Images in the Media

Images in the Media

          The United States has found itself falling victim to the growingly more frequent cyber attacks and hacking of confidential information via the Internet in the recent years. In these cyber attacks, or cyber terrorism, corporate, private, and government information is being extracted by tech-savvy individuals. While the first thought of the public citizen is to think that American hackers are behind these breaches in cyber safety, upon review of the IP addresses of the computers used for hacking, it is in fact the Chinese who are organizing these attacks.

          In the New York Times article that announced this discovery, there is an image of a Chinese skyscraper in which the majority of the cyber attacks takes place. This image provides the U.S. citizens who read the article a sense of reality regarding the cyber attacks. When most people think of hacking, they imagine a scrawny man in thick glasses living in his mothers dark basement sitting in front of a giant computer screen. The image provided by New York Times, however, allows the reality of an organized hacking scheme to set it. The image shows an ordinary building, not much different than the ones that millions of Americans work in day to day. This image provides for the reader a supplemental rhetoric that further enhances the conflict of the organized Chinese hacking attempts against United States and the security of confidential information on the web.

          In addition to the New York Times article that outlines the Chinese attempts to hack U.S. information an the image that presents Chinese hacking as an organized, everyday 9-to-5 job, an article on News 24 provides a different image of hacking. The article, which is centered around the same premise as the New York Times article, shows an image of a keyboard with a pirate skull and bones flag in the background. This image attributes a much more volatile and destructive characteristic of cyber attacks. When people see a pirate flag, we often think if the terms “rape,” “pillage,” and “plunder.” While the ordinary person does not attribute the Internet as a medium for such activity, this image reflects the idea that technology can be used for such acts as pirating and harming others.

          Both the New York Times image and the News 24 image provide the reader with an emotional response to Chinese hacking efforts against the United States. The New York Times image, however, strikes the reader as more revealing and shocking, as it is ordinary Chinese business folk that are executing cyber attacks. The News 24 image, on the other hand, provides the reader with a sense of danger that surrounds the Internet. While both these responses are negative in their portrayal of cyber attacks, they are vastly different in their intended specific responses. While the New York Times image acts to be revealing, the News 24 image acts to be slandering.

          Images in the media are used to various degrees of effectiveness and purposes. In these two images that support the articles about Chinese cyber attacks against the United States, both images are effective in evoking a response in the reader. Images are very powerful tools in rhetoric, and both the New York Times and News 24 used specific images to support their purpose.

Taking an Approach

          In Harris's chapter, "Taking an Approach," he introduces the idea of how to dissect a piece of writing and make it your own. He outlines two basic methods of taking an approach. The first method, the one which he describes as "weak," merely involves accepting the work of others as correct and following in the footsteps of their writing. He describes this method as adopting, rather than adapting. By adopting a piece of writing, there is little, if any, room for expansion of an idea or growth of a work.  The second method of taking an approach, and the preferred method by Harris, is to challenge the piece of writing and push it to further limits. By taking this approach, a writer is able to examine a text, analyze its strengths and weaknesses, and respond by providing an argument that acts to further the conversation. In the daily media that we all subscribe to, whether it be twitter, facebook, CNN, or the New York Times, writers are constantly taking an approach to some sort of news story or event and challenging it. On Twitter, people constantly are responding to other tweets, providing argument for or against some sort of story. In the New York Times, writers, while still providing a reliable and clear news story, insert their own personal argument to the stories they write, and often times counter what is said by other writers for different news sources.While in the New York Times it is not always clear where the approach is taken, it is much more obvious in blogs. In the blog that I have been following, Hullabaloo, the posts are clearly written with a certain approach to them. They challenge the statements made by conservatives and argue them false or flawed, then provide personal argument for the "correct" way of thinking. By taking an approach that challenges a piece of writing, conversation is maintained and continued, allowing discussion of a story to virtually never end.

Countering

          Countering is another useful tool that Harris outlines and describes in his book. Similar to his idea of forwarding, which was presented as a method to expand conversations through individualized input, countering serves the purpose to respond to a piece of writing and "move a conversation to new directions." While both ideas attempt to redirect or explore new perspectives of a text, countering focuses more on a direct reader response and the formulation of an argument, whereas forwarding is all about infusing personal views into an already active conversation. Countering can be used to show an opposition to a text, or it can be used to show agreement. When used as a method of challenging a piece of writing, countering often tends to be more persuasive than the original text because of the fact that the countering argument points out weaknesses in the original. Countering is used by all sort of members in the media world, particularly those of bloggers. Because of the personal nature of blogs and the almost instantaneous response times, blogs serve as the perfect culture countering. When a blogger posts something politically charged or emotional, responders will often counter an argument in the comments section, fact-checking and exposing the author's argument.
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/03/opinion/sunday/dangerous-gun-myths.html?_r=1&
In this example of countering, the author of this piece counters the argument of Gayle Trotter, a right-wing politician who claims that an assault weapons ban will actually endanger women and children. The author of this piece looks to expose her argument by bringing to light studies that refute her claims. In the comments section of this article, we see even more countering being performed by the readers of this article, showing that countering serves as a method to continue conversation as well as produce argument.

