One class I'm taking this semester is called Mass Communications and the purpose of this class is to help us understand and expand our media literacy. To help us begin this journey our professor brought in an episode from an 80's show called Max Headroom.
The concept of the show is kind of cheesy and the actual production is totally bad 80's, but the underlying message still rings true today. The episode we watched was called "War." In this episode there are two TV stations fighting for the top ratings during the all important "Sweeps Week." One station is a network station while the other (I'm assuming) is the equivalent to a locally owned station. The network was using a dog show for their lead while the local station was using war stories; clearly the local station was winning the ratings war but this was only because they were in league with the "bad guys" who started the war.
While this may not sound like it would relate to our world today, what I took out of it was this: don't worry about the ratings. Worry about telling both sides of the story and getting to the truth. Even if it means you suffer a bit in the ratings.
1 comment:
Is there anywhere on the net to watch old episodes of Max Headroom?
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