revised research paper

7/21/2019 Revised Research Paper

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Kate Robinette

Professor Benjamin Dally

English 5-02

14 December 2015

Modernization of Language in News and Media Ecology

Since the beginning of television news, changes have occurred each decade with

how the consumers access the content because of changing technology. However, a

revolution in technology during the millennial generation has caused significant changes

in how the current generation taps into news content on a daily basis. Media companies

have had to adapt to stay relevant to millennials have had to keep up to pace with their

methods of discourse. In twenty years, we’ve seen the domination of strictly cable

based news outlets has given to way digital and mobile access platforms. News

stations, local to international, have had to adjust the language to capture and hold the

attention of 21st century expectations, not only in the newsroom, but with viewers and

listeners. In studying the changes already made in the last two decades to the way

anchors and journalists interact with their audience, one can understand the changes in

media ecology and how society's expectations for relatability have evolved with the

times. This paper will explain the ways that modern news companies have adapted their

use of language to gain and hold viewers and to adjust to the dwindling appeal of

television news as opposed to the ease of consistent online engagement, and how this

cycle of changes in our language affects us now and will affect future generations.



Television news concluded its overthrow of newspaper in the early 1960’s, when

evening news became a 30 minute appointment experience in American households.

Unlike the 15 minute briefings of the 40’s and 50’s, families would sit in living rooms

listening to the trusted voices of the nation (on their choice of CBS or NBC) deliver

national news and beyond in a formal affair of crafted elevated speech that was still

appropriate enough for the demographic of national news at the time, the prominent

conservative upper-middle class. This is important to note because in the 21st century,

viewers are comprised of all socio-economic niches and news stations now more than

ever are catering to as many people as they can, at varying education levels, wealth

brackets, and what they view as important in the community. With the widespread

ownership of television and internet (providing common knowledge is that nearly every

household has access to at least one or the other), access to viewers of all types is

possible.

Although in the midst of a few technological upheavals since the 1960’s, the

television news business is still holding on. To get a closer look, I join Cristina

Mendonsa of ABC10 News for an inside look at a 21st century news business. At a first

hand experience, the ABC10 newsroom is alive with the typical office jargon heard in

newsrooms since the Mad Men era. Deadlines shouted, breaking stories announced;

however, there is a difference in the sound from the Cronkite era of news. Young

“webbies” furiously tapping to break news online before any on air announcement. “The

digital section of newsrooms has become crucial,” says Mendonsa. “We will always try

to break something first online and on our Facebook page because we have a



significant number of viewers who will check their phone long before they see a

newscast.” News is updated on social media or ABC10’s website first and in language

and length built for mobile ease of access through smartphones. But just because the

messages are short and sweet does not mean the news is untrue or juvenile-- Kathleen

Yancey writes in her work “Writing in the 21st Century”, “Writers compose authentic

texts in informal digitally networked contexts...”(5). In this statement, she is referring to

the way that those of us who partake in online discourse aren’t constricted by a

hierarchical language rules of superior vs. inferior language rules. Now, while grammar

doesn’t fly entirely out of the window, a more informal tone is generally accepted online

and in social media.

While social media sites are a great source of connection between friends and

family, they are a prime network for news and article sharing, and also yet another

outlet for media personnel to connect more intimately with viewers and consumers.

Mendonsa herself has two social media accounts through Facebook; a personal page,

and a professional page. Viewers friend her professional account for a look into

Mendonsa’s behind-the-scenes photos and the ability to talk with the Sacramento

celebrity. However, Mendonsa is honest in her motives. “Viewers do get to see another

side of me, but I mostly keep my personal life to myself, and I never friend people I don’t

personally know on my personal account,” she says. “My Cristina Mendonsa Facebook

account is primarily another outlet for getting content to our viewers.” Mendonsa can

easily link breaking news and stories from her personal page and add a message or

caption to the link, something more fluid and empathetic than what the official ABC10



Facebook can post. “The language I use on my page is…more sympathetic to the

situation than what a news station would use as an official release,” Mendonsa states.

“Users get a more connected feel, and I think that’s what people want. I can make

people feel entirely different about something with a message that is still neutral...but

more personal”.

Twitter is another outlet being utilized by anchors around the world. Beginning as

a social media site known for its 140 character statuses, usually detailing the mundane

of teenagers and the ability to get a look into the fabulous lives of your favorite actors

and singers, Twitter has now become a paramount force for “live-tweeting” breaking

news and updates. During the Bataclan terrorist attack on Paris in November, news

stations kept regular updates when information came their way. It was a main source of

incoming news from every corner of the world. “#Paris” and “#BataclanParis” became

trending topics within minutes (twitter.com). The use of the hashtag is a prime example

of an evolution in language and technology for not only news sources and media, but for

all people using the internet. By putting a “#(insert topic/reference/feeling here)”, we can

connect opinions, messages, and writings with the same hashtag and file them easily.