Forwarding

          In Harris's chapter, "Forwarding," he speaks of the concept that he has deemed "forwarding." To Harris, forwarding is the methods by which media and information are transfered from one person to another. He contends that each person who receives information then in turn recirculates the information by adding to it a new perspective or approach. Forwarding is the means by which all news is transmitted. When the government passes a law or is stuck in gridlock, that information is then forwarded by different news sites to readers and viewers, each source putting their own spin on the reason why Congress is gridlocked. We see this process of forwarding everyday when we read or watch news. FoxNews forwards information with a conservative spin, while MSNBC forwards information with a liberal spin. Forwarding is also utilized by more than just news site. People everyday pull information from a text and incorporate it into discussion and offering their own perspective. Forwarding is a method of expansion and exploring more realms of an already conceived idea or story. One example of a blog post that forwards information is here
http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2013/02/who-does-political-class-listen-to-new.html
This blog forwards information about studies done on the upper-class and their political ideologies. While no particular party affiliation is found through the studies, the author of this post makes the connection that the upper-class listens to the "Market Gods, or the intelligent human beings who invest their money in them." The author draws from previous information, analyzes it, and adds his own to the discussion.

          Jeff Jarvis' blog post about the press-sphere was rather confusing to read. After multiple reads and re-reads, what I have come to understand as the press-sphere is this. The press-sphere is the methods by which information reaches the people. Many years ago, before the advancements of technology, the press-sphere was more like a flow chart. Information happened. The press wrote about it. People read it in a newspaper. Nowadays, a complex system, that Jarvis refers to as the press-sphere, exists, which takes into account much more than just the archaic form of newspapers. He describes the press-sphere today as a compilation of data, sources, observers, government, witnesses, archives, and companies, all of which, when added together, create a news story. In other words, the press-sphere includes everything that exists regarding a news story. That could include reports from different news reporters, different news outlets, data collected by scientists, movies or documentaries about the event. The reader today can literally immerse themselves in a single new story and never run out of new material, because everyone will take a different perspective on the event. While this may seem confusing, most people take part in it in their daily lives without paying any attention to it. The fact that people pick and choose which news site the visit is actively taking part in the press-sphere. When I read the New York Times or Huffington Post, I am choosing certain outlets in the press-sphere over others because of the political bias associated with them. Covering the same news story and in the same press-sphere are many other outlets that share a viewpoint I do not care to read.

The New York Times

          Throughout this quarter I have been reading the New York Times almost daily. Prior to this class, I rarely, if ever, found my way to the New York Times website to read any of the news stories that were posted there. However, after this quarter, I believe that I will continue to read the New York Times. I have found that the articles posted on the website are highly relavant to the current events of the world and the politics of the United States. Many, if not most, of the articles that are on the front page of the website are centered around the political landscape of the United States and the debates that currently happening within Congress. This is very interesting for me because I am highly enjoy being in the loop when it comes to politics. As well as the political basis surrounding many of the articles on the New York Times website, most of the articles are presented from a left-wing standpoint or bias. This also pleases me because I identify with the liberal, left-wing democrats. Although I enjoy the left-sided arguments that the New York Times presents, this does allow for certain aspects of debates to be ignored. For example, when talking about gun control, a highly controversial and debated argument, the anti-gun control side of the debate is often times underrepresented in the New York Times articles. While this poses no problem for me, for some readers who enjoy a more centralist viewpoint, this may poses an issue. Because I have started to read the New York Times, I have become more educated and involved in political debates, even more so than before.

     The news business today is incredibly versatile in its delivery system to the public. While the news used to be confined to the network television channels and the daily paper, people today can read up on the latest news or watch some form of a news program at virtually any moment during the day. The rise of the Internet has led to a surplus of news outlets including blogs, facebook, twitter, Yahoo, Google, and the list goes on. Despite these endless possibilities of sources and outlets for people to get their news from, we tend to only check one or two of these outlets. This is because each outlet for news caters to a certain demographic, a phenomenon of the 21st century. A hard right republican may only read Fox news, a far left democrat may only read MSNBC. An elderly person may only read AARP, while a teenager may only read MTV or VH1 news. Personally, I typically gather my current events and news from two, sometimes three outlets. The first and foremost, most common and frequent news site which I read is the Comcast homepage. Perhaps this is because I grew up with this as my Internet provider and therefor my homepage, but multiple times a day I read the news via this outlet. Almost daily as well is the New York Times. I browse the different articles and whatever catches my attention I read, usually politics and sports. Occasionally, maybe two or three times a week, I watch television shows such as the Colbert Report and The Daily Show for news. Although these are comedy show on a comedy network, they present news in an easier, more accessible format than many other television news stations. With these three outlets for my news, I like to think that I stay relatively current on the news and events that are happening around me.