There has always been a dilemma in the undergraduate education of the university’s new biography: from a theoretical perspective, "news without learning" has always been a curse shrouded in the head of the new discipline. Journalism and communication are the land of nine provinces, and the four originators of communication are derived from political science. In various disciplines such as Psychology, Psychology, and Sociology, journalism and communication do not have the profound theoretical origins of other disciplines such as politics, economics, and sociology. From a technical point of view, social media such as Facebook, Twitter, and WeChat have risen, and computer talents have become rich, while traditional media talents only have paper and pen in their hands. In terms of professional popularity, the emergence of new technologies such as big data and the Internet has changed the way people find and organize information. Traditional media is no longer the primary channel for people to obtain information, and its prestige has plummeted. The theoretical depth is not as good as other humanities, the technical ability is not as good as the computer talent, and the income is not as good as the big factory. Therefore, democratic care and the pursuit of truth have become the last dignity of the students and teachers in the new discipline. Teachers talked about public pursuits in the classroom, and kept telling students about the thrilling plots in the in-depth reports. The classroom was full of idealism, but if even this last trace of dignity was ruthlessly torn away by reality, then the news Where should I go?
The movie "Nightcrawler" shows this scene. "Nightcrawler" describes the story of a thief who was the first to make a living by cutting wires and stealing manhole covers by selling his close-up live video to the TV station, profiting from it, and step by step to success. In China, the media is owned by the state, and positive propaganda and news reports have long been a major issue in my country's journalism work. However, in the West, the media is privately owned, and the private ownership of the market economy and the logic of competition drive the actions of the media. The media, like other market players, must also consider their own survival. The source of the media’s income is advertising. The media where advertisers place advertisements depends on the media’s ratings. Therefore, ratings and circulation have become the only measurement criteria for media actions. Competition has contributed to the film’s coverage of similar American pornographic news in the past. The pattern is popular. It was mentioned in the film that Louis himself had listened to a whole set of online marketing courses on the Internet, implying that he thought about news from the perspective of marketing from beginning to end: news is the product, and the audience is the user. The entire design must be based on the needs of users. In order to attract users, it can be made out of nothing, taken out of context, spread rumors, and exaggerate the facts...In the movie, it is mainly manifested in two aspects:
The first is selective reporting of facts. A fact has multiple dimensions. From each dimension, the scene seen is real, but the "truth" strives to reproduce objective facts completely from all angles. Indeed, it is people who shoot and report facts, so news reports will inevitably be contaminated with people's subjective colors. The media cannot truly reflect social reality like a mirror. However, the media’s choice of social reality should provide the public with "overall reality" as much as possible. The many "points" reported by the media should reflect the "whole" to a certain extent, and a certain "measurement ratio" is needed here. Once the scale of this measurement is out of balance, even if the specific report is true, it is only true in the ontological sense, and it has not reached the comprehensiveness and correctness in the epistemological sense, thereby distorting the overall report. In the movie, even at the end of the movie, Nina learned that the rich man in the movie was shot because of a few catties of drugs harbored in her home, but she still did not change the original reporting mode because she knew that the audience liked to watch It was "the rich and the whites were killed by the poor and the ethnic minorities."
The second is planning news. "News planning" and "planning news" have always been two concepts that have been confused in the field of new communication. Some people say that without news planning, no news quality can be created. This is correct. To report good news requires the process of reporting. Make overall arrangements. But "planning news" refers to news deliberately created by design. The event would not have happened naturally. It was planned and initiated by the media directly, and then reported by the media. In the movie, Louis recreated the news scene many times. For example, in order to better "compose" and "framing", he did not hesitate to move the body of the deceased in the car accident, so that the car lights can better capture the opponent. This change in the truth gradually escalated. Louis even single-handedly created a gun battle between the police and the gangster, and finally used the murderer to shoot and kill his assistant Rick. At the end of the film, Louis and Nina, two people who broke through the ethical bottom line, had a love spark of sympathy after watching the film, and behind them was the horrified face of Rick lying in a pool of blood on the screen.
Both of these aspects are vivid examples of the "post-truth" era. The occurrence of black swan events such as Brexit and Trump in 2016 prompted the advent of the term "post-truth era", but few people know that the "post" in the "post-truth era" does not refer to chronological order. Succession refers to the level of value. The "post-truth era" refers to an era in which people no longer regard "truth" as the most desirable value at the level of what should be. People believe that there is no truth at all, and the legitimacy of truth has been disintegrated. Therefore, it is even legitimate to choose information according to one's own emotions and preferences. The hot documentary "Surveillance Capitalism" in 2020 further reveals the evil consequences of such a value concept: because traditional media is no longer the main source of people’s news, people are trapped in the algorithmic cage of social media and see It's all the news I want to see. Even the traditional media no longer respect the truth. Traditional media should be the gatekeepers of the truth, but just like the movie "Nightcrawler" portrayed, due to the pressure of marketization, traditional media are also more inclined to report stimulating and inflammatory news, completely losing news. Ethics. This is not without consequences, because everything reported in the news will eventually affect reality: there is less and less consensus between people, the gap is getting deeper, communication and compromise are getting harder and harder, violence, bloodshed, and conflict. It happened more and more frequently, and eventually led to "all people's wars against all people." For all this, Louis in the movie "Nightcrawler" must be held accountable, Nina and the TV station behind her must be held accountable, Facebook and Twitter in real life must be held accountable, and all media whose interests have eroded their hearts must be held accountable.
More than two hundred years ago, the American constitutionalist Alexander Hamilton posed a tangled question to the people at the time: "Whether human society can really establish a good government through reflection and choice; or is it destined to rely on opportunities and Violence, the establishment of a political system?” To this day, we still cannot give the answer. The era is even worse than two hundred years ago, but we know that we must reaffirm the idea that the truth is good. The truth is painful and uncomfortable, but only based on the pursuit and respect for the truth can we use reason to discuss a common solution and hope for the prosperity of society, instead of giving our destiny to opportunity and violence. This is therefore the greatest glory of journalism: you may not get any reward for adhering to journalism professionalism, and at the worst, it will usher in a bankruptcy ending, but the pursuit of the truth must be meaningful. This is enough.
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