To what extent do the best selling UK newspapers cover stories related to serious issues? To what extent would you think that it is their role to do so? In your opinion does the tabloid media and 'low budget entertainment' (reality shows, soaps) have too much power and influence in this country?
I think the newspapers have far too much of an influence over peoples opinions, and I think its quite sad that in this country 4 of the top 5 are tabloid newspapers. Obviously there is a difference between each paper but not much. Looking at the Sun's website this morning the headlining story is all about Katie Price (http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/) infact every story on their main page has something to do with a celebrity. Then looking at the Daily Mirrors website its exactly the same story again, the latest gossip from the x factor and a sneak peek at whats coming up in Eastenders. On both of these there isn't even theslightest mention of the up and coming UN climate change debate or the latest from the war in Afghanistan. I don't really read these newspapers but I think if i did I wouldn't have a much more informed view of whats going on in the world around me, their fukll of scandle and celebrity. For example in the Mirror one of the closest stories I could get to political is "Millionaire Tory leader David Cameron claims 40p for chocolate bar on expenses - Exclusive" (http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/top-stories/2009/12/03/millionaire-tory-leader-david-cameron-claims-40p-for-chocolate-bar-on-expenses-exclusive-115875-21868701/). I mean I can understand the fact that its coming out of the tax payers money but its 40p who really cares, but the public will be outraged at this kind of story and it has the power to turn people against that particular party. We all know that each of the papers have alliances with political parties and the newspapers are very clever in the way that they can change peoples views on these parties or people.
As regards low budget entertainment I don't understand why it seems to take over peoples lives, I admit I do watch the X factor at the weekend but I wouldn't go and camp outside theire house but people do and I really don't understand it. I think it is quite sad that children now could point out Simon Cowell but wouldn't have a clue who the primeminiter was. I think its a sad reflection of the dumbing down of our society. Looking at the list of the most watched television programmes its mainly dominated by soaps which are so far from reality its unreal. They do look at relavent issues like teenage pregnancies or drugs but they take these story lines to the extreme so miss out on being informal for people. Bearing in mind that the top tv shows listed were over the weekend this week the Queen documentary drama shown on channel 4 pulled in 2.4 million viewers http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/tvratings, however this is still a drama and only loosley based on facts but people will take it for gospel.
I think there needs to be more regulation in to how truthful these programmes and articles are and a possible warning put before they are shown to say they are only based on facts. The public need to learn to not believe everything they hear or read.
Thursday, 3 December 2009
Thursday, 19 November 2009
Should we be informed?
I agree that we should all be informed because these issues that politicians and scientists are deciding for us are going to affect us all. I feel that we aren't given enough credit as citizens, I think that most of us are well educated and the govenrment don't think we are capable of understanding complex issues when we are.
I personally try to keep myself as informed as I can, I regularly read newspapers and watch the news but I am always aware that these are made under extreme bias. The BBC for example is funded by the government therefore will never be very controversial about them this even streams down in to the type of doctmentaries they show, yes they do have Panorama but the issues they tackle here again give a biased view. The tabloid and broadsheet newspapers are very politcal with several stating there alligance to a particular party which will affect how we the citizens are informed. There have been several documentaries which I felt have really helped inform people of the real issues, one was to do with the Iraq war and looked at what the soliders had to say. At home we only ever hear about the number of soliders who have died and the Iraq war opposition groups never from the soliders themselves, this documentary went to Iraq and Afganistan and gave the viewer a look in to the life of the soliders and their opinions on what they were doing.
I think it is right that the scientists research in to the proposed changes but I think the information they find should be more freely avaliable to the public and possibly we should be able to vote and give our opinions because at the end of the day its us that its going to effect. After watching Al Gores An Inconvinient Truth and The Great Global Warming Swindle I became even more aware how uninformed people could be so easily influenced. If I had not have seen The Great Global Warming Swindle I think I possibly would have believed ever word that Al Gore said but to be shown the otherside of the argument really made me question what I was being told and I think this should be done for all matters because generally we only ever get to hear one side of the argument. I think the government need to finally appreciate that we do wish to be informed and start getting us a more involved because at the end of the day if they want us to change to make the local community, country and world a better place they need to involve us.
