controls on carbon emissions on December 1, 2010 in Denver, Colorado.
In the ABC News, voices of directors, professors and scientists who commission climate and global warming. ABC only included people who are related to government and media an excluded average and everyday people. The article only included high-class people to speak about the whole issues about global warming and climate change, and mid and low-class people are excluded in this article. In Huffington Post, voices of many different people, but related to the topic, are heard. Boston Latin student, other mainstream media such as New York Times, and the founder of the organization are included in this article. The Huffington Post excluded people who are closely related to the government, and also excluded people who are professors, scientists, and board commissioners. This article probably selected people who are actually related to the global warming and the corporation which is fighting against climate change.
If the message from the ABC News article is accepted, then the media is benefiting, because they are making the article "good" to persuade the consumers to buy the article. Also the Australia will disadvantage if the message is accepted, because the article states that Australia needs to decarbonize its economy. If this is accepted, then it might mean that Australia is a country with bad environment. On the other hand, the Huffington Post article, us, the consumer, benefits from this message, because the article is not trying to sell their company, but to make people recognize the global warming and how dangerous it is.
The ABC News source seems to be dedicated only a little to its article, because, even though it talks about global warming, but the media over exaggerates the story, such as the impact of global warming, to make the consumers to buy their article to learn more about the issue and the solution. On the other hand, the Huffington Post seems to be much more dedicated to its article, because the article just states what the problem is, and give examples of how to solve the problem. It also influence the reader to take action on saving planet Earth from global warming and climate change.
Concerns raised over shooting of unarmed bin Laden
By Erik Kirschbaum and Jonathan Thatcher
BERLIN/SINGAPORE — The killing of Osama bin Laden when he was unarmed has raised concerns the United States may have gone too far in acting as policeman, judge and executioner of the world's most wanted man.
"He was the head of al Qaeda, an organization that had conducted the attacks of September the 11th," Holder said. "The operation against bin Laden was justified as an act of national self-defense.But Attorney General Eric Holder, the No. 1 U.S. law enforcement officer, told a U.S. Senate committee on Wednesday that the killing of the al Qaeda leader was legal.
"It's lawful to target an enemy commander in the field. We did so, for instance, with regard to Yamamoto in World War II, when he was shot down in a plane," Holder said.
Even if bin Laden had tried to surrender, "there would be a good basis on the part of those very brave Navy SEAL team members to do what they did in order to protect themselves and the other people who were in that building," Holder said.
Former West German Chancellor Helmut Schmidt told German TV the operation could have incalculable consequences in the Arab world at a time of unrest there. "It was quite clearly a violation of international law."
This was a view echoed by high-profile Australian human rights lawyer Geoffrey Robertson.
"It's not justice. It's a perversion of the term. Justice means taking someone to court, finding them guilty upon evidence and sentencing them," Robertson told Australian Broadcasting Corp. television from London.
"This man has been subject to summary execution, and what is now appearing after a good deal of disinformation from the White House is it may well have been a cold-blooded assassination."
THE LAST THING HE WANTED
Robertson said bin Laden should have stood trial, just as World War Two Nazis were tried at Nuremberg or former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic was put on trial at the war crimes tribunal in The Hague after his arrest in 2001.
"The last thing he wanted was to be put on trial, to be convicted and to end his life in a prison farm in upstate New York. What he wanted was exactly what he got -- to be shot in mid-jihad and get a fast track to paradise and the Americans have given him that."
Gert-Jan Knoops, a Dutch-based international law specialist, said bin Laden should have been arrested and extradited to the United States. "The Americans say they are at war with terrorism and can take out their opponents on the battlefield," Knoops said. "But in a strictly formal sense, this argument does not stand up."
A senior Muslim cleric in New Delhi, Syed Ahmed Bukhari, said U.S. troops could have easily captured bin Laden.
"America is promoting jungle rule everywhere, whether in Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan or Libya. People have remained silent for long but now it has crossed all limits."
John Bellinger III, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations and a legal adviser to the Secretary of State in the George W. Bush administration, said killing bin Laden was lawful under both U.S. and international law.
"The U.S. government's legal rationale will be similar to arguments used by both the Bush and Obama administration to justify drone strikes against other al Qaeda leaders in Pakistan and elsewhere," he wrote in a post on the council's website on Monday. "The Authorization to Use Military Force Act of September 18, 2001, authorizes the president to use 'all necessary and appropriate force' against persons who authorized, planned, or committed the 9/11 attacks."
Bellinger also wrote that the killing was not prohibited by a U.S. executive order barring assassinations. "The executive branch will also argue that the action was permissible under international law both as a permissible use of force in the U.S. armed conflict with al Qaeda and as a legitimate action in self-defense, given that bin Laden was clearly planning additional attacks."
BURIAL AT SEA A CONCERN
For several Muslim leaders, the more unsettling issue was whether the al Qaeda leader's burial at sea was contrary to Islamic practice.
