http://liveshots.blogs.foxnews.com/2010/10/18/is-the-pope-catholic-is-homer-simpson/?test=faces
I thought that this was a pretty interesting news article. The article is titled, Is the Pope Catholic? is homer Simpson? Instantly this title caught my attention since I am Catholic and I also like the Simpsons however, what I noticed was that the title of the article was hardly related to the story. This made me think of the concept of priming and how news organizations prime or give us the idea of what kind of idea we should have about those being discussed. By titling the article “Is the Pope Catholic? Is Homer Simpson?” first of all it catches the reader’s attention, esp. devout Catholics who are wondering what the news is trying to get at with the question “is the pope Catholic”, and secondly, the news article is trying to get you to think that the Simpsons is Catholic as well. The news article talks about how the Vatican has approved the show The Simpsons as long as its watched with a “grain of Salt” because the Simpsons are constantly having reoccurring themes over Faith, Religion, and the question about God. However, the article does not cover anything about Pope Benedict IV. It just states that some Catholic news articles and Fr. Francesco Occhetta who writes for the Catholic newspaper La Civilta Cattolica, approves of the Simpsons. I found this news article on FoxNews.Com. When you watch the Simpsons, what channel does it usually come in on? Fox is the correct answer. Also what political side is Fox mostly addressed for? You got it, the conservative side, which most Catholics would be considered conservative. Therefore, Fox News covered this story in order to get more Catholics to watch the Simpsons by stating that the Simpsons are Catholic and that the Vatican approves of the show “The Simpsons” which Aires on Fox in order to get more viewers. It’s a pretty good idea when you think about it!
-Damian
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Is the Pope Catholic? Is Homer Simpson? is an interesting article to acess. I believe you made a intriguing accestment of how "we are a product of what we consume. I instantly almost read over this post because I am not Catholic nor a fan of The Simpsons which is interesting because you believe that Catholics may be willing to watch The Simpsons because the fact that theymay have religion in common. The fact that the show is on Fox and the article was found on FoxNews shows that it was designed to get more people to watch the show. I wander what kind of feedback the show woul recieve if this article was on the USAtoday or the NYTIMEs that carries a different audience
ReplyDeleteIt really is an article title set out to get the reader’s attention. It’s almost as if FoxNews is setting the agenda to tell what people to think about. They are saying that priming the audience to believe that if you are Catholic you should watch the Simpsons, if Father Francesco Occhetta approves then it’s good for Catholics to watch. It is interest that Fox is using this as a way to promote their own show, especially since their conservative audience has many Catholics. However, I always thought the Simpsons were a show that tended to lean more to the left. This is also a way the media is using popular culture to socialize us into gain knowledge.
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