Tag Archives: Thomas Eland

Assignment 2B

I believe that there is bias on everything. The media tries to focus so much on one side. A lot of news channels like Fox News, CNN, etc. tend to lean towards one side. You don’t really get an opinion on both of the sides of the story. Currently the news has been focused on presidential campaigns, especially focusing on Donald Trump and all his opinions about immigrants. Corporate Interest affects the information that we receive in another alternative. As we receive information from one another, it could be either biased or unbiased.  It depends on what kind of news (ex: Abc 7, Fox 5) or a source that we receive the information from. The media is trying to persuade us from one individual to another with their opinion, it may be spread around with different answers as a positive or negative sign on one topic. People believe that everything that they see or hear on a news channel is reliable information. The media wants us to believe that everything we see is true and they try to  persuade us into changing the way we view certain things.

Information that we receive being it bias or not has the effect of corporate interest. The media companies, due to their corporate interest to gain, sometimes changes the true meaning of the information being send across. Some sources try to make others look good, while others try to make them look bad. Certain media will make sure Donald Trump is looked as a “actual” good candidate but that is bad bias behavior for the people. Since Donald Trump has so much control, he can control the information that is put out there with the power of money to make him look good. Regardless the presidential campaign is for the people, and should stay for the people, so they should be given the right bias information in the media.

In response to the article, “Critical Thinking, Deviant Knowledge and the Alternative Press”, written by Thomas Eland in a newsletter in December 2004 for the Minneapolis Community and Technical College, I agree with the author’s assessment of the necessity for having more of an alternative press assessed view of the world in order to have a more balanced, and well-informed society. In turn this would create more of a democratic, more “hands-on” approach in making decisions dealing with our government.

I confirm that the manner in which the media is now set up is biased, simply because it only offers a one-sided view of their corporations’ interest collaborated with the interest of the major advertisers. An example of alternative news vs. mainstream media is written in an article, “These Students are Leading a Movement for Free College in the United States”, written by Rebecca Nathanson for Act Locally on November 15, 2015. The article is shown on the website www.inthesetimes.com. This article addresses the fight for Americans to go to college for free, and how Bernie Sanders has taken up this cause. I have not heard about this in mainstream media. The mainstream media didn’t really talk about this.

 

Assignment #2B

I recently viewed two news sources online one alternative news source and one mainstream.  The alternative news source that I chose is from a website known as Labor notes.  The mainstream news site that I chose to compare it to was our famous New York Times.  Initially I viewed the New York Times because I knew off the bat that a majority of the press would be based on corporate businesses and not middle class, low income workers.  Unfortunately, our press is run by capitalists as Mr. Thomas Eland simply puts it, in his article “Critical Thinking Deviant Knowledge“. Eland explains, “The business section is consciously aimed at the upper-middle and upper classes of American society, and a lifestyles section targets people with significant disposable income.” (pg 5). Currently in the New York Times business section I see stories such as the well known company Apple dealing with back taxes regarding Ireland and a article based on other major companies known as Amazon and Pandora offering music streaming for as low as $5 a month.

Although these stories may be interesting to read, where are the articles on low income workers and those struggling to find decent or even high paying jobs in today’s economy? When I viewed labornotes.org, I saw multiple articles based on the struggle of our lower classes in today’s society. For example, an article that I chose from this alternative press site was “Organizing gets fashionable: Zara workers beat the odds” by Sonia Singh. This article speaks of the strike that occurred in Manhattan against this particular highly recognized clothing store. The employees from different Zara locations complained about their unfair treatment and demanded to be unionized. According to Singh, “Retail organizing has drawn national attention with the Fight for 15 movement and Walmart worker strikes. But despite the slogan “$15 and a union,” the goal of widespread unionization seems far off”. So see, it is stories like these that are just as important but are least to hardly recognized at all thanks to corporate and capitalist domination.

http://labornotes.org/2016/08/organizing-gets-fashionable-zara-workers-beat-odds