Matsios

      Reading Matsios' "Media Magic" was incredibly eyeopening for me, in a way that it probably shouldn't have been. I assumed it would look at the issues of class as presented through media such as television, film and literature - such as my beloved Roseanne. I didn't expect for the article to cover the news media. As economy is such a huge part of our political stream of consciousness, and so often discussed, that the inclusion of the working-class would be a given. I would surprised by the statistics offered:

"…yet less than one in five hundred articles in the New York Times and one in one thousand articles listed in the Reader's Guide to Periodic Literature are on poverty" (100).

      Even Inclusion, of course, does not equal out to be fair and valid representation, which I think ultimately ends up being Matsios' argument. I recently did a literature review on the ways that the News Media represents (or doesn't, as is often the case) gender and feminism in their reports. One section from one of the texts I included jumped back to me while reading Matsios':

"Even a concept as basic as "woman" is riddled with cultural codes coveted and interpreted in the various media texts we encounter on a daily basis. There is no objective "feminine," Fiske would argue, only a culturally-defined concept created and perpetuated in part by media texts."

 - Debra Baker Beck, "The 'F' Word: How the Media Frame Feminism"

 I think the same can be applied to class - the values we have regarding class are so ingrained into our society's identity, it seems almost impossible to separate them from the realities of the situation. Objectivity towards class is nearly impossible, especially from an outside position. This is so important in the news media because while fiction reflects back caricatures of our society, the news influences nearly every  public event and happening - it helps we shape our political leanings and how we feel about a public figure or event. Professional Journalism has slowly been built around a world of elitism, academia, and big word using - and it's those voices that largely end up shaping the news media as it is presented today.

     I think my sense of betrayal - as naive as that sounds, because I should have known better - at the statistics that Matsios offered is based on the fact that I hold the news accountable for what it presents. While I know it fails that accountability often, fueling a large distrust of the news for many, I didn't expect that numbers to be quite so low when it is such a large, dominating issue in society. Why are so few voices and experiences valued? Would objectivity be a greater possibility if the news was influenced more greatly by citizens voices? Or is it our skewed sense of class and equality that enables the lack of objectivity?