Please click here to read this article.
Sources:
http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/BUharmsworth.htm">http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/BUharmsworth.htm
http://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/Daily_Mirror
http://www.nationalmediamuseum.org.uk/exhibition/extraextra/DailyHeraldHistory.pdf
http://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/Lord_Rothermere
http://www.questia.com/library/encyclopedia/northcliffe_alfred_charles_william_harmsworth_viscount.jsp
http://uk.encarta.msn.com/encyclopedia_761554279/Harmsworth_Alfred_Charles_William_Viscount_Northcliffe.html
Northcliffe, Rothermere and the 30s Circulation War
Posted by Andrew Giddings
in Thursday, 29 October 2009
Media Law - Confidentiality
Posted by Andrew Giddings
in Wednesday, 28 October 2009
This is all about secrets. As far as the law is concerned, there are two types of secret: Official Secrets and Private Secrets.
Some fine verbal abuse
Posted by Andrew Giddings
in Thursday, 22 October 2009
I showed one of restaurant critic and swearing enthusiast Giles Coren's emails to Dave earlier, who said it was the best thing he's ever read (he clearly hasn't read this blog), so I thought I'd link to a page of them here. Be warned, they contain a lot of effing and jeffing as well as, somewhat ironically, typing errors. Enjoy.
Media Law - Qualified Privilege
Posted by Andrew Giddings
in Wednesday, 21 October 2009
"IN THE PUBLIC INTEREST" does not mean "INTERESTING"
Qualified Privilege, the third defence against libel, gives the journalists the right to make defamatory statements under special circumstances. There are two main types of QP:
Wikileaks
Posted by Andrew Giddings
in Sunday, 18 October 2009
This site may well be one of the best things on the web. Wikileaks is a medium through which documents and information may be leaked by people who's conscience outweighs the rules and laws imposed upon them. Very interesting stuff and a great tool for investigative journalism.
Makes you think about gags that never get lifted...
Posted by Andrew Giddings
Pieced together from several news sources (Sky News, BBC, Independent), the story goes like this:
A multi-national oil firm called Trafigura dumped 500 tons of toxic waste on the Ivory Coast of Abidjan, West Africa. Official estimates said 15 people died and tens of thousands of people fell ill as a result. Trafigura deny any deaths took place, but offered £950 to each of the 31,000 people afffected, as well as around £100million to the Ivorian Government towards the clean-up.
The Guardian newspaper plans to report this, but Trafigura's lawyers, Carter-Ruck, issued a 'super-injunction' to prevent from being made public. A super-injunction is basically the stuffing a big, smelly sock into the mouth of the media. It's obtained at the High Court, and it means that not only is everyone gagged, they're not even allowed to say they've been gagged about anything. They're not even allowed to report that an MP has tabled a question about it. This was effective on anyone investigating Trafigura.
Defamation, Blogging, Privacy and Alcohol.
Posted by Andrew Giddings
in Wednesday, 14 October 2009
Everyone should look at this video about a lawsuit. Basically, a blogger who uses this very site defamed a model. The model managed to get a court to order Google to identify the blogger so she could sue. Google complied, and are now being sued by the blogger for failing to preserve her privacy. This is one of those cases which will become more common as the internet is increasingly considered to be a real source of publication, and organisations like Google increasingly hoard peoples' information. I shall now be making it clear that everything I write on here is comment.
I must confess, when I first read this story about a 16-year-old who died after drinking a lethal amount of vodka, my first thoughts revolved around the questioning of whether A* GSCE grades are proof of intelligence.
Media Law - Defamation
Posted by Andrew Giddings
The key to libel, and to avoiding legal action, is the ability to differentiate between FACT and COMMENT. Learning this skill is absolutely vital.
C.P Scott said “Comment is cheap, fact is priceless.” This may apply value to each word, but not meaning, so here is an attempt at simple definition:
Leibniz
Posted by Andrew Giddings
in Monday, 12 October 2009
I’m going to try and trim this closer to 500 words…
Leibniz
Leibniz is introduced by Russell as being the polar opposite of Spinoza: “One of the supreme intellects of all time but as a human being he was not admirable.” It is made clear early on that Leibniz offered two systems of philosophy; one which he published to “win the approbation of princes and princesses,” and another which was published posthumously. This second system was held secret due to the outrage he imagined it would cause. Russell makes it clear that the controversial one is his favourite.
