Spectacle, Synergy...

Spectacle governs the content of media. It describes the media’s obsession with the sensational and arresting, scandalous and shocking, that which grabs hold of our attention. It has become the very heart of our society, not merely a decoration; the spectacle epitomizes the prevailing mode of social life. Through the endless reproduction of shocking images the media collapses news into entertainment and entertainment into life.

Synergy is the involvement of multiple subsidiary companies in the cross-development, production, and distribution of a media brand for the purpose of exploiting it for profit. It is made possible by horizontal integration. For example, a brand like Batman, that used to be a comic book character, is exploited to the point where there are movies, merchandise, music, all based off the brand’s initial success. As a result, a whole web of corporations make money off of different markets, and the biggest chunk goes to the mother company.... the dc universe, harry potter, big budget films won’t get made if they do not have this cross promotional potential

Objectivity is the opposite of yellow journalism that denies any social responsibility and privileges sensational or even fabricated stories. Objectivity is prevalent in the journalism business owing to the professionalization of journalism, also thanks to the efforts made by scholars and educated authority figures.

Information bias is something the news tends to demonstrate. One such phenomenon is personalization. The news reports rely mostly on interviews, first person accounts, eyewitness testimony... in order to make events feel more personal and to make the emotional impact greater. Dramatization plays an important role in information bias as well. In order to achieve a more interesting, shocking report, journalists use structured narrative techniques, regardless of the issue being reported. They also tend to emphasize the sensationalist, scandalous details of a story. Since these often complex issues are being packed into this perfect story like narrative, with a beginning, middle and an ending, there is a threat of the issue becoming obsolete, since people gain a false sense of closure. Journalists also resort to fragmentation, which is treating stories out of context, without the connection to other stories, thus people lose the sense of the cause-effect aspect of world events and their historical significance. Lastly, adding tension between authority, such as the government, or the police, and disorder, like criminals, terrorism, protesters, journalists make a story seem like a plot for a movie.

Political bias refers to the ideological slant of news organizations, this is a consequence of certain news sources aimed at particular audiences based on their political ideology.