In our political communication class we have discusses the concept of pseudo events. Bell, Conners, and Sheckels state, "Sometimes stories are deemed newsworthy, but the events have been structured by organizations for the primary purpose of gaining new attention; Daniel J. Boorstin has termed such events as pseudo events" (69). Activity that exists all for the purpose of media publicity and has no effect on real life. A link I found from CATO Institute discusses how President Obama must move away from pseudo events. The article discusses that there has yet been changes that can be outlines from President Obama's grand strategy to implement change. All there is to point out is a series of pseudo events. The article discusses that President Obama's trip to Europe, participation in the Summit of the Americas, and meeting the top world leaders and television appearances have been regarded by most of the American media as foreign policy success, but in reality Obama can claim no concrete diplomatic accomplishments.
I do not know if I necessarily agree with the article entirely. I do feel that a lot of President Obama's appearances have been a part of pseudo events to gain media attention and to create a certain image for the President, but I do not totally agree that President Obama can claim no concrete diplomatic accomplishments. President Obama has not made any huge diplomatic accomplishments yet, but to say that all of his work is just a series of pseudo events and there is no real meaning to try to change out country for the better is wrong. I believe the media is using Obama and stating that he is not accomplishing anything for a pseudo event in itself. I believe the media is always looking for a target to gain attention and obviously the President is going to be their largest one of all.
Michelle,
ReplyDeletegood post. I agree with all of the points you are making about President Obama and his involvement with pseudo events. Although, I do believe he has been a part of pseudo events to gain media attention, I also think the media revolves pseudo events around him for their own media gain and advancement. I relate this post to the political process and how psuedo events structured to gain news attention and involving the president will ultimately gain him more power and influence, even if he is deemed as not having any diplomatic accomplishments. I think Barack Obama's trip to Europe, participation in the Summit of the Americas, and meeting the top world leaders all contribute to issue/image advertising asa way to show his involvement as president and to steer away from the fact that he has not had any concrete diplomatic accomplishments yet.
I really like this post about pseudo events and President Obama. I also think that agenda-setting comes into play with this article. I see it as another of the many attacks on the president over the past year and a half and even prior to his presidency. The publishers of this article are agenda-setting by not telling us to consider all of the president's political appearances pseudo events, but by putting it out there that there is a possibility that they could only be pseudo events. It's sort of like the idea of an enthymeme, give the audience a little bit and assume that they will fill in the rest of the information. The media is clearly telling us what to think about concerning the president. Nice post!
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