If anyone can offer an antonym of ‘posthumous’ I’ll change the title of this first section…
“Friendly” System
Leibniz claimed that this is the best of all possible words. He spoke of a rather complicated system built around the idea that the universe consists of an infinite number of substances he called ‘monads’ which, he concluded, are actually souls. Each monad is given its own nature by God, and they form a hierarchy “in which some are superior to others in the clearness and distinction with which they mirror the universe”. The physics described are difficult to follow, though Russell occasionally hints that he’s not impressed by some of the theory (though this is not surprising when he made it so clear which is his preferred system). He points out, for example, that modern theologians no longer rely on the “proofs” of God’s existence, and refers to “his peculiar metaphysic”. (pp.536, 537)
One point which I found particularly interesting is the suggestion on p.538 that God isn’t omnipotent, just a being “vastly and more powerful than we are,” I am surprised that this wasn’t reported to have stirred up more controversy.
But the most intriguing idea is the suggestion of multiple worlds, also on p.538. Leibniz put forth the idea that there are “an infinite number of worlds, all of which God contemplated before creating the actual world,” and that ours is the best possible. The bad things in the world are necessary for us to appreciate the good things, though this can be countered by the suggestion that the good things make the bad things seem worse.
Posthumous System
“Here I have made enormous progress,” Leibniz said of the work that wasn’t published until he’s been dead for two hundred years. Sadly, this work included mathematical logic that would have been groundbreaking at the time, and the decision to keep it quiet may have dealt quite a blow to the progress of mathematics.
He had a fantastic ambition to develop something called Characteristica Universalis, a system of maths so refined that it would replace thought. “If controversies [between philosophers] were to arise… it would suffice to take their pencils in their hands…and say to each other: ‘Let us calculate.’”
Russell focuses on one of the most hard-hitting ideas in this system on p.541. He also describes it as one of the most definite statements (this is interesting as it would therefore suggest that some of the other statements are less than definite): “That the individual notion of each person involves once and for all everything that will ever happen to him.” To understand the gravity of this, we must first understand what is meant by ‘notion’ in the philosophical sense. All web results of any use seemed to life the description from Wikipedia, which is as follows: ‘A notion in philosophy is a reflection in the mind of real objects and phenomena in their essential features and relations.’ So a notion is how you see the world, and how your mind works according to various causes and their effects. Perhaps we can loosely relate this to Freud’s idea of the Ego. Leibniz was saying that everything we are and everything we do and experience in life is already ‘in us’. This means not only is everything pre-ordained, but our minds and souls already have those experiences and their effects. This is another example of philosophy butting heads with the Church; how could the clergy speak of sin and damnation if this were the case?
My favourite part if this system is Leibniz’ idea of how things come to exist. We must first accept the idea that things that exist and things that do not are still, for want of a better word, entitative. They hang in a kind of limbo or void and battle for existence. The things that we see and experience in this world are the teams of essences which are strongest and win through to form a stable and balanced world. This is a strange idea of a kind of Darwinian system with species replaced with essences of reality. Like Darwin, “there is no mention of God, no act of Creation” (though this does not necessarily mean Leibniz didn’t believe in God).
500 Word Target Fail...
Spinoza
Posted by Andrew Giddings
in Thursday, 8 October 2009
I have decided to try something here. Rather than writing a huge ream of notes for all of the chapters in one lump, which would make for a long read (though this one is longer than I intended), I'm going to post one chapter at a time. So here's Spinoza, who was neither a dog, nor an ice cream.
Spinoza
Russell begins by stating that Baruch Spinoza was the most ethical of the great philosophers, but was intellectually inferior to many of them. Russell's reasoning for this is one thing that needs to be explored. He was born in Amsterdam and was around eighteen when Descartes died. Spinoza only lived until the age of forty-three; Russell gives the cause of death as phthisis, which is a rather archaic name for tuberculosis.
