http://www.onthemedia.org/blogs/on-the-media/2013/sep/05/why-syria-flummoxing-american-satirists/
How does King and Elliott's explanation of the existence of infotainment -- and the blurring of genres in general -- differ from Postman's? Do they have a solution? Do think realistic? Why or why not?
Your response is due by 4 p.m., Sunday, Sept 22.
Please remember that I accept no late assignments. Refer to the syllabus for more details.
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Where Postman's concentrates on how we are willing audiences to the bombardment of information, often ridiculous and irrelevant, King and Elliott concentrate on how the media purposefully dupes audiences with “information” made entertainment in order to keep ratings up. Postman explains the media as not the Machiavellian enemy, willingly duping the public with “infotainment,” but rather, the public is willing to accept information as entertainment. The public is allowing, as Postman says, a Huxleyan outcome of culture in which “culture becomes a burlesque” with the public's constant need to be entertained rather than given relevant facts.
King and Elliot, on the other hand, concentrate on the increasing value of audience attention, how attention has become something of a currency, and how media is abusing its viewership by advertising false information as reality. In King and Elliott's essay, the audience is not willing, and, in fact, is sometimes offended, even outraged, by the abuse of seemingly true information, which is perverted to be more entertaining. King and Elliott explain this as an unjustified harm; the media “deprives audience members of their right to establish the offered narrative in the context of their other beliefs.” In other words, media is depriving audiences in how they should be processing this information, taking “fact” out of context by turning it to “fiction,” and vice versa.
King and Elliott's solution to this is voluntary disclosure, for which they use the example of Creative Commons used in copyright law. Media would alert the audience to the nature of the piece, such as if it is promotional, for entertainment purposes, or news. As well, symbols would insinuate the lengths to which creators took “creative license” in making the piece, such as whether it is exaggerated or a downright fabrication. The use of Creative Commons in the media, from print to television programs, I believe could work in solving the problem of media deceiving audiences to up viewer numbers. It would certainly get rid of the “infotainment” in today's culture by pointing out to audiences the factious or fictitious nature of a program, no longer making information creatively tampered with entertainment. However, while the idea itself works in theory, I do not think this could become reality for one reason: it goes against the purpose of “infotainment,” to gain attention in this “peek-a-boo” world,” and would not be favored by the companies who rely on attention to succeed.
King and Elliot describe infotainment as the media's attempt to blur the lines between information and entertainment, using such tactics as dramatic editing and sensationalizing a story for the sake of magnifying underlying themes.
They mention the fact that every piece of information thrown our way is trying to persuade us to do something, whether it be buy a product or tune into a show.
The vast quantity of information we are thrown overstimulates our brains so that we are not able to focus on something for too long. Everything, even straight, hard news, has to be entertaining now, because, as King and Elliot describe it, "entertainment captures attention."
This theory is similar to Postman's theory of the peek-a-boo world. King and Elliot mention the amount of information we're taking in in relation to the amount of information people were given centuries ago. They say that in a regular edition of The New York Times, we are taking in "more information than the average eighteenth-century Englishman encountered in a lifetime."
Postman focused more on infotainment from the angle of television-based news being more of a hinderance than print media, however, King and Elliot recognize the harms in any kind of media if dramatized to such an effect that they aren't factual anymore. Postman, as Emily pointed out, recognizes that consumers are willing to accept information as entertainment, whereas King and Elliot put the majority of the focus on the production team of current television and news shows, as they are ultimately the ones who allow these works to be aired and shown to the public.
King and Elliot's solution to viewers being deceived by outlets that are designed to provide news is to incorporate full disclosure to its audience members. This would inform people if the material was fabricated in any way and where the information came from. I think this solution is good and I think it should have been incorporated all along, for any news or information outlet, because I think people should know where their information comes from, but I don't think that will stop people from being misinformed. I also don't believe it will be as entertaining as "infotainment" is supposed to be, because people enjoy more dramatized versions of the truth rather than the actual truth.
In their chapter, King and Elliott discuss the blurring of genres in all mass media today. In their opening paragraph they write: “Today, news, promotion, and entertainment are blended together in an endless array of offerings with such labels as infotainment, sportainment, docudrama, advertorials, blogvertising, reality TV, and product placement.” These blurring of lines are clearly very troubling to King and Elliott and they make an attempt in their chapter to explain why in hopes that some change will be made. These authors seem to think that marketers, advertisers, and essentially most content creators have almost a desire to blur these lines and make it as hard as possible for the public to tell fact from fiction. I feel as though Postman more so places the blame on the viewer in his book, claiming that we’re the ones with the demand and the need to be entertained at all times and therefore we’re the ones in a way forcing the mass media to act in these ways and essentially blur the lines.
King and Elliott repeatedly discuss how what these content creators are doing is essentially wrong and incredibly deceptive. Instead of focusing on one media in particular (like Postman seems to focus primarily on television), these authors broaden the spectrum to all forms of media. A major reason for this difference, though, is due to the time when these two works were published. Postman could have had no idea that twenty to thirty year later into the future that the Internet would change the game entirely. That being said, King and Elliott draw examples from television, novels, and even user-generated content from YouTube. Being a YouTuber myself, where I post videos in a sense “promoting” a television series, I found this incredibly interesting. They discuss how a lot of the times the content we see on TV or in books or on the Internet or in movies may seem like it’s “real” and “informative,” but really it’s just another marketing plea targeted to grab your attention, make money, and entertain. This is where the idea of “infotainment” comes into play.
King and Elliott also bring up a solution they feel will help allow the public to know when a work or a piece of media they’re consuming is real or fake. Their solution resembles a Creative Commons license where “content creators could label different works with appropriate symbols.” The public and consumers of these works could then, if they wanted, “look [the symbols] up for details on what standards had been followed.” They believe that by doing this, it would create a domino effect where more and more content creators would start using the labels and the public would begin to start reading into the things their consuming a bit more. While in theory this sounds like a good idea, I’m not positive it would work in the way King and Elliot would want it to. In their chapter they talk a lot about how our attention span isn’t as big as it used to be. We’re constantly being bombarded with information. All content creators are attempting to capture our attention in an attempt to entertain us, but it’s becoming harder and harder. Adding these labels would definitely help, but I’m not sure people would actually take the time to look up what each label meant. That would just take up more of their time, which is evidently something we don’t seem to have a lot of these days. King and Elliott also suggest that authors create “their own personal statements about their work, which could be archived in a disclosure database available online.” Once again, I think this would be a good idea, but I’m not sure the authors or the public would want to take the time to either create or read these statements. Then again, it all depends on the person and the culture, but it’s pretty apparent that many of us are becoming lazier and lazier by the second.
King and Elliott introduce the idea of infotainment by stating this after seeing how the TV movement is needed to fulfill our wandering minds, “But you better have something good to offer if you expect them to give you their attention and money. This competition for attention has helped fuel the rise of infotainment. And this idea applies to all of the genres on the television further steering away from the being honest and accurate. Which takes away from the important role we play in society figuring out what is truthful or not. Postman’s says, “The problem is not that television presents us with entertaining subject matter but that all subject matter is presented as entertaining, which is another issue all together.” And this is an issue because information that was once considered to be taken seriously now has developed new delivery formulas so that is also entertaining. Now-a-days the facet of our entertainment society has become an expectation, thus creating a detriment to cognitive development. And this is displayed in our culture’s conversations on content and recognizing what is really authentic on TV.
It is said that humans are story-tellers and with the television it has changed our story-telling including all aspects of symbols portrayed which we display physically. Our stories our no longer based on experience, they are based off of what we see on television. Postman says, “It is not merely that on the television screen entertainment is the metaphor for all discourse. It is that off the screen the same metaphor prevails.” King and Elliott say something similar, “Much media research has focused on studying what audiences inadvertently learn and imitate from fictional stories.” Drawn from both perspectives, it is clear that in order to seek truth, and be original; you have to be more aware of your sources like Creative Commons. Or just read a book, as Postman would prefer.
