Marxism & Pluralism: Alain de Botton on the news

1) I agree with Alain de Botton's news in the way he heavily expresses how the news is a "distorted picture of our society". The news puts the image of every stranger being a bad person who is either a murderer, paedophile or rapist which is damaging the minds of many individuals with false accusations. He goes on to say that everyone in society is nothing like that, and just because the paper had a front page of someone being a child rapist, for example, does not mean that it sets the norm for every other person in society. Alain de Botton says that the news plays a major role in our everyday lives. He said that when we wake up, we check our smartphones to see what's happening, and just before we're about to go to sleep, we check our smartphones again. He said over 15 million people will check the BBC News website over four times a day. We live in a day and age where we are surrounded by news and are in that era where people would read the news instead of going to church on a Sunday morning. Reformers in the 18th century looked forward to more information. Knowing more, we would care more and would want to do more good. There are two ways in keeping audiences accepting of the status quo, by stopping news or by flooding them with so much content that they forget what happens in the world. He said that there is so much information out there, it is making audiences puzzled by the torrent of information and struggle to make sense of this. News is geared to our inner and societal needs, he wants the news to be useful rather than gripping, compelling and is not nutritious. He knows news is important, but wants it to get better.

 2) Marxism links in with de Botton's criticisms of the news in the way that he talks about how the mass media tend to receive the most audience attention in terms of views and clicks on their content. The way in which news is there to scare audiences and conveying raw dark stories is something that Marxist news corporations would aim to publicise in terms of their content in order to give a reason for audiences to come back onto their site; allowing them to generate more revenue and increased audience numbers.
Hegemony also links in with his criticisms in the way he spoke about bias and how there needs to be good bias in order to allow audiences to access a greater variety of valued opinions. Serious outlets should be providing less biased news if the bias they are trying to convey isn't meaningful.

 3) De Botton said that there isn't really any new news, it is the same news which is being recycled with new facts, new images and new opinions. I disagree with this as new technology has allowed for citizen journalism and citizen journalism to arise, allowing normal people to post their own news with their own opinions and media which media outlets may not be able to get to if it's an unpredictable event, for example. New technology has allowed for more news to be available to audiences and has allowed for a more classless society as media corps are not in control of what gets put out for audience consumption.

 4) http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3953518/Nigel-Farage-vows-fight-Commons-seat-Thanet-South-backed-Donald-Trump.html

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/nov/20/indian-train-derailment-kills-dozens-and-injures-over-100

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