It is interesting to note that he was accused of being an atheist, even though “his whole philosophy is dominated by God” (p.521). It seems as though this is because his faith wasn’t enough, and so he was shunned for not practicing religion in the orthodox way.
Russell recommends that before discussing his major work, Ethics, we look at two of his other books, Tractatus Theologico-Politicus (Theologico-Political Treatise) and Tractatus Politicus (Political Treatise), in order to understand some of the beliefs and ideas around which Ethics was written. I first thought the books were the reason for him becoming unpopular, but I found a website chronicling the events of his life which says he was accused of heresy before he published anything, so it may have simply been due to Spinoza vocalising his views. Russell notes that Spinoza’s political theory is rather like that of Hobbes.
These books expressed much opposition to the content of the Bible and the Torah. Russell says “He endeavours throughout to show that the Scriptures can be interpreted so as to be compatible with a liberal theology.” (p.522) This is important as it rather reflects the role of Christianity today. The Bible, for instance, contains a lot of advice that would be unacceptable in the Western World of the 21st Century, and so in most cases religious teachings are adjusted to suit the changing world.
Some key points on page 522 include the idea that “in a state of nature, there is no right or wrong.” At first, it seems as though he is simply saying that morals are a fabrication of man, but there is more to it than that, which we shall see shortly. Russell also notes that he was a secularist and that the sovereign can do no wrong; this is a clear link to Hobbes. Spinoza also placed much importance on freedom of opinion, and it was this opinion that made him so unpopular.
Ethics
“He accepted from Descartes and his contemporaries a materialistic and deterministic physics, and sought, within this framework, to find room for reverence and a life devoted to the Good.” (p.522) This quote gives the impression that Spinoza was a man who was fascinated by science believing it to be so important that he had to find a way of reconciling it with his faith. It could be suggested that this was the reason for his efforts in this area; to find some way of allowing his two loves to co-exist.
Spinoza believed that God is everything. This should not to be confused with the idea of omnipresence (God is everywhere). He taught that the Earth, space and even peoples’ thoughts and feelings were attributes of God. This is called pantheism. This would mean that there is no free will and no good or bad. The churches took issue with this, as if the idea took hold it meant people could no longer be called sinners and be threatened with damnation, everything is part of a whole and that no one was in control of their actions. He also said that, presumably due to this ‘single substance’ theory, people didn’t need to try to know or understand God. After all, all knowledge and considerations are those of God.
Spinoza believed that self-preservation is our most fundamental driving force, an idea upon which Abraham Maslow built his Hierarchy of Needs model in 1943. “No can be conceived as prior to this endeavour to preserve one’s own being.” (p.524) But he went on to say that fear of death is senseless (as everything is pre-determined, more on that later), and so this self preservation is simply one of the passions which clouds the truth. A passion, he said, is an emotion which has sprung from an inadequate idea (p.524).
One of Spinoza’s more interesting ideas is that time is unreal (p.525), and therefore thinking about the future is as nonsensical as thinking about the past, as you can’t influence one any more than the other. He also said that ‘the knowledge of evil is an inadequate knowledge’ (p.525). By this, he meant that if you know evil, then that is more than nothing, but it is not the whole picture; evil is simply another part of the universe, which is God. On the same page, Russell says that Spinoza was attempting to free people from fear, that if they accepted the universe, including themselves, to be part of a single entity with no past or future, there could be nothing to be afraid of. Once someone accepts this to be true, they are free.
He held that loving God must always be in the front of our minds (p.526), after all, we are a part of God. We do this by understanding ourselves and our emotions (not passions). In addition to this, he pointed out that God cannot love us back. He said that unhappiness stems from loving things which are variable, which is difficult to argue against. If you love God, who is eternal, you could never lose the object of your love or have it taken from you.