His body was taken to an aircraft carrier where U.S. officials said it was buried at sea and in accordance with Islamic rites.
Saudi Sheikh Abdul Mohsen Al-Obaikan, an adviser to the Saudi Royal Court, said: "That is not the Islamic way. The Islamic way is to bury the person in land (if he has died on land) like all other people."
Amidhan, a member of Indonesia's Ulema Council (MUI), the highest Islamic authority in the world's biggest Muslim society, said he was more concerned about the burial than the killing.
"Burying someone in the ocean needs an extraordinary situation. Is there one?," he told Reuters.
"If the U.S. can't explain that, then it appears just like dumping an animal and that means there is no respect for the man ... and what they did can incite more resentment among Osama's supporters."
BBC
Osama Bin Laden's killing in Pakistan lawful, says US
US Attorney General Eric Holder: "His killing was appropriate"
The US attorney general has said al-Qaeda leader Osama Bin Laden was a lawful military target whose killing was "an act of national self-defence".
Eric Holder told a Senate committee that Bin Laden had made no attempt to surrender.
The US has acknowledged that Bin Laden was unarmed when shot dead in Monday's raid by US special forces in Pakistan.
Meanwhile, the White House has decided not to release photos of the dead Bin Laden.
Two couriers and one woman also died in Monday's assault, while one of Bin Laden's wives was injured.
"If he had surrendered, attempted to surrender, I think we should obviously have accepted that, but there was no indication that he wanted to do that and therefore his killing was appropriate,"
Mr Holder told the Senate Judiciary Committee.
Critics have raised concerns about the legality of the operation.
SightseersWashington has revised its account after initially saying Bin Laden was shot while taking part in a firefight as US Navy Seals stormed the compound.
Two telephone numbers and 500 Euros ($745; £450) were found stitched into Bin Laden's clothing in case he needed to make a quick getaway, says the BBC's Mark Mardell in Washington.
President Barack Obama, who watched the raid from the White House on monitors, saw his approval rating jump 11 points to 57% in a New York Times/CBS News poll on Wednesday.
He plans to visit the World Trade Center site in New York on Thursday to remember victims of the 11 September attacks, of which Bin Laden was said to have been the mastermind.
The Pakistani military has confirmed that it is holding survivors of the US special forces operation.
They were being kept at secret locations in the cities of Rawalpindi and Islamabad, said Pakistan army spokesman Maj Gen Athar Abbas.
Some of the survivors were being treated for bullet wounds that were serious but not life-threatening, he added.
The BBC's Aleem Maqbool says the compound where the raid unfolded has now become a sightseers' attraction.
There is an ice-cream vendor outside and children selling what they claim is wreckage from a US helicopter, which the Americans said they blew up after it apparently malfunctioned during the operation.
2. What does the source say explicitly about the story? Give a summary.
3. What voices are included? What voices are excluded?
4. Consider how the following are constructed: Bin Laden, Obama, the U.S., Pakistan, other countries (if applicable). Consider the adjectives and other language used, the placement of information in the text (e.g. what is said first, second, etc.,) the images used.
5. Who benefits if the implied message is accepted? Who may be disadvantaged? Explain.
6. How much of the news source seems to be dedicated to this story? Give an approximate percentage. What are other stories about?
Answers:
1. MSNBC is owned by U.S., and BBC is owned by Canada.
2. MSNBC says that shooting of unarmed Osama Bin Laden is justified as an act of national self-defense and the killing of the Al Qaeda leader was legal. BBC explicitly says the same thing as MSNBC, saying that the killing of the Al Qaeda leader Osama Bin Laden, was a lawful military target whose killing was "an act of national self-defense."
3. For both MSNBC and MMC, voices of police, attorney, lawyer, President Obama, Senate, Committee, and NAVY SEAL team members (from U.S.) are included and voices of Pakistan, Muslim, and Al Qaeda are excluded in the articles.
4. Bin Laden is constructed, in both articles, as a person with evil characteristics and the "bad guy" who deserved to die. In both articles, Bin Laden is constructed as the mastermind and he's death is justified, because of his authorization of 9/11. This support the evilness of Bin Laden. Obama is constructed as a hero who saved the world from the great threat of Al Qaeda, because of his speech on the death of Bin Laden. With him saying, "Justice has been done," Obama has earned the respect from everyone in U.S.. The U.S. is constructed in a way that other people sees it as a very strong country, because the articles mention the word, "U.S.," a lot, for example like, "U.S. special forces in Pakistan...," "U.S. Navy Seals stormed...," and, "U.S. senate committee legalized...." These help with convincing the audience that U.S. is a powerful and good country. Pakistan is constructed as a bad place, because the articles keep connecting Pakistan with Bin Laden, and Al Qaeda. On the other hand, Pakistan is also constructed as a hero like U.S., because in BBC article, it mentions that Pakistan army supported U.S. special forces.
