Purpose:

The purpose of this blog is for Team LoTR of Dr. Brenda Coopers JCOM 2010 class at Utah State University to explore the differences of Truth and "Truthiness" concerning Global Climate Disruption. The following short clip comes from Stephen Colbert, this is where we got the name for our blog. (1)



We didn't want to copy it exactly so we changed ocean to sea. For the full Colbert clip click here. (2) In the rest of that clip Stephen Colbert talks about different movies that have been made in "honor" of the end of the world, and the different varieties of how and when it will happen. Some of which include Global Warming. Stephen Colbert says in the clip that Global Warming "makes horrible television".

Terminology:


Throughout the blog we will be using terms that you may not know. They will be defined here. I will also provide some clips as examples so that term can be seen in action.

First up is gate-keeping: There are gatekeepers in any communication system—interpersonal, written, mass communication. These are elements that make constant decisions about what information is or isn’t important enough to pass along—what information gets through the “gate” from the sender of a message to a receiver of that message. Not only does gatekeeping occur in deciding the end message (e.g., what stories get into the newspaper), but also as a reporter decides what stories to cover, what sources to interview, what questions to ask, and what parts of her reporter’s notebook are important enough to make it into the story. So there is both “front-end” gatekeeping as a media message is created, and a “back-end” gatekeeping as an editor decides what stories to put in the paper, on what page, with what headline, and what part of the reporter’s story gets edited out. Clearly, individual perceptions of the world and what things are important in it are in play in this process. The ultimate gatekeeper in the mass communication process is the news reader/viewer—what do they think is important/relevant enough to permit through the “gates” of their conscious minds? In this context, the media do not reflect “reality”; they filter, shape and construct a “reality.” To put it simply: Someone decides what they want people to see in the news, or any form of communication. You can use gatekeeping even when talking face to face with someone. (3)

Glenn Beck disputing Al Gore(4)



Throughout this entire clip, Glenn Beck is gate keeping. He never once mentions the side of Al Gore. He is clearly only letting certain information in through the gate. He is also asking certain questions to his colleague out in the streets so that he can get specific information. Therefore, Glenn Beck is only allowing the information that he wants us to hear to pass through the gates.

Up next is agenda-setting: This theory holds that although the mass media can’t tell us what to think, the media are stunningly successful at telling us what to think about. That is, through their selection or de-selection of what is “news”, the mass media serve to create an agenda for social discourse. When there were only three major national TV networks, and some 70-80% of Americans watched them nightly, a very clear national agenda of what’s most important was created. Even in such a monopolistic and dominated mass media system, the networks couldn’t make people think in certain ways, but they were and are able to focus attention of some issues while ignoring others. Examples of how agenda-setting worked in society include: The OJ Simpson murder trial; the Clinton impeachment hearings following Zippergate; WMDs and the Iraq War/War on Terrorism. Consider the implications of agenda-setting for public policy debate and creation of laws. To put it simply, agenda-setting is when the news talks about the topics that they want people to know about. (5)

Stephen Colbert-Heatsteria (6)

In this clip Colbert demonstrates how Fox is trying to set an agenda and make it seem like things are hotter then they really are by using a heat index where it feels like a different temperature. A line from the clip "104 officially, 116 with the heat index." Also, further in the clip Colbert shows clips of Fox saying that Nickleodean is trying to set a Global Warming agenda with the cartoon Spongebob Squarepants.

Lastly is framing: This subset of agenda-setting concerns how news and information are “framed” or presented once through the news “gate” and on the public agenda. A media “frame” is the central organizing idea for a news story that supplies a context and emphasizes certain aspects of a story while minimizing or ignoring others. As media literacy theory tells us, media messages are constructions or representations of “reality.” It is impossible for a media message to be anything more than a summary or representation of the world. Thus, the question for message consumers is always: “What aspects of this story are not being told?” “What information lies outside the ‘frame’ of this message?” and, perhaps most importantly, “What might be the intent (ideological, intentional or inadvertent) of the senders (gatekeepers) of this message?” So framing suggests that the bottom line in news coverage is not just what to think about (agenda-setting), but how to think about it, based on how the story is presented. Framing is not a conspiracy to skew the news (although it can be done that way); individuals, based on their selective perceptions, not only select different things as important, but inevitably frame them in different ways to conform to how they see the world. To put it simply, the news will construct a picture of how they see the events of the world unfolding and then they will tell it to the world. (7)

Colbert clip about CNN's devil/Balrog(8)


In this clip Colbert shows a report from CNN when they are talking about 6/6/06 and when they showed a picture of "Satan" they were zoomed in on just the face. When Colbert then shows the whole picture you see that it is in fact, a picture of Gandalf facing off with the Balrog in a Lord of the Rings calendar from 1977. CNN cropped the picture, or framed it, so that they could use it for their own purposes. In that picture the editing done to the picture made it possible to be used as "Satan", even though it was in fact a fictional creature from a made up universe.