Russell closes by enthusiastically debunking Spinoza’s claims or refusing to accept them. This brings us back to his opening: Russell thought that the arguments and theories themselves were deeply flawed, but the results from them, if they were accepted, would be largely positive. Living nobly, free from fear and doubt and anger without resorting measures such as those suggested by Hobbes. He ends the chapter by saying: “Such reflections may not suffice to constitute a religion, but in a painful world they are a help towards sanity and an antidote to the paralysis of despair”
Law and Fora
Posted by Andrew Giddings
in Wednesday, 7 October 2009
During Media Law today, we spent some time discussing when a case becomes active. Pinpointing this moment is very important as it affects what can be published (as we know, publishing anything which could be seen to influence the outcome of the trial will get you told off). So I have found a website explaining this very clearly, in my opinion more clearly than McNae's. There's quite a lot of good stuff about media law on there actually, so I'd recommend a browse, but the linked page is particularly relevant to today's lecture.
In the afternoon we enjoyed a seminar led by Cara, who wrote a cracking essay which did a great job of getting a conversation moving about the Renaissance, Reformation and the tipping point between pre-modern and modern philosophy with Descartes' decision to wipe the slate of philosophy clean by rejecting Aristotle, along with everything else he couldn't be 100% sure of, before starting again with the one thing he could guarantee: Cogito ergo sum.
It was the first seminar of that kind that we've had, and I have to say I found it enormously helpful and would like to thank everyone in Group B for such a great discussion. I think when you're constantly trying to absorb facts and information during lectures and private study it can become difficult to really digest everything. Group discussion seems to help the mind make sense of everything as you put it into your own words as well as and processing several other people's ideas and points of view. The only sad thing is, I don't think that an hour every other week is enough to properly get one's teeth into the discussion.
Media Studies Notes
Posted by Andrew Giddings
in Monday, 5 October 2009
I'm posting the notes I've made on our Media Studies reading for a couple of reasons. Firstly so the tutors can see what how I did this and hopefully offer advice on improving my technique. Secondly for other students to look at as an example of how to, or how not to, depending on tutor comments, do this kind of thing. Thirdly, as a sort of practise at critical analysis. We do have a heavily weighted analysis to do this semester, after all. Again, I'd appreciate any comments and advice with regards to that. I also apologise for not proof reading this, but I am running short of time and so corrections will have to be made later.
This is going to make for a pretty big post, so I'm probably going set up a new blog containing just my notes and essays, then linking through to it from this one to keep things tidy. But for now, here we go:
Notes on Strinati – Introduction to Theories of Popular Culture
The reading opens with a presentation and explanation of the Mass Culture Debate and Mass Culture Theory. It gives the impression that ‘mass culture’ became a popular term as the industrial revolution took hold. This makes sense, as this was when mass production and modern marketing methods were developed.
The theory certainly seems to suggest that mass culture is a negative thing. It compares folk culture with mass culture by observing that folk culture is a product (in an artistic sense) of the people, whereas mass culture is a product (in the industrial sense) aimed at the people in order to make a profit. It clearly asserts that mass culture is not art, stating: “Art… its complexity, its experiments, its individual challenges, cannot be realised by the technique which produces mass culture.’
The theory makes it clear that mass culture depends upon and encourages the absence of thought, This works well for industry, as the masses can then be easily guided into continued consumption, producing sustained profit. It even goes as far as to suggest that other cultures are being eroded “by the spread of mass culture and the general trivialisation of all culture it has entailed.”
It then goes on to critique the theory from a number of angles. It begins with a quote from F. R. Leavis: “the word ‘elitism’ is a product of ignorance, prejudice and unintelligence… there must always be elites, and, moblizing[sic] and directing the ignorance, prejudice and unintelligence, it aims at destroying the only adequate control for ‘elites’ there could be.”
Following this quote, Strinati, intending to base the bulk of his critique on attacking the idea of elitism, first needs to assert its existence by saying: “However, it can be argued that the term elitism is highly relevant to any critical assessment of mass culture theory.” This suggests to me that the author believes mass culture theory to be a product of the elite. Page 39 is entirely dedicated to attacking elitists, suggesting that:
-Elitism refers to unexamined values
-Elitism assumes that the masses can only be examined an understood from a ‘higher’ position.
