Junk food news

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Journalism
OpenMoji-black 1F4F0.svg
Areas
Genres
Social impact
News media
Roles
  • Newspaper nicu buculei 01.svg Journalism portal
  • Category: Journalism
  • v
  • t

Junk food news (also known as junk news or junk journalism[1]) is a sardonic term for news stories that deliver "sensationalized, personalized, and homogenized inconsequential trivia",[2] especially when such stories appear at the expense of serious investigative journalism. It implies a criticism of the mass media for disseminating news that, while not very nourishing, is "cheap to produce and profitable for media proprietors."[2]

Throughout human history, people have enjoyed a variety of lower-quality news source and gossip about sex, scandals, show business, sports and politics. Whilst it is common for academics to criticize junk news, some anthropologists and historians observe that it may serve important social functions.

Meaning[]

The term junk food news was first used in print by Carl Jensen in the March 1983 edition of Penthouse. As the leader of Project Censored, he had frequently faulted the media for ignoring important stories. In response, says Jensen, editors claimed that other stories were more important, and bolstered this claim with ad hominem comments directed against him.

...news editors and directors...argued that the real issue isn't censorship—but rather a difference of opinion as to what information is important to publish or broadcast. Editors often point out that there is a finite amount of time and space for news delivery—about 23 minutes for a half-hour network television evening news program—and that it's their responsibility to determine which stories are most critical for the public to hear. The critics said I wasn't exploring media censorship but rather I was just another frustrated academic criticizing editorial news judgment.[2]

To give this argument a fair hearing, Jensen decided to conduct a review to determine which stories the media had considered more important. But instead of hard-hitting investigative journalism, what he discovered was the phenomenon that he termed junk food news fell into predictable categories:[2]

  • Brand name news (celebrity gossip)
  • Sex news (exposés and sexual titillation)
  • Yo-yo news (statistics that change daily, such as stock market numbers and box office totals)
  • Show business news (movie openings)
  • Latest craze news (brief fads)
  • Anniversary news (anniversaries of major events or celebrity deaths)
  • Sports news (sports rumours)
  • Political news (bi-annual coverage of congressional campaign promises)

As the flip side to its annual list of the Top 25 Censored Stories, Project Censored publishes an annual list of the Top 10 Junk Food News stories, compiled by members of the National Organization of News Ombudsmen.

History[]

Many forms of Ancient graffito and writing would fall under the term 'junk news;' including written gossip about prominent figures, politicians, politics, scandals, sex news, sports and theatre events. This sort of historical 'junk news' is often under-analyzed and dismissed due to having the negative connotations of being vain, slanderous or primitive,[3] but some scholars believe it could potentially have benefitted social values, cohesion and morality, and helped to allow the lower classes to keep the ruling elite in check.[4] In Ancient Rome, politicians understood that rumors and gossip were mechanisms with undeniable social force, possessing the ability to shape public opinion to one's betterment or detriment.[4]

See also[]

  • Conspiracy of silence
  • Concentration of media ownership, the decreasing amount of separate media organisations
  • Mainstream media, conventional news outlets
  • Mass media, the term for modern media that use mass communication
  • Media conglomerate, a company owning many media outlets
  • Culture of fear – Arrangement in which fear of retribution is pervasive
  • Fake news – False or misleading information presented as news
  • Mean world syndrome – Phenomenon
  • Media circus, also known as Media hype – Phrase describing excessive media coverage
  • Media culture – Norms, behaviors and artifacts of Western society as shaped by 20th-century mass communications
  • Missing white woman syndrome – Term for increased media coverage
  • Moral panic – Feeling of fear among people that some evil threatens society
  • Prolefeed
  • Sensationalism – Type of editorial tactic used in mass media
  • Soft media, also known as soft news
  • Supermarket tabloid
  • Tabloid television
  • Yellow journalism – Sensationalistic news

References[]

  1. ^ Rubin, Jennifer (2012-05-03). "Politico's junk journalism". Washington Post. Retrieved 2018-01-30.
  2. ^ a b c d Jensen, Carl (2001). "Junk Food News 1877-2000". In Phillips, Peter (ed.). Censored 2001. Seven Stories Press. pp. 251–264. ISBN 978-1-58322-064-1.
  3. ^ Gluckman, Max (June 1963). "Papers in Honor of Melville J. Herskovits: Gossip and Scandal". Current Anthropology. 4 (3): 307–316. doi:10.1086/200378. ISSN 0011-3204.
  4. ^ a b Rosillo-Lopez, Cristina (2017). Public Opinion and Politics in the Late Roman Republic. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. doi:10.1017/9781316535158.004. ISBN 978-1-316-53515-8.

External links[]

Retrieved from ""