Myth is a certain kind of source material -- myths reflect (and maybe even help form) a culture's shared values and they often help explain various kinds of cultural/phenomenal origins.
White Noise's Murray would argue that television is a source of shared cultural values.
Jack is the pre-eminent source when it comes to Hitler scholarship.
Oprah is a source of information and advice on how to "live your best life," and she's also a source of a certain kind of intimacy.
In all of these sources, there's a certain amount of subjectivity built in.
Then there's the way "source" is defined in a journalistic context. A source is someone/something we can go to for basically objective information we can bank on. And here I use the term "bank" on purpose.
Watch this: Stewart vs. Cramer.
Some questions:
- Which of these sources is more credible?
- How is what Jon Stewart does different from what Jim Cramer does?
- What do we do to keep our sources straight?
Jon Stewart, I think, was much more credible during this interview. Subconsciously, he was stronger for three reasons. One, it is his show, thus, a majority of the people watching have some preference for him over other "infotainment" newscasters, and will probably be rooting for him during the interview. Two, he was wearing a suit, while Jim Cramer was wearing a shirt and tie, with rolled up sleeves, and not neatly rolled up sleeves, roughly, wrinkly rolled sleeves. Three, Jim Cramer often threw up his arms often during the interview. To me, this suggested guilt, a lack of knowledge, and a defense mechanism to protect himself from Jon Stewart and the audience. All of these things reduced Jim Cramer's credibility and you don't even need to listen to the interview to see these.
ReplyDeleteSteven--I agree with your assessment. I also think it's interesting that, in terms of substance, Stewart and Cramer didn't disagree all that much. Cramer basically said, "You're right, I'll try to do better." Television as a medium really does play up presentation/delivery and those are definitely Pathos-driven.
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