-Elite values and tastes are considered (by elitists) to be more valid and authoratitive
-Elitism “fails to regognise that mass culture can be understood, appreciated and interpreted by other groups.’
I note here that I was slightly disappointed that an eloquent, if perhaps pompous, eight line quote explaining why elitism doesn’t exist is rebutted by a two line (I’m paraphrasing here) ‘Yes it does, because I need it for my book.’ I would like to have seen a stronger rebuttal for something which otherwise does much to nullify a twelve page critique, though ultimately I do agree with the author.
It also points out that “working class evaluations of mass culture have, at different times, differed markedly from those held by mass culture critics” Some examples of this would have been useful, but I found it interesting that it seems to insinuate that mass culture is the preserve of the working-class.
The author aims to debunk Mass Media Theory’s indication that mass media brings about a lack of diversity by citing, among genres, rap and jazz as proof that diversity exists with the mass media. I agree fully that diversity is there, but I don’t think these are the best examples given that rap can be traced back centuries to the griots of West Africa, but even without going back so far it is clear that rap began as folk music as defined by the text. This excellent short essay explains the folk origins of jazz,
As I said, I agree with the argument, but not with the examples. The fact that many musical genres can be traced back to folk roots could really be used as an argument for, not against, mass media theory, in that it could be said to demonstrate the mass media’s hijacking of these genres in order to make massive profits.
So, the mechanic of this critique works by first arguing that Mass Culture Theory is elitist, and then attacking elitism, thus debunking the theory. I do have a couple of issues with this, aside from those I already stated. The first is in the failure to address a defining characteristic of mass media, that it is generated from the sake of profit. The sustained attack on elitism means that this point seems to be not only missed, but is actually reinforced on page 49. The following quote is an effort to prove diversity and thus disprove the idea of mass culture:
“First, is there any such thing as a mass audience anyway?... From the point of view of the producers of popular culture, there may not be a mass audience but rather segments of a market differentiated and stratified in terms of tastes, values and preferences as well as money and power. If particular producers need to maximise their audience then this has to be analysed as a specific instance of cultural production and consumption,”
While this quote is designed to argue against the idea of an audience which is “passive, supine, undemanding, vulnerable, manipulable, exploitable… resistant to intellectual change and stimulation, easy prey to consumerism and advertising… robotic in its devotion to repetitive formulas of mass culture”, in stating that markets are acknowledged and analysed in order to maximise audience it is actually arguing for much of the above description. Above all, it asserts that mass media exists for profit.
In addition, page 45 seems to heavily criticise ’the elites’ for failing to clearly define mass culture. Perhaps ironically, I was unable to find that which I would consider to be a clear description of ‘the elites’.
Overall, I found this to be a very interesting piece that put forth two arguments. It demonstrated to me the importance of including points and counter-points in an essay as well as serving as a good introduction to mass media, its defining characteristics and the different ways in which it is viewed by society.
Having written a thousand words on this, I will now consider the four key issues as instructed:
1. Theories using the concepts of mass culture were particularly influential from the late Nineteenth Century through to the late 1950s. What was meant by the phrase ‘mass culture’ and why do you think it was a popular term during this period in history?
Despite the text stating “it is not enough to say that mass culture is a consequence of industrialisation, since a more precise specification of the link between the two is required…”, it doesn’t offer any better ideas. I think it was a product of industrialisation for the reason I gave earlier. Mass media couldn’t exist without mass production, and nor could the methods of advertising required to sustain it. Mass media, by definition, requires methods of transmission and storage, e.g. Television, radio, computer, vinyl, CDs, DVDs etc, which can be produced and distributed en masse which, again, require the techniques brought about by industrialisation. As for why the terminology is no longer in such popular usage, I believe this is because it has become so strong and widespread that it no longer needs a label, it’s just the way the world is. The situation and its facts still exist, however.
2. Do you accept the idea that there will always be divisions between the culture and tastes of an educated elite and those of the ‘masses’?
