What does it mean to be a citizen?

This week in class our readings and discussions were centered around the connection between civics and journalism.  Last year I taught a year long course titled Civics.  The first half was personal finance and the second was focused on civics.  We had several conversations about the definition of civics as well as citizen.  Every time we would come up with a new definition, which I think was okay.  I don't think there is one definite answer to what it means to be a citizen.  I especially believe that after volunteering one Saturday.  With the volunteer group at our school, I helped potential citizens study for their citizenship test.  Even with a degree in history, I still struggled with some of the questions on the test.  It was mind-blowing to see what people had to go through to become a citizen, something most Americans are oblivious to because they were born here.  This made me rethink the definition of citizenship even more.  As I shared my experience with my students we again changed our definition of citizen, but still felt that words could not describe what it meant to be a citizen.  Now thinking about it in a journalism context, I again find myself searching for a definition of citizen.  To be a citizen do you have to be news literate?  Do you have to vote?  Do you have to read the news?  Know what's going on in your community? Your city? Your country?  If the answers to these questions are yes, then much of America needs to begin their application to become an American citizen, myself included!  Although I can't define citizenship, rattle off endless facts about our founding fathers, or answer yes to my previous questions, I do know one thing.  Without journalism there wouldn't be any citizenship, for anyone.  Journalism, especially investigative journalism is what makes us a democracy.  Having the freedom of the press and freedom of speech allows us to be citizens.  There are too many countries today that do not have these freedoms and cannot question their government, do they even have citizens?  Or just prisoners?  Next time the discussion of what it means to be a citizen comes up with my students I am going to make sure to ask them how journalism ties into being a citizen, because like many Americans we take our freedom or press and speech for granted.  We take being citizens, not prisoners for granted. (Cue waving flag video and an instrumental of America the Beautiful)

The WHOLE truth

Walter Lippmann said, "News and truth are not the same thing...The function of news is to signalize an event. The function or truth is to bring to light hidden facts, to set them into relation with each other, and make a picture of reality upon which men can act."

This week in the Social Role of the Mass Media we talked about where truth belongs in news.  The above quote from Lippmann was given to the class by Professor Bowen before the week started.  It made me think of how and if truth and journalism exist together.  I think every journalists, especially a journalism teacher, wants to think that truth and news go hand in hand, however, our realistic side probably tells us that it's not as crystal clear.  News should absolutely have truth in it, but how much truth is actually in news?  In our class discussion, we said that there should be a balance, but could not define what the balance should be.  I searched for another word for balance, but couldn't find one.  Someone suggested using the word thorough and that seemed to work well.  There should always be a thorough investigation of truth, as well as thorough explanations in articles.  If a reporter can say to they thoroughly researched the topic then the article should be balanced, which is the goal.  It's not that I don't think journalists do this now; it's more so that I think that sometimes not all of the truth is told.  In other words, journalists, news stations, twitter members, whomever is sharing news have a tendency to leave out part of the truth when relaying the news.  So yes there is truth in news, but is it the whole truth and nothing but the truth?  Not so sure.  I hope to teach my students to always tell the whole truth and to always seek the whole truth. 

Thing Link

Week 1: Is there a social role for the media?

First I must explain that this is the first of many posts for my Social Role of the Mass Media course that I am taking at Kent State University as I pursue my masters.


This week one of our guiding questions was the social role of scholastic media.  At first I thought about what the social role of media was in general and I found myself agreeing with the Social Responsibility theory.  As I thought about that in relation to scholastic media, I thought that scholastic journalism may not have as large of a social responsibility as the mass media.  After all scholastic media focuses on what's going on at school: sports, clubs, awards, etc... Then as I was reading one of our assignments something clicked and I thought I must be crazy!  Of course scholastic journalism has social responsibility!  I'm not sure exactly what made me think of this, but all of a sudden I remembered all of the scholastic journalism pieces that had caused change in their school or community!  That is the social role of scholastic journalism, to be the watchdog at the school!! Why this originally slipped my mind, I'm not sure, but the more I think about it the more examples I can think of.  Recently I told my students and I read an article about a school newspaper who discovered a recent transfer student was a mid twenties sex offender!  And of course there is what is happened/ is happening in Neshaminy, Pennsylvania.  The editors of the Playwickian are changing the way national newspapers write!  They have gotten several people, probably hundreds of people to denounce the use of the term redskin! Talk about a social role! 

I'm disappointed in myself for even doubting the social role of scholastic media, but there is the high school newspaper definitely has a social  responsibility to its school, peers, and readers. And the teaches, not just journalism teachers, have a social responsibility to teach our students to be news literate citizens.