CHAPTER 7  Assumptions "NOW THIS….."

FUNDAMENTAL ASSUMPTIONS

1. Television news presents a de-contextualized view of reality where the conjunction "now this" is used to create the illusion that the stream of discourse is orderly, coherent, and understandable.

2. On television whether the audience perceives the presenter of the news to be attractive, sincere, congenial, vulnerable and so forth is more important as a basis for judgment that the truth or falsity or the substance of the message?

3. Televised "news" is a stylized dramatic performance whose content has been staged largely to entertain.

4. Television is altering our "sense of what it means to be well informed".

5. If "all understanding begins with our not understanding the world as it appears" than finding and uncovering contradiction is a key to understanding?

6. To discover contradiction one must have a understanding of the context of the message.

7. In the discontinuous decontextualized view of reality offered by television contradiction can not be used as a criteria for judging the truth, validity, or merit of a message.

8. The epistemology of television foster a audience which "knows of the world" but knows little "about the world".

9. The "supra-ideology" which governs television influenced mother modes of public discourse thus creating a new media-metaphor for the age -the age of entertain.

10. Americans are among the most ill-informed people in the world, to be sure we know of many things,but we know about very little.

CHAPTER 7 Discussion Questions "NOW THIS ... "

DISCUSSION QUESTIONS

1. What is "now this" world view?

2. What does it mean to say that television news is de-contextualized?

3. How does audiences impression of the person presenting the news Influence their impressions of the news?

4. It is suggested that "on television credibility replaces reality as the decisive test-of truth-telling". What does that mean?

5. What is meant by the credibility of a newspresenter?

6. You are the producer of a television news show how would you manage the form and content of the news in order to attract and keep viewers?

7. You are the producer of a television news show, how would you manage the form and content of the news in order to foster understanding, reflection and insight?

8. It is suggested that television news shows entertain but they do not inform, what does it mean to be "informed"?

9. What is the relationship between understanding and contradiction, between context and contraction, between television and context, and therefore, between understanding and television?

10. In what way does the form of television influence the form and content of other mediums of communication such as newspapers, magazines, and public discourse on radio?

11. What is an information environment called "trivial pursuit" and how does television news contribute to this environment?

12. Americans may be increasingly relying on newsmagazines and mini-series for their current and historical information about the world. In defending the historical inaccuracies in a mini-series an writer remarked "it is better for audiences to learn something that is untrue, if it is entertaining, than not to learn anything at all." Agree/Disagree