#comment5

[uwengl591]

Response to Panel Discussion: Freedom Summer by Mackenzie Krumme

Comment by Sara Lawton

Mackenzie, I enjoyed your post about the negative role of the media in the Robert Nixon case, and the perspective of it as a positive influence on the Freedom Summer campaign. I think that this conflict highlights a flaw in modern media that arises from a lack of variety of viewpoints and a tendency for sensationalism.

I think that, as you suggested, this is highly relevant to our lives today with the changing nature of digital media. As news moves online, what is “trending” gets the most attention while things that have not been shared, liked, or retweeted many times get little notice. Due to this, online news sites may write a controversial headline that does not necessarily reflect the article to get people to click the link to the article, and to take advantage of those who share or retweet their article without having read it. This drives traffic to their websites, increasing their ad revenue. Television news works similarly. For example, by using the tagline “Do you know…” followed by a sensationalized, controversial issue to get viewers to “stay tuned” to find out later — and watch commercials. This is due to the fact that the media is for-profit. TV news and online news must earn money through their ad revenue and sponsors, and to get bigger sponsors they must show those high numbers — a large number of viewers; a high number of retweets.

To relate this back to the Richard Nixon case, the fact that the media portrayed him as a sexual deviant was probably a way to increase their newspaper sales. Many people will buy a paper with a tantalizing, sensational story over the factual horrors of reality, and the media knows that. Once their numbers rise after publishing one story calling him a sexual deviant, they will be motivated to write more.

With Freedom Summer, its popularity had a positive effect since it did not just incite people to watch the news, it caused them to join the protest in the South.

[uwengl591]

Response to Nancy Grace Effect by Marina

Matt,

First off, I loved that you called this the "Nancy Grace Effect" because that should be a term that is applied to overly exaggerated and nuanced individuals who perpetuate more problems than there are in truth. But aside from that, I agree with the premise of your argument and the role media plays in high profile cases. I made a similar comment on another classmate's post in regards to the way our media, no matter through what medium, shapes and affects our mindset when we hear or read about different events. It's interesting that you used The Crisis as a comparison point for examining headlines. When I was reading through different issues of The Crisis, I noticed that the headlines about killings of African Americans were not attention grabbing and more simplistic. What's more, the articles that talked about death were placed right next to sales ads or daily items that were being posted, and not a stand alone article. I brought up in a former post of mine why this seems to be the case and if the articles talking about deaths of black people were done so because it was an acceptance of the reality of white power and oppression over black individuals.

In regards to looking at how Bigger was represented in newspaper headlines throughout his escape and subsequent capture, Wright's portrayal of Bigger by the media heightens the "hype" surrounding the case and in turn caused mass protests outside of the courtroom, as you pointed out, the "Nancy Grace effect." I believe that Wright's usage of this idea brings to light the danger of our society using stereotypes to describe people in certain situations and how detrimental racism is. Not to say that Bigger's killing of the women should be lessened by any means, but to make him appear more dangerous and wild than what he really is plays into the idea Wright was so willing to present to his readers of young, black male stereotypes.