I agree a great deal with Alain de Botton's views; I agree with the fact that the architecture of news is changing and how the idea of important news and popular news should go hand in hand. I think that the news is something that should priorities the important news as being the most popular as something that is simply a confirmed idea by all consumers. However this is not the case and unimportant news becomes more popular, making it worrying that we are not interested in good quality news journalism. I also agree with the idea that we are unable to care or empathise with incidents that we were unaware about initially, for example a natural disaster in a small third world country would not really appeal to us as we did not understand their current state before the tragedy. One thing that I didn't agree with, however, is de Botton's views about the BBC and how the best news has to be biased. The reason I do not agree with this is because I think that news should be impartial in order for the consumer to make their own judgement on certain situations, for example with the recent incidents of brexit, I personally turned to the BBC for my news because I wanted to be aware of both arguments and understand all of the information impartially. I agree that being biased helps to share your own political ideologies, however with particular news stories it makes it difficult to actually have a confirmed view about it, therefore the BBC acts as this impartial source to help form our own opinion.
How can you link Marxism and Hegemony to de Botton's criticisms of the News?
de Botton criticises the news through the idea that consumers are too passive and do not question the idea of the news or where it comes from as it is conventionally seen as an important and required. This links to the idea of hegemony and how the ruling classes dominate the news, the government and the institutions dominate the news and consumers are simply passive to this news. We, as consumers, do not question where we get our news from and who is reporting, therefore this Marxist idea of Hegemony and the more superior classes being the controllers of this highlights how we are simply submissive in terms of the news agenda.
The idea of Pluralism is based around coexisting governments, therefore several ideologies being presented; this would challenge de Botton's views as we can essentially choose what we want to read. New technology is a great example of a way that we can do this and especially social media as we are able to read certain news articles that resonate with us as consumers, therefore we become users and consumers rather than simply being submissive to the news.
Choose two news stories from the last six months - one that supports de Botton's views and one that challenges his belief that the News is used for social control.
The news story of the cryogenically frozen 14 year old girl highlights de Botton's views as it focuses on the element of death and being afraid of death. It also focuses on the fact that we like stories that involve some sort of element of hope or a moral panic rather than simply news that will benefit us; this story is one that emphasises life and death issues and as it is technology that is far from being developed and fully functioning, it shows the potential irrelevance of the story and how it should be kept as a mere private family matter rather than a public news story. Essentially, this story is trying to brag about the new technology being created and how science is evolving but in theory this project is far from being accessible, revealing false hope.
The US elections challenged de Botton's views as it is important news that is also very popular even in the UK as it is something that effects a large portion of the world and therefore adds interest for all. The coverage of the elections also reveals several various political ideologies about the issue and therefore challenges the idea of hegemony and challenged de Botton's views as he believes that unimportant news is more popular.
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