Philippine E-Journals

News and Consciousness: Discursive Treatment of Events in Manila Bulletin and Abante Tonite

Cirilo F. Bautista

Discipline: Journalism

 

Abstract:

A scientific excursion into the heads and texts of a steamy tabloid and a straight laced broadsheet.

 

Communication systems in contemporary societies are dominated by mass media, specifically the so-called tri-media of print, television, and radio. There is no doubt about their persuasive influences in shaping the taste, opinions, values, and perception of the public; indeed, the billion-dollar industries they have spawned and which perpetuate them assert their importance. Of the three, the print medium has had a longer history; its role in forming and reforming public consciousness has continued to be a crucial factor in societal development. McLuhan (1965), in considering print, brought the whole of Western intellectual tradition into one hypothesis that the basic experience of man has been primarily determined by the invention of type. Only phonetically literate man lives in a pictorial space resulting from the new information technology which, unavoidably, changes his feelings and sensibilities: