Right Wing and Obama

It is a known reality, in media studies, that people tend to expose themselves to media that support their own ideologies. One might be forgiven for thinking that this is acceptable and a sign of normalcy but I contend that it is the weakness of most media outlets that the audience is not exposed to opposing views within the one broadcast often enough.

I happen to believe that the media is not here to form our ideas but to let us view/hear all of the opposing ideas. If we are not open to hearing opposing views to our own, then what is the point of viewing or hearing anything? Just to have our own ideals set in concrete? I think we need to be open. But if we are not then the media should challenge us to defend our own ideologies against a balanced rendition of the realities rather than allow us to relax into complacency.

Most media stay on one course and therefore they command their own lucrative audience. It is a pity. To overcome this we must expose ourselves to the opposing "media views."

In this desire for balance I frequently listen to talk radio. One can slip into the comfort zone of listening to the stations that support one's own ideas. One must be vigilant. In the San Francisco Bay Area I can listen to Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity and (Dr.) Mark Levin on KSFO 560 AM. On KNEW 910 I can treat myself to Michael Savage and his ideas. I have said over and over again that if you want to discuss media and ideology and the U.S. you must take these players into consideration. They command such an audience that they are important whether we like it or not.

With the aura of Obama adoration in the air, it was somewhat real to hear them talking him down. Dare I say that they have preempted what must follow. Obama must be removed from his pedestal. He cannot keep this adoration for too long as president? The public will pull him down? The collective, not just the right wing, media will knock the pedestal off its balance sooner or later.

A talk radio host shocked me in one instance. One commentator said that it was in bad taste for the press to field tough questions at Obama when he visited them at the White House. What did he expect? It seems he expected them to welcome him and ignore the tough questions. He should be smarter than that.

I suggest that he visit the press offices of the White House regularly and openly and that he take questions. Is it really so unreasonable to expect our technologically savvy president to visit the press and accept/answer questions regularly. After all the press is there to "represent" the public and report back to us? Why would our newly elected president want to NOT talk to the press and answer any questions?

And we must do our part by listening to the media's rendition of the president's answers from many different media sources. Then we must make informed deductions.

Children in Politics

Why put images of children and children’s voices on the media in this fashion? Could adults not ask? Of course they could. But someone somewhere thought that having children ask would be cute or attractive. It is an abuse of our children to have them appear to say words which are really not their own. This is the adults of society using the psychological implications of the innocent child for political gain. And this brings the child into a/the dominant hegemony before being aware enough to think for him or herself.

Look at this:



This seemingly benign use of children is an indoctrination tool being used on the children and then being presented to the public as a spectacle.

Someone in the public then chose to subvert the message through juxtaposing symbols resulting in this collison montage:




We get the point. Don’t we? This media producer sees the correlation between using our children to propose Obama’s presidency and using them to propose Fascism. But who is abused and who is the abuser? Is this how we hoped the shifting of the power of media to the masses would be used? Perhaps some would see fun in this juxtaposition. I see only abuse of the meek in both productions. Through my intuition I feel sick about this use of children in this new “free access” media. When the powerless are used by the powerful there is something off, whether it is on Youtube or Network TV.

Let the kids alone. Let them enjoy their undetermined youth. Should we parade them?




No, we should not parade children in political campaigns. Yes, these depict beautiful moments. Beautiful private moments forever stained by discussions of adult motives:





Is this serious professional journalism? Perhaps they are producing the media which they believe to be desirable? And who are they? Adults.

At least Michelle Obama thinks she should protect her children’s privacy. This is a noble cause but not the whole truth. While talking about protecting their privacy, we see the children in larger than life images behind the hosts of The View:




Children are not intellectual adults. They may have the capacity to ask many pertinent questions (even if done innocently). This use of children is an appeal to the psychological aspect of our fondness for children. Political candidates and commentators use children for these purposes.

In this video, images of young children are paired with a child’s voice-over. Imagine as you listen and view if the images were the same and either John Mc Cain’s or Barack Obama’s voice was the voice-over.



Well, how did you do imagining our (political) adults as the voice instead of the child? Would it have the same impact? What if the video did not invade the privacy of the children in the footage and just showed Obama or McCain explaining their opinion? A novel idea perhaps? Have the candidates speak.

I suggest we get the children out of political fighting. Maybe the candidates will have to come up with more than a 10 second sound-bite.