Describe the attitude of members of the US government towards the possibility of alien contact.

• US government wanted Norman Johnson to write a report on how to react to a possible meeting with aliens
• Senior Undersectretary of State thinks that aliens may could read the mind of the humans and he wonders wether he can hide his thoughts, when he wants to formulate a negotiating posture
• the President will want to talk to the aliens personally
• media will be present and it will be media excitement
• a Major- General wonders which weapons the aliens have, he guess that the humans might not be able to touch the aliens

No 3

a) According to the text, what role would the media play in the event of alien contact?

The media would be there if the president or rather any human would have contact with an alien. There would be news on every channel and on every media. The reporters would ask a lot of questions and would search for more informations. There would be a kind of war between the different media companies.

The people who are not involved in the alien contact would get theire whole knowledge out of the news, so the media would play a very important and big role concerning an alien contact.

b) Explain the importance of „media moments“ (ll. 15-16) for politicians in democratic countries.

• on the one hand, everyone wants to know how politicians react in important situations
• on the other hand, politicians want to be in the media and show theirselves

The given article „A Czech War of the worlds”, published on SPIEGEL ONLINE on 4^th January 2008, deals with a certain hoax concerning a mushroom explosion which was shown at Czech Television during a weather forecast.

While watching a weather forecast, the population suddenly sees a video of an explosion and a mushroom cloud in the sky, almost everybody is shocked by these pictures because they think it happened in real.

Later they get to know, that it is a fake video of the group Ztohoven, which hack in the computer of the TV channel CT2. The members just want to show how manipulating people are and they want to open their eyes.

Although nobody is hurt, just shocked, the responsible party has to be called to account. So some of them might have to go to prison.

2. Explain the title of the article, taking account of similarities and differences to Orson Welles’s radio hoax.

3. Speculate on possible reasons for the differences.

-          Orson Welles broadcast his play on radio and everybody listened to it (because it was the only media at that time) so he wanted to contact more people. Tzohoven however showed their video to a few people, so one can see that they didn’t have bad intentions and the effect was not as big as from Welles.

-          Tzohoven hacked the computer illegally because no one would allow something like that. But Orson Welles was allowed to publish his radio play, because he had no bad intentions.

-          Orson Welles didn’t want to take somebody in, it was an accidently hoax, he just wanted to entertain the people. Tzohoven wanted to get a message across.

-          At that time, mars attacks were believable, because people were naive. Nowadays, people are clarified and don’t trust news like that, but they could imagine that a war started again.

Sometimes the whole story is invented A few times, it was said that a popular person died, but it was not accurate
]]> http://ninaen903.wordpress.com/2010/02/18/an-approach-to-media-ethics/feed/ 0 ninaen903 http://ninaen903.wordpress.com/2010/02/17/the-yes-men-hoax/ http://ninaen903.wordpress.com/2010/02/17/the-yes-men-hoax/#comments Wed, 17 Feb 2010 14:59:03 +0000 Nina http://ninaen903.wordpress.com/?p=165 ]]> Task 1

The Yes Men want to make the people notice things they normally do not think about and they achieve their aim by extraordinary actions like printing a hoax. One example is the fake edition of The New York Times. Everyone talked about the End of the Iraq War, some were very happy and some questioned the newspaper article. But The Yes Men got what they wanted, namely attention. In what way they made a change out of that, is not really clear. Okay, they were in the media because of their act, but nothing really changed. In addition to that, the people who read the news were very happy but later, they got to know that everything was a fake and that must be disappointing.

Task 2

A hoax is something like a fraud, deception, imposture, fake or humbug.

It is an act which has the intend to deceive or to trick.

• Press Freedom is like Speech Freedom
• allowence to talk about difficult themes
• express the critical point of view
• share an opinion
• no punishment
• but there has to be also protection of somebodys privacy ~> respect to the other people

~> editor- in- chief of Die Welt

~> gave a classic defence of freedom of expression: he printed the Danish cartoons of Muhammad and does not regret it although he received death threats

“ It is essential to protect freedom of expression because of all the pain we have invested to keep our liberal, secular society.“

„I may disagree with what you say, but I will defend to my death your right to say it.“

 +++++++++

Dr Maleeha Lodhi

~> Pakistani High Commissioner

~> opposes Roger Koeppel

~> demands for censorship

~> wants more respect from the West

“ We insult our own, so we can insult yours, too. Well, no. We do have a problem with that and we demand respect.“

„We may disagree with what you say and if we do, we will send you to prison.“

This cartoon, drawn by the French cartoonist Michael Cambon and published for the World Press Freedom Day, shows four men who are in prison talking about the reasons for their detention. One of them explains that he made a report of disturbing the peace. Another one says that he attacked the head of state in his news. The other man tells that his reason is the national security violation and the last one just talked about bad weather. Everyone has a remorseful expression on his face. One of them also looks a little bit sad, another one seems to be thoughtful.

You can see that they all got in prison because they mentioned things they were not allowed to. So the cartoon makes clear that the news reporters do not have a press freedom and if the contravene the rule they have to go to prison or get punished. We can state that it criticizes the non-existence of the press freedom or the censoring of the mind by the state/ gouvernment and the hard sentencing.

The Iraqis have left their country because of the war, but now, after the U.S. withdrawal, they are hoping for a better life and some of them want to go back to Iraq because they want to see their families and friends again. But other people want to stay in exile.

The newspaper tells about a few persons who are in this situation. They are talking about unemployment, shame and exclusion but also about their bright plans for the future in another country. Some say that there could be a new war in Iraq and they are afraid of this, so that they will not go back.

++++++++

The headline shows the main information and the picture in the centre is big but not gigantic, so it is not a eyecatcher. The photo is explained in the subtitle and fits to the bright plans of the future of the Iraqis.

The introductary part is objective and shows a few information of the following text. The article is serious and easy to understand. So one can say that the language is medium-high-quality.

The author does not interpolate his own point of view. The article just consists of the opinions and emotions of the interviewees. All the information is from the people which were interviewed and you get their name and age, so you can see that they are the „sources“.

The end refers again to the second part of the newspaper article.

The New York Times shows again that it is a National newspaper which has long serious articles with just a few photos.

- Nationalists

- want political independence from Great Britain

Source B

- Unionists

- ties between Ireland, Great Britain, Northern Ireland

In my opinion it gives us freedom, not the ultimate freedom that all nations desire and develop to, but freedom to achieve it.

I really like this opinion, because it is very realistic. It shows how intelligent Michael Collins was.

Sometimes we do not get what we want, but what we deserve. And we cannot be sad every time, when we do not achieve what we want, but we can work with it and a little bit later we will come to our aim. So we have to go to our aim step by step.

Because of this treaty, Ireland became a free state and got an own government. But the head of state is the British monarch, so Ireland does not have the freedom they wanted and they were not independent. In addition to that, Ireland had restrictions concerning authority. Furthermore, Ireland was split from Northern Ireland because they left the Free State.

Under the circumstances at that time, Ireland did they best and they can be proud of what they achieved.