WK1: Spectacle, Superstructure, Synergy, Objectivity, Information bias, Political bias

     SPECTACLE – a sensational, shocking, scandalous or striking event which exists in order to attract and manipulate the attention of the viewers. It drags all of the viewer’s attention to itself, usually resulting in most of the major broadcast networks talking about it for days, weeks or even months. Sometimes an event is so “spectacular” that other, far more important events, are not even talked about and many people do not even know that they are occurring at that moment. A spectacle is frequently linked with a celebrity - this is called a hyper-spectacle. The media uses hyper-spectacles to gain as much profit as possible, and this works because when people see that some celebrity is involved in a spectacle, they will automatically want to learn more about it because of their obsession over the said celebrity or simply out of curiosity.

    SUPERSTRUCTURE – this term denotes the ideologies and beliefs that dominate a particular era, “all that men say, imagine, or conceive” – politics, art, morality, laws, religion, culture…
According to Marxists, superstructure is built on the grounds of a base. Here the base represents the combination of the means of production, social structures, human labor and raw materials – all the things which are needed to produce the necessities of life.

    SYNERGY – the cooperation between two or more large companies, with the goal of boosting the income and exploiting media for all the possible profit. Synergy can be easily spotted, for example when someone publishes a book, someone else will make a movie or series out of it, then the next someone will make a video game out of it, and then the next someone will start selling balloons or shirts or jewelry with the pictures or some symbols from that book/movie/video game and so on. Synergy brings maximum profit to all of the entities included in it.

    OBJECTIVITY – freedom from bias, someone being able to view the certain situation without their personal beliefs or emotions interfering. Looking at the situation as an outsider.
Objectivity should be used in journalism, or in any way of passing the information to a large group of people, even though staying objective in certain situations is really hard.

    INFORMATION BIAS – any variation or difference from the truth. This emerges because of systematic errors in collecting information or not handling information correctly.

    POLITICAL BIAS – once again varying from the truth, but this time it is done in order to make some political candidate or someone’s political statement seem likable or appealing. In short, altering the truth and selling lies to people for political purposes and gain.