Media Bias

One of the most recent questions we've observed pertained to media bias. Has media coverage changed drastically over time? A while back we watched as Will and Jack showed us a presentation on the media coverage during the civil war, mainly on two newspapers. We compared the two and looked at the bias that each one carried being part of the Union and the other part of the Confederacy. As we laughed at how ridiculous the bias were, such as claiming victory in a battle when they had clearly lost, Mr. Crotty asked us as to whether or not the bias in media coverage had changed at all. At first one would think no, the media doesn't all out lie to the public. But maybe the media has changed in a different way; rather than drop the bias, perhaps it's just gotten to be a little more subtle with the way it reports its bias, or at least the mainstream news outlets have. We've heard of Rush Limbaugh, Bill O'Reilly, etc, and how extreme they can be with their views. But with the access to world events that just about every person in the U.S has, mainstream news outlets need to be more subtle with the news the report since reporting obvious falsities is no longer an option. It would seem quite obvious that media has changed dramatically since the Civil War. While they can't exactly lie to the public, they still try to influence the public in favor of their bias.

Killer Angels

We recently talked about what makes man the killer angel in class. As we sat there and thought over the question I felt it necessary to see why man would be considered an angel to begin with. Why would man be considered an angel? We don't fly, we aren't perfect, no glittering halos, so what could possibly have us be considered divine? One of the few reasons I could come up with is our ability to reason. Although we're animals, our minds still set us apart from other animals. Is that what makes us "divine"? Our ability to reason, being able to think and talk situations out? What hit me next was the sad reality that although we have such amazing thought capabilities, we're still the most violent creature on this planet. Rather than talk out and reason with each other to solve our situations peacefully, we go to war, afraid of losing what's kept us comfortable.

Human After All?

After our class argument the other day regarding War and Human Nature I couldn't help but question myself as to what exactly human nature was. When I was sided with the Yes part of class dealing with the question as to whether or not war was a part of human nature I was content. I absolutely thought it was a part of human nature, but after Mr. Crotty's final statements I find myself wondering what it was that I was thinking. My idea about human nature and whether or not war is an inherent part of it is a little confusing, at least to myself (ignore that). First when I think about human nature I like to think in very simple ways to start off. I think tribal style groups fighting each other, why would they do this? Food, resource, land, survival, fear are there right off the bat and I feel like it's even easier to group them up into envy and fear. Now putting that aside for the moment, what does a war usually consist of? 2 large groups attacking each other is a simple way to put it. Now that we have those two for reference, this is what my thought process was. When humans envy something greatly or fear for their survival enough they will attack back, and if you can gather enough of these people together then you will have the group you're looking for. The thing I can't seem to piece together is what would constitute war being apart of our nature. I feel as though we're willing to fight something if it pushes us to a certain extent and if there are a number of these people then they will fight together against it. I know that those are situations where people are pushed to an extreme but couldn't their human nature just be to react in such a way to these circumstances? I could be wrong (oh so wrong) but I think about wars on drugs and how people feel that their lifestyles are being threatened so they "fight" on, how tribes feel threatened by one another so they wage war to protect their people. Perhaps war on a large scale isn't part of human nature but don't humans instinctively fight back against something they fear? Maybe I'm thinking about this in some weird way or I'm making this too complicated for myself (Or I might just be really tired) or just plain wrong.