Topics from hard-hitting news stories to entertainment news are all compartmentalized

on the internet by the use of a hashtag, much like a keyword used in Google searches,

just going to show how the internet world has such a huge impact on where and how

quickly we are exposed to world news. When I open my computer first thing in the

morning, my homescreen directs me to facebook.com. The first thing I see isn’t a

picture of my aunt’s dog or a link to a funny YouTube video my friend posted-- I



immediately am greeted by at least three article links; New York Times, Buzzfeed,

ABC10 online. “Facebook has become one of the fastest growing—and some will admit

most addictive—pastimes in U.S. youth culture,” E.J. Westlake proclaims in the

scholarly journal “Friend Me If You Facebook”. And he’s not wrong. Since Facebook’s

founding in 2004, the social media site has been a major source of connection between

friends, memes, and news from the hard-hitting to the entertainment. According to

statista.com, in 2012, Facebook surpassed 1 billion users, and by 2015, 1/7 of the entire

world’s population had a Facebook account. Westlake also makes the assertion that

Facebook has a certain creeping feeling of “watching” its users, which again would be

correct, according to who you talk to. In our new Snowden era, Facebook has applied

an application that makes news and links more visible to users based on their previous

Google searches and internet history by allowing google searches to have access to

your personal information. To have an account, you must agree to their terms and

conditions which state “When you connect with an application or website it will have

access to General Information about you. The term General Information includes your

and your friends’ names, profile pictures, gender, user IDs, connections , and any

content shared using the Everyone privacy setting ” (Facebook.com Terms of Service).

This allows Facebook to source trending news and apply it to your interests, providing

links on entertainment, sports, and the hard-hitting based on your political stances,

religion, and browser history, which in turn gives news sources and outlets a primary

position on your twitter feed or Facebook News Feed. Even more than that, this profile

publicity gives news sources that are catered to your beliefs and interests.

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2010/04/handy-facebook-english-translator#connections



Transparency has also become a difference in language and the way that media

personnel connect with their audience. Millennials especially are seen as needing more

than one source favorably in order for the media to establish ethos. In the 1960’s, ethos

didn’t need to be established, it simply existed from the beginning to the public-- it was

something that came with the job of being a television broadcaster. However, this has

changed rapidly through the years. Kendal Salcito, writer for the Center of Journalism

Ethics at the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s School of Journalism and Mass

Communication, states, “Journalists who want to set their articles apart as truthful and

comprehensive have begun giving the public access to their sources” (Salcito 1). Not

only does Salcito expand on the need for sources, they also establish the new age

approach of opinion being seen as nearly equal to credible ethos. On the opposite side

of the same coin of sources, “Many blogs and independent e-zines, lacking an

engrained sense of duty to the truth or to readers, have developed a journalistic style of

unsubstantiated opinion.” Salcito dubs this “journalism of assertion”. It is the choice

journalism of millennial online media and “news”, available on hosts where contributors

are also the content producers, editors, and distributors. “Ideas are accrued and then

restated, without regard to their origin or factuality” (Salcito, 1). It seems the more

fervently a subject matter is repeated with conviction, the more likely it is to be taken as

fact by the general public, especially in regards to some millennials that crave

something other than one voice talking down to them-- however, other millennials will

ask for sources that pertain to the topic from an unbiased source.



But these drastic two differences in favor of sources Salcito believes is greatly

hurting the journalistic credibility of media personnel, with the rise of “unsubstantiated

opinion and rumor”, and the “lack of restraint among online writers”. But is this need for

either unbiased sources or an impassioned author a bad thing? For one thing, a more

creative writing aspect comes into play in the blog-type angry friend role some content

producers have taken on when approaching news. The “fight the man” distrust that

tinged the outlooks of 1960’s youth culture seems to be making a comeback, so the fact

that that same group of youth is able to access some form of news integral to lighting a

political fire. Even if it is from more of an emotional stance, they aren’t entirely in the

dark about current events, world relations, and our changing economy, simply because

it is inescapable. And maybe that was exactly what we needed to grasp the attention of

our technological and fast-paced rising generation-- a connection, and that

inescapability of online interaction and 24-7 provided and updated content. On the

opposing side, acquiring credible sources will always give a professional edge to a

piece of writing, leaving extreme emotion less necessary.

On the same level as the methods by which we communicate, the way news

personnel engage with their readers to get their attention all comes down to the voice of

the journalist and what they say. News companies have tweaked the way their

audiences see them by becoming their equal, by catering to the emotions and

technological demands of the 21st century. As I end my discussion with Mendonsa, she

asserts that the world will always need some method to receiving news, whether

through radio, newspaper, television, internet-- and whatever follows our main method



today; but the voice of the journalist, in the end, is what drives public response.

“Technology will always be changing,” she says. “But when print is outdated, or even

television, we will always need good news writers.”

revised research paper

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