Week 1 – Understanding key terms

 

SPECTACLE, SUPERSTRUCTURE, SYNERGY, OBJECTIVITY, INFORMATION BIAS and POLITICAL BIAS

Spectacle:

        Spectacles are more often than not the best attention grabbers. It can even be considered a cliché at this point. Media use spectacles in order to steer our attention in any direction they want, be it with clickbait, shocking imagery, scandals and so on... Truth is, there is little chance of escaping it in a society which thrives on digital media.

Superstructure:

In Marxist theory, this term superstructure is used to denote influential societal ideologies such as: religion, politics, government, etc... It reflects the interests of the ruling class, which serve as the base for this kind of structure.

Synergy:

          This is a profit maximization strategy used by media conglomerates which involves multiple companies cross-developing, producing and distributing a media brand in order to exploit it for all possible profit.

Objectivity:

          Being objective means viewing the truth as independent from any individual subjectivity. The terms subjectivity and bias can be considered to be the opposite of objectivity. When someone has strong subjective views, it becomes harder for them to see the “bigger picture”, in other words to consider every possibility.

Information bias:

This occurs when there is no systematic difference from the truth when collecting, recalling, recording and handling data in a study as well as the notion in which missing data is dealt with. There are four types of information biases: Personalization, dramatization, fragmentation and authority-disorder.

Political bias:

          It represents altering information in order to make a political position or political candidates seem more attractive while slandering any opposition. News organizations typically do this when paid to talk about a specific political party or candidate in order to either make them look better, or to destroy their reputation. This way they completely shape any personal opinion about the political scene.