King and Elliot’s explanation for the existence of infotainment is that media forms are competing for people’s attention. People’s minds are constantly drifting and attention is never guaranteed. King and Elliot bring up the point, “even if you paid them.” Conversely, however, people pay to be entertained. People will willingly devour up entertainment. With this, Elliot and King come to the conclusion that media entities infuse entertainment with news or their product or whatever else they are selling in order to get people’s attention. King and Elliot also acknowledge that infotainment has gone too far in terms of people not being able to differentiate the difference between real and false.
The solution that Elliot and King present is correctly labeling media so that people can tell the difference. They propose an elaborate system that will, if people choose to use this system, inform the audiences of just what is real and what is not as far as editing and content. This still leaves the responsibility on the viewers to explore the labels.
I think Postman presents the problem more as a fault of viewers than the media itself. Postman sees society as obsessed with entertainment and not wanting to think. The media is supposed to reflect the views of the people and therefore, it does. People are not caring about the entire world around them, only money and what is relevant to their very small worlds.
Elliot and King’s argument is realistic because it already exists in a way. In the form of tv ratings and behind the scenes reels and other things. The information is out there, but people, in general, are not making the decision to explore and use discernment within the media.
King and Elliot’s explanation for the existence of infotainment is that media forms are competing for people’s attention. People’s minds are constantly drifting and attention is never guaranteed. King and Elliot bring up the point, “even if you paid them.” Conversely, however, people pay to be entertained. People will willingly devour up entertainment. With this, Elliot and King come to the conclusion that media entities infuse entertainment with news or their product or whatever else they are selling in order to get people’s attention. King and Elliot also acknowledge that infotainment has gone too far in terms of people not being able to differentiate the difference between real and false.
The solution that Elliot and King present is correctly labeling media so that people can tell the difference. They propose an elaborate system that will, if people choose to use this system, inform the audiences of just what is real and what is not as far as editing and content. This still leaves the responsibility on the viewers to explore the labels.
I think Postman presents the problem more as a fault of viewers than the media itself. Postman sees society as obsessed with entertainment and not wanting to think. The media is supposed to reflect the views of the people and therefore, it does. People are not caring about the entire world around them, only money and what is relevant to their very small worlds.
Elliot and King’s argument is realistic because it already exists in a way. In the form of tv ratings and behind the scenes reels and other things. The information is out there, but people, in general, are not making the decision to explore and use discernment within the media.
In “Tall Tales: Ethical Storytelling in the Age of Infotainment,” King and Elliot argue that news, promotion and entertainment are “blended together in an endless array of offerings,” one of which being infotainment. They stress the blending of these three formerly separate mediums has been done to keep ratings up. “Today’s editorial decisions are often based as much on a story’s ability to entertain audiences as to inform them” (111). The existence of infotainment such as product placement in news publications and broadcasts correlates to the increasingly blurred lines of genres. The media has the ability to influence the population on a large scale, and the problems that occur when the boundaries between fact and fiction are blurred are “a conflicting mix of values, conventions, and audience expectations. King and Elliot say that this occurs to get our attention, which is something they say is “increasingly scarce” with the overabundance of options (internet, cable, etc.).
This is slightly different than Postman’s argument, as he puts the fault for the entertainment-based world on the viewers’ lack of attention span and knowledge. When Postman says “The problem is not that television presents us with entertaining subject matter but that all subject matter is presented as entertaining, which is another issue altogether,” he sees this as a reflection of what the population which is reflected by the media. King and Elliot would say this is part of the ratings game.
King and Elliot say that the solution to the blurred lines problem is to have disclosures as to what is real in the media by a voluntary licensing arrangement to address confusion regarding copyrighted materials. They also suggest a similar ethical system for voluntary disclosure in “storytelling” or the media. They say the use of symbols signaling that a work is promotional or exaggerated could be a good option, allowing audience members who choose to to look them up. They even suggest having authors create their own personal statements about their work for an online database.