Yes, for the foreseeable future. I believe the ‘elite’, if they exist, define themselves by their culture and hold on tightly to the idea that their tastes and interests make them such. Particularly interests which are difficult or take practice to understand fully, such as poetry, classic literature and film, classical music and so on, help to assert their intelligence. In addition, expensive pursuits of the middle and upper classes, such as hunting and polo, gain a reputation for being elitist simply because only a small percentage of people can afford them, and also afford the education which introduces them to the culture. In short, the elites, as a culture if it exists, enjoy the division and will endeavour to sustain it. I find it interesting to note that in the question, “masses” was in inverted commas and “educated elite” wasn’t.
3. Do definitions of what counts as ‘high culture’ and ‘popular culture’ change over time? Can you think of examples that illustrate that change? (e.g. how was jazz first viewed in the 1920s and how is it viewed now?)
Of course. I already mentioned jazz, but if you go back far enough, the ability to read and write was considered to be high culture because it education was only available to those who could afford it. Of the few who engaged in hunting with birds, only the King could hunt with an eagle. I think much of this is to do with things becoming more available over time, largely due to certain things becoming less expensive, if not the product or pursuit itself, then the education required to appreciate it.
4. Is there a relationship between ‘good’ or ‘bad’, ‘high’ or ‘low’ culture and structures of power in society?
I think that would be too much of a generalisation, and this is a very subjective question due to the ideas of 'good' and 'bad'. The text I have read asserts the difference in viewpoints. I quote again “working class evaluations of mass culture have, at different times, differed markedly from those held by mass culture critics”. How can one establish a correlation between ‘good’ or ‘bad’, i.e. morality, and culture, which I can best describe as a sociological categorisation? I think the morality depends of which culture you view from. For example, it could be said, with gross generalisation, that the view of ‘the masses’ is that fox hunting is immoral, and therefore the ‘high’ culture that practises it is immoral. ‘High’ culture could be assumed to believe that gangster rap is immoral and therefore so is the ‘mass’ culture that supports it. But this question would be impossible to answer well without first clearly defining ‘high’ and ‘low’ culture, which is yet to be done in terms of their audiences, and then conducting a thorough survey. The best I can do here is to acknowledge that for as long as there is a divide between the two, each will attack the morals of the other.
Shrthnd is a bt lke sqggly txt spk
Posted by Andrew Giddings
in Thursday, 1 October 2009
A fiery baptism into the world of shorthand today. Tough but necessary.
Taking recording equipment into (or even close to) a courtroom is something of a no-no. The answer to this is shorthand; a fiendishly clever method of writing which works by simplifying letters and, when assembling them into words, dropping any letters which aren't completely necessary and pressing what's left together into a squiggle. All this in order to make writing as fast as possible so that a reporter can keep up with a court case. It looks like this:
This video (the best I could find) shows teeline shorthand at 40 words per minute. You're considered good when you reach 100 words per minute. I think it looks stunning when it's done well. We're doing this for 10 hours per week for the first two weeks, then it continues with shorter sessions every week, though having spoken to our lovely tutor I realise that a lot of private study will be required in order to get my pace up to the magic 100 words per minute. I love a challenge.
Shorthand is a tough thing to learn, but while we students grumbled about this and that, Indonesia was hit by another earthquake. As if the first one wasn't enough. Even people who don't like journalists would find it hard to argue against the fact that they provide the valuable public service of offering some perspective on the petty issues we whine about every day. As history is the most reliable way predicting the future, expect a blog entry discussing the spectacularly disorganised aid efforts and half-hearted token gestures from the superpowers.
Meanwhile, the House of Lords is no longer the highest court in the land. I've never felt totally comfortable with the court that is more of a commitee and I think this looks a lot better to the public and I think this is fine news as it should help to separate our legal system from our political system. Hopefully it'll be different from the US system, which is rather political. However, I don't yet know enough about politics to be confident that I'm not about to embarrass myself if I continue, and unfortunately I have so much reading and shorthand practice to do that I don't have time to research it properly. Time to hit the books.
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About Me
- Andrew Giddings
- I am a twenty-something year-old student studying BA Journalism at the University of Winchester. The idea of this blog is to give readers some insight into the course as well as providing classmates with additional notes and information.