I personally try to keep myself as informed as I can, I regularly read newspapers and watch the news but I am always aware that these are made under extreme bias. The BBC for example is funded by the government therefore will never be very controversial about them this even streams down in to the type of doctmentaries they show, yes they do have Panorama but the issues they tackle here again give a biased view. The tabloid and broadsheet newspapers are very politcal with several stating there alligance to a particular party which will affect how we the citizens are informed. There have been several documentaries which I felt have really helped inform people of the real issues, one was to do with the Iraq war and looked at what the soliders had to say. At home we only ever hear about the number of soliders who have died and the Iraq war opposition groups never from the soliders themselves, this documentary went to Iraq and Afganistan and gave the viewer a look in to the life of the soliders and their opinions on what they were doing.
I think it is right that the scientists research in to the proposed changes but I think the information they find should be more freely avaliable to the public and possibly we should be able to vote and give our opinions because at the end of the day its us that its going to effect. After watching Al Gores An Inconvinient Truth and The Great Global Warming Swindle I became even more aware how uninformed people could be so easily influenced. If I had not have seen The Great Global Warming Swindle I think I possibly would have believed ever word that Al Gore said but to be shown the otherside of the argument really made me question what I was being told and I think this should be done for all matters because generally we only ever get to hear one side of the argument. I think the government need to finally appreciate that we do wish to be informed and start getting us a more involved because at the end of the day if they want us to change to make the local community, country and world a better place they need to involve us.
Thursday, 29 October 2009
An Inconvinent Truth?
To what extent do you think this was deserved? Having watched this film in class did you feel that your opinion (or perhaps the opinion of others) to the issue of climate change could be positively influenced? What did you think of this film? Was it effective?
I've seen this film a couple of times before and each time the impact it has on me is softened, the first that I saw the film I did become more conscious of the impact that I have on the environment as a result for about a week afterwards I was recycling and turning off things obsessively. However I do still think that it is a good way of getting the message of climate change across, but I think my opinion has been biased because we did watch it in sixth form and then compared it to a Channel 4 film which tried to show that climate change wasn't real so I always end up comparing it and looking for the flaws in the film. I also felt that the film had too much about the life of Al Gore, he does a good job of explaining the science in various ways so everyone can understand it but he gets very political and bitter which I didn't think was totally necessary.
Personally I don't think that Al Gore deserved the peace prize for this film because although it is a useful tool for building the foundations of an understanding of climate change it has been proven that there are many misrepresentations of data in the film, for example the fact that he claims that a sea level rise over the next 200 years of 6 meters will cause the mass migration of possibly millions of people inland. Research has show that the sea level will rise by only 0.6 - 0.8 meters in the next 100 years. He constantly uses the worst possible outcome and I think this may scare people. I know that it helps him get his point across but it doesn't give a fair view of the problem. This film was used in schools but now due to the discrepancies in the information it isn't recommended and it is for this reason that I think the film shouldn't get the Nobel peace prize. I think that yes he has made more people aware of the issue but he hasn't really discovered anything which is going to stop climate change, and as most of the film is a biography of his life it kind of misses the point.
I have been positively influenced by the film, I do always feel an enormous sense of guilt after watching it but always seem to end up thinking that I can't really make that much difference on my own, yes I'll continue to recycle and turn off the lights but when it comes to walking or cycling instead of using my car its never going to happen because in the end I can't really be that committed to it on my own. Having watched a couple of documentaries which state that climate change is a myth I do now wonder throughout the film how much of it is real and how much is put in there to scaremonger us.
I've seen this film a couple of times before and each time the impact it has on me is softened, the first that I saw the film I did become more conscious of the impact that I have on the environment as a result for about a week afterwards I was recycling and turning off things obsessively. However I do still think that it is a good way of getting the message of climate change across, but I think my opinion has been biased because we did watch it in sixth form and then compared it to a Channel 4 film which tried to show that climate change wasn't real so I always end up comparing it and looking for the flaws in the film. I also felt that the film had too much about the life of Al Gore, he does a good job of explaining the science in various ways so everyone can understand it but he gets very political and bitter which I didn't think was totally necessary.