King and Elliot’s explain the existence of “infotainment” by describing how people need to be entertained in order to keep paying attention. By splicing the news with entertainment, audiences pay attention longer and therefore, ratings and profitability increase. “If something is boring,” King and Elliot explain, “you don’t pay attention to it. Entertainment captures attention. As a result, an attention economy is also an entertainment economy. Whether you are making a film or an advertisement, if you do not hold the interest of your audience - that is, if you do not entertain them - they will stop paying attention.” King and Elliot’s explanation of why infotainment exists slightly differs from Postman’s, however; Postman says that infotainment exists because the media caters to the hedonistic public with short attention spans while King and Elliot claim that infotainment exists because the media blurs the lines between fact and fantasy in order to boost ratings and popularity.
King and Elliot’s proposed solution to the “deception” that infotainment is causing is to have full disclosure; According to the authors, “...Audience members should always be in control of whether they ‘know the truth’ or not. They should have a way to discern a storyteller’s intent and values.” They argue that there should be an “ethical system for voluntary disclosure in ‘storytelling’” in order to “provide people with the ability to ultimately obtain the ‘truth’ or an explanation of a given work.” In a way, I believe that this is a realistic goal because, in part, it’s already in action. There are disclosure statements in many commercials that state whether something has been dramatized, for example. However, as far as the Creative Commons licensing idea goes, I don’t really believe it’s a realistic idea because a lot of people would disregard it because of the amount of work that would have to go into implementing it. For instance, like with Creative Commons licenses, there would have to be an “exhaustive list” of symbols to describe each and every manner of disclosure.
Postman recognizes that media has been favoring entertainment over information but believes that the rise of hybrid genres like infotainment are a result of people's expectations to be entertained by the vast information being constantly streamed to them. King and Elliot view the media's role as reactionary and short-sighted.
Because hoaxes would have negative consequences for traditional print media, informative media needed to strive for honesty and integrity. In modern media, hoaxes enhance media value because the expectation for entertainment has overshadowed the expectation of truth. The media competes for quantity of viewers' attention spans and must sacrifice professionalism in order to be viewed as entertaining, which then lowers the standards of the media as well as the expectations of the audience.
Although Postman focuses on the viewers' role and King and Elliott focus on the media's role, they are essentially two sides of one explanation that there is no longer any clear ethical reason against fabrication or "enhancement" of news as long as that news is more interesting than the other stories that are being portrayed.
King and Elliot do propose that disclosure of intention between the producers of media and their audiences will eliminate the need for hybrid genres of media. The problem that immediately comes to mind is that entertainment is considered an art form and disguising intentions is essential to the success of the art. For example, horror movies are often depicted as being “based on true stories,” in order to enhance the viewers’ experience. If the extent to which the producers took creative liberties was fully disclosed to the public, the phrase would become meaningless and the entertainment would be viewed as the fiction that it often consists of.
Neil Postman concentrates on how we as consumers of entertainment have the ability to take in as much meaningless information as we can. King and Ellicott describe infotainment as the technique the media uses to make entertainment seem like it is information, worthy and informative. The two bring up the idea of labeling certain works with certain distinct symbols in order for the audience to better differentiate between what is real and what is falsified, but that is a system which in my opinion is too idealistic. What exactly would differentiate real from fake or information from entertainment? The line may be clear but when it comes to those putting out the information they seek to portray it in one way or another and so whatever they want it to be portrayed as would be the symbol that they chose for their broadcast. While the system they suggest is intricate, it would still leave room for flaws and errors. Postman believes, correctly in my opinion, that “infotainment” comes from peoples rising expectations to be entertained while they are being informed.
Neil Postman concentrates on how we as consumers of entertainment have the ability to take in as much meaningless information as we can. King and Ellicott describe infotainment as the technique the media uses to make entertainment seem like it is information, worthy and informative. The two bring up the idea of labeling certain works with certain distinct symbols in order for the audience to better differentiate between what is real and what is falsified, but that is a system which in my opinion is too idealistic. What exactly would differentiate real from fake or information from entertainment? The line may be clear but when it comes to those putting out the information they seek to portray it in one way or another and so whatever they want it to be portrayed as would be the symbol that they chose for their broadcast. While the system they suggest is intricate, it would still leave room for flaws and errors. Postman believes, correctly in my opinion, that “infotainment” comes from peoples rising expectations to be entertained while they are being informed.
