Jello, Fist

Summary:
Discussion in class today centered around the power and limitations of the three models of media discussed last Wednesday. To refresh:

1. The hypodermic model - unadulterated from sender to receiver. Straight shot.
2. The two-step model - information packaged as a message travels to the receiver through a trusted Opinion Leader (OL). Note: receivers may internalize the OL.
   
3. The spaghetti/Los Angeles Freeway model - anticipates an environment in which everyone is influencing and being influenced. Note: this model reduces the importance placed on traditional demographics. Catholics don't all get their opinions from the Pope.
   

Agenda/Framing:
The media cannot tell you what to think, but they can tell you what to think about. This is agenda-setting, and it is terribly common. An issue can also be framed, or presented in such a way as to influence opinion.

Necessary/Sufficient:
An example exercise in the difference between necessary (a factor) and sufficient (the "true cause").
Question: Why don't I feel well?
Necessary Answers: You don't exercise. You have bad genes. You eat poorly. You don't sleep enough. You don't wash your hands. You work with kids. You have a tapeworm.
Sufficient Answer: Voodoo.


What I'm wondering:

1. Who has the power in the spaghetti model? Can anyone truly set an agenda?
2. What is the obligation of media during a human rights crisis? (ie, Tiananmen Square)

To answer the first, it seems that despite the fractured appearance, there may be more cohesion in the spaghetti model than the name implies. Opinion leaders are not isolated entities - the model tells us that. It seems logical that opinion leaders sharing some ideological concern may form networks. These networks can then, by the power of volume, set agendas. Considering blogs, briefly, a story posted to an influential news aggregate site like Slashdot may echo around the web for days afterwards, following established pathways through other blogs (Jason Kottke has an interesting post on the effects of being "slashdotted" and the implications of the information pathways here).

Course to Date (CtD): 98.6 degrees. Let's go. I'm ready.