Personally I don't think that Al Gore deserved the peace prize for this film because although it is a useful tool for building the foundations of an understanding of climate change it has been proven that there are many misrepresentations of data in the film, for example the fact that he claims that a sea level rise over the next 200 years of 6 meters will cause the mass migration of possibly millions of people inland. Research has show that the sea level will rise by only 0.6 - 0.8 meters in the next 100 years. He constantly uses the worst possible outcome and I think this may scare people. I know that it helps him get his point across but it doesn't give a fair view of the problem. This film was used in schools but now due to the discrepancies in the information it isn't recommended and it is for this reason that I think the film shouldn't get the Nobel peace prize. I think that yes he has made more people aware of the issue but he hasn't really discovered anything which is going to stop climate change, and as most of the film is a biography of his life it kind of misses the point.
I have been positively influenced by the film, I do always feel an enormous sense of guilt after watching it but always seem to end up thinking that I can't really make that much difference on my own, yes I'll continue to recycle and turn off the lights but when it comes to walking or cycling instead of using my car its never going to happen because in the end I can't really be that committed to it on my own. Having watched a couple of documentaries which state that climate change is a myth I do now wonder throughout the film how much of it is real and how much is put in there to scaremonger us.
Wednesday, 7 October 2009
Sustainable Lifestyle
What actions could you (in theory) undertake that would improve the 'sustainability' of your lifestyle? What might be preventing you from doing these?
There are lots of things I could do to improve the sustainability of my lifestyle, the main one would probably be not to drive everywhere. Me driving everywhere is increasing the gas emissions and the fossil fuel consumption which will mean there is less for future generations.Having passed my test for a while now I drive everywhere as its so much quicker and more reliable than using public transport. Its also much faster, to get to my job in the town centre it takes 15 minutes at the most but if I were to take the bus i'd have to leave almost an hour earlier. If the public transport links were improved and made cheaper I may consider using them instead.
I think I could also try and eat more healthily, this would have many sustainable impacts. Having a healthier diet would improve my overall health which in the long run would class me at a lower risk of developing any illnesses due to diet which would save on the health service and therefore the public spending so they could invest that in to something else. Eating fresher produce may also help instead of the ready meals, fruit and vegetables may be imported from other countries but they use considerably less packaging again reducing the use of fossil fuels in there production. I could even grown my own food but it takes a lot of patience and a certain knowledge of gardening which I just don't have, not to mention the weather in this country not being the most reliable.
The recycling facilities have been improved vastly in the past few years but I don't recycle anywhere near as much as I should because it takes so much effort to seperate everything but if I could put in a little more effort and recycle unwanted paperwork and things instead of just putting them in the bin.
There are lots of things I could do to improve the sustainability of my lifestyle, the main one would probably be not to drive everywhere. Me driving everywhere is increasing the gas emissions and the fossil fuel consumption which will mean there is less for future generations.Having passed my test for a while now I drive everywhere as its so much quicker and more reliable than using public transport. Its also much faster, to get to my job in the town centre it takes 15 minutes at the most but if I were to take the bus i'd have to leave almost an hour earlier. If the public transport links were improved and made cheaper I may consider using them instead.
I think I could also try and eat more healthily, this would have many sustainable impacts. Having a healthier diet would improve my overall health which in the long run would class me at a lower risk of developing any illnesses due to diet which would save on the health service and therefore the public spending so they could invest that in to something else. Eating fresher produce may also help instead of the ready meals, fruit and vegetables may be imported from other countries but they use considerably less packaging again reducing the use of fossil fuels in there production. I could even grown my own food but it takes a lot of patience and a certain knowledge of gardening which I just don't have, not to mention the weather in this country not being the most reliable.
The recycling facilities have been improved vastly in the past few years but I don't recycle anywhere near as much as I should because it takes so much effort to seperate everything but if I could put in a little more effort and recycle unwanted paperwork and things instead of just putting them in the bin.
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