In their chapter, King and Elliot focus mainly on how the media intentionally misleads audiences with information and combines information with entertainment in order to get popular. They concentrate on how the audience is very easily distracted and in order to pay attention to media they have to be entertained. The media is competing for the audiences attention because they are very easily distracted. They say this is because there is such vast information being given to us that it makes it difficult to focus our attention for too long. Media attempts to merge the fine line between entertainment and information with means such as dramatic editing and sensationalizing a story for the sake of magnifying underlying themes.
This is different than Postman's main thesis because Postman says that the audience is willing to be overflown with information while Elliot and King focus on how the media intentionally tries to mislead audiences with information made entertainment. King and Elliot concentrate on the increasing value of audiences attention and how important it is becoming in relations to the media. Postman focuses his theory around how society has become extremely entertainment driven and thats whats become most important when presenting the news.
King and Elliot's solution to this problem of distortion of information is to have full disclosure. The different forms of media should be labeled so that the audience can know the difference. Not to hide anything from the viewers.
In general, King and Elliott place the blame on media providers who have, in their opinion, done the public a disservice by blurring the lines between factual information, commentary, and entertainment. This "infotainment" thesis differs from Postman's thesis in that Postman believes that the public is to blame by having a lower attention span and threshold for information processing.
King and Elliott's solution is to make a "creative commons" of news. Clearly marking a piece with easy to discern symbols or clearly stating its status as satire or opinion is an option they suggest.
In Europe, packs of cigarettes have graphic photos of cancerous lungs. TV in America has age and content ratings. It is realistic and can be done if a motivated enough group takes action and pursues it.
While Postman believes news consumers are heavily influencing print and televised news to provide them with interesting stories that are of entertaining value to them, King and Elliot seem to be arguing that the media itself is the master mind behind such interlocking characteristics of news and entertainment. Postman often implies that if viewers consumed more “newsworthy” or “hard news,” or simply turned away from more entertainment based news, the problem would move towards fixing itself. Yet King and Elliot place the problem within the media who does not simply report or emphasize more entertaining information, but blatantly fabricated, sensationalizes, and lies to the consumers. There seems to be this idea within King and Elliot’s arguments that this was bound to happen, because “today’s economy is said to be driven more by the production and exchange of information than by the production and exchange of material goods” and that “people will pay for entertainment. And as long as you keep people entertained, you will have their attention.” This concept of economic greed replacing trustworthiness within news differs from Postman’s, and places emphasis on all media, including reality shows and books. The idea is that we are ultimately being lied to in every aspect of information we are being fed within infotainment, by these blurring lines between reality and storytelling.
I don’t think Postman would think much of King and Elliot’s view on these blurring lines between genres and their solution to it all. And like Postman, I would agree that news media providing actual timely and important news in order for the viewer to make educated decisions and actions, is a bigger fish to fry than developing an ethical system for voluntary disclosure of storytelling for reality television (nor do I think it is realistic.) Being provided with honest information about worldly and national issues seems much more important than knowing if T.V. show is scripted. I think many people are already under the impression that reality shows are not real, and that not everything we read in a book or online is real. Getting tricked by an internet spoof is the last of my worries, and would not cause me alarm and the urge to shoot “oh no, I have been duped by the media!” The fact that King and Elliot are even focusing on these things in respect to the idea and issues of infotainment sheds light on the problem of where our concerns as nation are placed.