5. President Barack Obama would benefit from this implied message if accepted, because then President Barack Obama will have advantage for up-coming election for new President of U.S. Furthermore, Muslim will may be disadvantaged if the implied message is accepted, because now the leader of Al Qaeda died, therefore the people around the globe will once again recognize the Muslim societies, and would probably look at them stereotypically.
6. News source seems to be about 90% dedicated to this story, because this topic has been on-going and was on front page of newspapers for more than a week. And there are many different issues within this story, such as "Was it necessary to kill Bin Laden?" and, "Is Bin Laden really dead or is U.S. lying?"
Moore attempts to contrast montage of the U.S. with the attitude prevailing in Canada, where he states that gun ownership is at similar levels to the U.S. He illustrates his thesis by visiting neighborhoods in Canada near the Canada-U.S. border, where he finds front doors unlocked and much less concern over crime and security. Moore travels across the U.S. with forays to our neighbour to the north, to try to get to the bottom of the burning question: Why does the United States have a murder rate of over 11000 per year when Canada, for example, has a higher rate of unemployment, seven million guns shared among ten million households, and has a kill ratio that is a small fraction of that in the U.S.? An animated history of America hilariously skewers America's national blood lust, while providing a neat segue to his most cogent exploration and contrast - that of fear in America and the vast difference between the United States and Canada, where seven million guns are present in ten million households but murder is practically nonexistent. Moore states that Canada is a place where people are unconcern of crimes, but this is very untrue. Canada does have high unemployment rates and owns more than seven million guns. However, the reason why Canada has a small fraction of kill ratio compared to the U.S. is because Canada does not have the "national blood lust," like in America. If you look at Canada's history, there was not any controversial events or incidents that built more fear of foreigners. Also Canada is a multicultural country, therefore, there is less anxiety of racial discrimination in comparison to the United States, where racial discrimination is a huge issue, just like in this film.
Gregory "Greg" Parker: Caucasian, crisis negotiator, prefers situations to be resolved through dialogue instead of lethal force, caring, peaceful
Ed Lane (Protagonist of the episode): Caucasian, tactical leader, best sniper, has emotions, struggles between lethal force and negotiating with words
Julianna "Jules" Callaghan: Caucasian, intelligence gatherer, stereotypical "woman cop," trained sniper, and does not like back-stabbing
Sam Braddock: Caucasian, believes lethal force is the solution instead of using dialogue, protectiveness
Kevin "Wordy" Wordsworth: Caucasian, team's entry, CQB expert
Michaelangelo "Spike" Scarletti: Caucasian, demolitions and tactical tech expert
The enraged man (Antagonist of the episode): Foreigner, does not speak english, has bad temper and behaviour issues
The hostage: typical woman worker, Caucasian
THE CHICAGO CODE:
Jarek Wysocki (Protagonist): a tough Chicago Polish-American homicide detective, legendary figure in the department, macho, hates profanity, intimated with his family issues
Teresa Covin (Protagonist): Caucasian female police superintendent, very tough and ambitious, unafraid to challenge, incompetent
Caleb Evers: a young Caucasian homicide detective, Jarek's partner, good observational skills
Vonda Wysocki: a rookie police officer, caring, kind, Jarek's niece
Isaac Joiner: black, a young and ambitious officer, hot-shot, partner with Vonda Wysocki, caring
Alderman Ronin Gibbons: a black Chicago alderman, most influential figure, kind, respectful, wise
Criminals: all of them are either black or different nationalities.
The significant differences between these shows are that in "The Chicago Code," characters are more racially diverse and stereotyped, such as the criminals. In "Flashpoint," most of main and important characters are Caucasians, however in "The Chicago Code," some important characters are black. These are the significant differences between these two shows.
I would prefer to watch "The Chicago Code," because the racial diversity is more realistic compare to the real life, and also the characters have different characteristics and issues that can be related to people living in real-life. The "Flashpoint"do have some realistic parts to it, such as the emotions (ex. guilt) that Ed Lane felt after he shot the enraged man. However, the stereotypes in this show is too unrealistic, because not every characters who are good is Caucasians and bad characters are not always foreigners.
I believe that the "Flashpoint" has some parts that makes it distinctly Canadian, such as the setting of the show. The episode takes place in Canada, because in one scene, you can clearly see the CN Tower. This also applies to "The Chicago Code." The Chicago Code takes place in most likely in US, because of the feeling of Ghetto-ness in the episode. However, the general concept of the two shows are essentially same, because both of them deals with very strong stereotypes and somewhat diversity.
American audiences would enjoy watching the "Flashpoint," because the general story flow is essentially close to the US shows, and even though the settings of the show is in Canada, the general concept of the show is not that distinctly Canadian, therefore American audiences would be entertained watching the "Flashpoint."
