“Atticus–” said Jem bleakly. He turned in the doorway. “What, son?” “How could they do it, how could they?” “I don’t know, but they did it. They’ve done it before and they did it tonight and they’ll do it again and when they do it — seems that only children weep.” -- To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee Now I told you that my weekly posts were going to be part of the theme of things I'm currently digging. I'm deciding to opt out of that this week. Instead I'm going to post a variety of articles about Ferguson. If you haven't been following the news recently, on August 9th, 18 year old Michael Brown was murdered by a cop, Darren Wilson in Ferguson Missouri. Brown was unarmed. Last night, the grand jury's verdict came out. They chose to not indict Darren Wilson for this crimes. For killing another human being, he's not even facing a trial. Protests turned violent last night. I'm not excusing violence, but I also understand why it happened. Last night, the media were treated as the criminal and not the man who pulled the trigger. This is something I will never understand. I will not hide my political views on this blog. I don't think this should be political. This is a matter of civil rights and whether or not we can have faith in our justice system. So go ahead. Read up. The Meaning of the Ferguson Riots Bad Americans Can't Stop Weeping Over This Messed Up Convenience Store It's Incredibly Rare for a Grand Jury to do What Ferguson's Just Did Here's What Happens to Police Officers Who Shoot Unarmed Black Men Ferguson: No Charges for Officer in Michael Brown's Death Full Transcript of the Grand Jury Activists Explain Why The Mike Brown Shooting is a Feminist Issue Watch Melissa Harris-Perry Interview an 11-year-old Ferguson Activist I'll post more articles as I find them. I hope you all have a peaceful Thanksgiving. My heart is broken and I am outraged. This is why we fight to make changes. I suppose I also wrote a paper for a journalism course tonight and I'll just copy and paste that shit here because I'm technologically inept. Communication Inequalities and Social Justice
by Courtney Blake It is hard to argue that one semester in Mass Media Effects has given me a true and full understanding of the effects of our mediated world. This introductory course to the world I plan to spend the rest of my life in has proved that our media are as complicated as the people who consume it. I think any researcher is beyond the point of believing media do not impact our behaviors, intentions, and beliefs in some way, though the levels in which we are affected vary. It is also impossible to say media effects are entirely positive or negative; this is all relative to the content and theories being applied. The Knowledge Gap Hypothesis and communication inequalities have served as an explanation to me for many varying effects in mass media, and I think they are imperative in understanding how our society and media interact. The perspective that acknowledges knowledge and information are not equally distributed across populations, The Knowledge Gap Hypothesis, was developed by Viswanath and Finnegan. Their continued research suggests media have divergent impacts on audiences based on socioeconomic status. The flow of information is more likely to benefit higher socioeconomic groups, creating an unfillable gap in lower socioeconomic groups. Any media campaigns or coverage will only perpetuate inequalities within our world, and within our abilities to communicate, connect, and progress. From the Knowledge Gap Hypothesis, communication inequalities are defined as differences in social groups’ ability to access, attend to, process, retain, and act on certain information. These differences exist on individual levels and on group and institutional levels, making this potentially dangerous. The worry is that media messages that are meant to be positive may only permeate particular groups, leaving others behind. In theory, this is biopolitical administration at work. If we think about the population as fitting onto a normally distributed bell-curve, information is easily attained by those fitting onto the bell-curve. As the population spreads out and people are fitting onto the sides of the bell-curve, they are receiving less information, eventually being pushed out. Biopolitical administration focuses on who we decide to invest in, and who we decide to “let die.” Of course, all of this theory would not hold any clout without being applied to actual matters in media. There are plenty of suits to follow that would prove to be very interesting and important, but I feel the need to choose a controversial current event, and how media coverage, the Knowledge Gap Hypothesis, and communication inequalities add to an already gargantuan disparity within our society. On August 9, 2014, an unarmed 18-year-old, Michael Brown was shot and killed by officer Darren Wilson in the town of Ferguson, Missouri. On November 24, 2014, 108 days later, a Grand Jury decided to not indict Officer Wilson in the death of Brown. In the press release, county prosecutor Robert McCulloch appeared to damn the media, particularly social media, as the criminal, rather than the man who pulled the trigger. My goal is not to say that Officer Wilson should or should not have been indicted. I feel it is necessary to explore the communication inequalities surrounding media coverage of this case and how it affects the behavior, beliefs, and intentions of different communities. As far as social media goes, it has often been seen as an elitist, safe space for white people of higher socioeconomic status. They are allowed to communicate however they feel about whatever they want, and often do not seek out information they might not agree with; politically speaking, this goes for left- and right-leaning persons. Mass media are now typically found within social media – algorithms often show content that coincides with preconceived opinions of the audience member. In research done at the University of Minnesota, the concept of the digital divide arose, following along the lines of the Knowledge Gap Hypothesis but this time bringing in the powers of a digitized world and reinforcing separation of the haves and the have-nots. In the case of Michael Brown’s death, those from lower socioeconomic status were able to use social media, particularly Twitter, as a tool. But since those of higher socioeconomic status still rely heavily on sites such as Facebook, they did not respond well to those protesting the death of Michael Brown or those protesting the Grand Jury’s decision to not pursue his killer. What is so different here compared to the gap Viswanath and Finnegan studied is, I argue, that this existing gap is larger for those of higher socioeconomic status rather than the usual lower socioeconomic status. Yes, those who fit in the lower category have not been exposed as often to media nor has the message been directed at them in a way that matters – this remains the case in Ferguson and with Michael Brown. Instead, they acquired their own agency and used social media as a tool to expose information of their behaviors, beliefs, and intentions and not those of mainstream mass media. This proved to be unpalatable to followers of traditional media, but effective in proving that communication equalities are running strong in our world. In this case, I feel as if those who are used to receiving more information are actually losing out. The death of Michael Brown is not as cut and dry as a police officer killing an unarmed man; it is racial, class-based, and personal. In the press conference on November 24th, social media was said to blame for the differences in narratives surrounding Michael Brown’s death, but “Social media cannot be either angel or devil, able to quell and raise mobs at the drop of a hat. Instead, it's a constant devil's advocate, pushing back against things that don't necessarily make sense and chipping away at the authoritarian façades of those who wish it would just stop existing already. It can't stop the news. It probably can't even change the world. But it can force us to look anew, to stop tired narratives in their tracks. And in that, it at least can make us feel like we're having some small effect, even if it's just shouting into the void.” The protesters in Ferguson may have traditionally been kept in the shade – though not entirely the dark – when it comes to being exposed to certain types of information, but now they are fighting back, even if their initial efforts are being shot down by a system that does not allow for such improvement. Media effects vary between audiences, but this time, I think it may be for the better.
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