King and Elliot seem to focus more on the fact that the media tries to mask information as entertainment because no one is interested in anything but. Postman focuses more on the fact that all consumers seek out is entertainment and therefore that is what is produced because otherwise companies would not make any money. The hybridization of genres described by King and Elliot is something that I have definitely noticed is becoming increasingly popular in todays media and I fond it extremely unfortunate that the only way people will willingly be consumers of any informative media is if it is masked as “infotainment”. The solution suggested was to label different form of media so that consumers would know what they were about to watch. I think in theory approach could work, but there are many ways where it could go wrong. They would have to set up a system to determine the different levels of legitimate reality ranging from news to all types of programming and that would just be one of the first steps. I think it could work but it would take a long time to get there.
King and Elliot’s explanation of infotainment seems to be nearly parallel to Postman’s, although theirs is a bit more focused on supply and demand. They argue, like Postman, that more information means less attention and a greater emphasis on entertainment in all forms of media—from TV to the Internet to a newspaper. I found the section on movie hoaxes (Blair Witch Project) to be particularly interesting in that people do seem enjoy being lied to if the “ends” means a more entertaining, gripping media experience. This “ends justify the means” media approach is similar to Postman’s argument about the direction media is moving.
The proposed solution involving a voluntary disclosure database is silly and unrealistic because no one would use it. Media giants wouldn’t want a disclosure database to exist—it takes away from the entertainment, and thus, profits. Perhaps media has jumped off the ethical cliff. The authors of the article seem to think so: “…industry analysts, critics, and news reporters tend to quickly dismiss ethical concerns and focus more on analyzing the entertainment and marketing value of the stories.”
Postman and the Piece written by King and Elliot talk about the same environment, but attack the issue in different ways. They both agree that the state of the media right now is a weird amalgam of information and entertainment. Postman believes that this is occurring because the public is more interested in receiving entertainment than news. That is why there is information and news happening all the time that do not get covered. This is because the public is perceived to not care about receiving the news. This stems from society as a whole being dumbed down, and made apathetic by todays convenient world.
King and Elliot pose a solution be that bloggers, and writers should label their works with a symbol which will define if the piece is informational;, entertainment, fiction. I am torn on this idea. I like the premise which is that a consumer with more information about the product is always in a better position to interact with the world, but would the writers,and bloggers I feel would be less likely adhere to these standards. This would be a good system if there was centralized oversight on the labeling of these pieces. Much like organic foods get certifications for their grade and authenticity. This sounds nice but is highly impractical. There is just so much content on the internet. It would take a long time and a huge amount of labor to look at everything. There is also no incentive for this agency to exist because there would be limited to almost no funding sources for a project like this.
The syllabus that was written talks more about how individuals interact and share information in the digital age. The topics focused on how few words individuals have to express ideas on social media. It is because of this limitation that the content produced by many people is shallow and does not posses the ability to transfer effective and useful knowledge. The syllabus also attacks the shallow and misrepresentation that is often used to catch attention. These online clips and blogs shamelessly use incendiary language, and misleading headlines.
As King and Elliot propose, the new world of media does not separate information, entertainment, and advertising as was the previous way. However, they say that all three groups are now melded into one unanimous group. King and Elliot hypothesize that because the public is becoming so used to traditional forms of advertisement, they are now less susceptible to its messages. This immunity to advertising, coupled with the arrival of TIVO and similar technologies allows viewers to skip advertising all together. With these two factors, advertisers have switched to more unconventional methods such as product placement in shows and movies, or also viral internet campaigns on social media and home video platforms.
Postman, however, proposes the idea that the public does not simply avoid the advertisement or programing because they are immune to it, but instead because they are bored and don’t want to pay attention to an uninteresting topic. Postman hypothesizes that the average viewer has an attention span of only 45-60 seconds. It is within this time frame that media programs have to deliver their message. That is, however, unless the viewer is entertained. Overall, Postman says that the new world of media is now a competition for attention.
King and Elliot, in response to their theory of blurred lines, have proposed a solution of Creative Commons. This idea features the notion of one server where creators and copyright holders post their ideas onto the commons, where it is open to use for whoever may want to use it. While some ownership is maintained, users are free to make changes and use the original material without fear of copyright violation. While the idea is a good one, I do not believe it will work however. I have used the creative commons before, and the problem I encountered was that there was not enough material free to use.
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