Animated News — Now You Can Watch The Crime Happen Like A Movie
I was just watching the news the other day when I came across a very interesting new-media topic— animated news. Recently, a Taiwanese news publication company, the Apple, has introduced animated recreations of crimes into its daily news program. At the company’s headquarter, hundreds of engineers work to turn materials gathered by field journalists into detailed 3-D animated movies. Bloodshed, live actions of robbery, shooting, rapes etc. you name it, “animated news” covers a wide range of social topics from gang violence and street fights to sexual assaults and domestic violence. And while the company allegedly claims that minors under eighteen years of age are not allowed to view the overtly graphic animations, kids can still download the animated news online and watch the clips either on the computer or on their cell phones. (*An example of a less-violent piece of animated news may be viewed on the following website if anyone is interested: http://www.xcar.com.cn/bbs/viewthread.php?tid=11018964 and
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LEsIkpBSRpc ) Furious parents and educators are concerned that the realistic depictions of violence and inappropriate sexual contents would have negative influence on children. The Tai Pei government too, has imposed a daily fee of 500,000 yuan on the Apple Publication and has ordered the company to stop producing animated news. At the same time, media scholars also resist this “new news movement.” Instead of worrying about kids watching recreations of violent crimes, media scholars are more concerned about the change in the nature of news brought by its latest form(animated news).
“The journalists become scriptwriters and the engineers become directors. All there is to the ‘news’ are just imagined details. So the whole animated news is just fake news in reality,” says Taiwanese media scholar Fengjia Zhuang.
Aside from the concern over the negative impact on the nature of news brought by this animated news movement, there are two fundamental problems that cannot be overseen: violence and sexuality.
Let’s start with sexuality. This past week, we’ve talked about how sexuality is portrayed in video games. In Hot Date, Consalvo argues that the design of characters in video games reflect a traditional social belief that women are vulnerable princess who need to be saved by prince-charmings and that the most influence such video games can have on the player is that the games allow players to explore their identity (sexual-wise) playing as the main character (who is usually a guy). But in animated news, sexuality is a much more dangerous component of the medium. The problem is no longer who is playing prince charming; the problem now is how will guys treat women watching rape or other sexual violence recreations growing up. Similarly, will girls thus assume a weak, victimized image?
Secondly, there is the concern over kids' exposure to violence via new media. Here is something to think about: if we do not want expose kids to violent contents, then why do we produce all sorts of media with violent contents in the first place? In a way, the fault is actually on the adults. According to Baidu's Encyclopedia on animated news, the animated news movement is actually driven by the market for sex and violence. If that sentence does not make sense, think of it this way: since the daily news program is converted to animated news which primarily covers news on violent, sexual crimes and even suicides, the entire news spectrum is then converted to violent and sexual contents. Now you may ask why there is this conversion from traditional news to animated news. More specifically, you should ask why such conversion is necessary or unavoidable. The answer is actually quite simple—because sex and violence sells. Remember that article we read earlier on violent video games and kids? The author of that article argues that adults are more afraid of children mastering technologies better than adults do than they are afraid of kids being exposed to violence via video games. But perhaps what adults should really be afraid of is the consequence of their subconscious (or is it?) preference for sex and violence. The entertainment industry will not stop selling sex and violence unless there is no market for it. And until then, good luck to the parents and educators who strive to keep children safe from media contents inappropriate for the kids’ age.
Huiling P.
This new animated new sounds horrible. It is not shocking to hear of News companies finding new ways to spread negativity to a general audience (because there is a market for it), but it seems that by spending the time, money and effort to animate it the content is actually targeting children/teenagers. The McDonald’s game we all played allowed a similar strategy, corrupting the innocent minds of children for better business. I like the idea of providing news in animation—it has a good amount of potential, but in this case the medium is not the message. This seems to be another example of what happens when corporate expansion hits social development.
ReplyDeleteKevin Campbell
I completely agree. If you go onto the links I provided in the post, you'll see that these animated news are not only cheaply hilarious but completely pointless. It's really sad that the news medium has changed from critical to private-interest-driven and now to, dare I say, pointless and stupid.
ReplyDeleteHuiling P.
By the way, the article I mentioned at the end of the post is "Professor Jerkins Goes to Washington"
ReplyDeleteI agree that it is horrible for them to animate news that they are probably not allowed to show if they did have the actual footage of the crime; however, I do not believe that it would change how people act and feel about there sexuality. I believe that similar to video games, it is the choice of the player, in this case the viewer, to get the message from the media. Unless the viewer agrees with whatever they see, I do not think that they will lose confidence or feel different about themselves.
ReplyDeleteI also believe that this just numbs people to horrible things such as blood, gore, and violence by making them everyday occurrences.
Yeah but is it really necessary to expose young kids to blood and gut this early? R-rated movies are banned from minors for a reason...
ReplyDeleteI agree that it is not necessary to expose them to it. As I said it numbs them to gore, blood, and violence, which in certain people can lead to them thinking it is ok. I also agree that the market for this should not exist because it is a sick idea that is completely unnecessary for anyone to see.
ReplyDeleteIt looks like the new Sims!
ReplyDeleteTo be good capitalists, we are often told to put our wallets where our values are... if you think overly violent and sexualized images are a problem, don't go see that latest blockbuster or horror flick. Don't buy that war game, or read a romance novel. But is that enough of a solution? We're already taking the right steps just by thinking about these forms of media and their potential impacts.
I went on the second link you put up. The segment of animated news shared by the news station seems like just an animated version of police/federal agent television shows, such as Numbers, CSI, and Bones. In my opinion, I find that by using animation to recreate events, it takes away from the seriousness and reality of the event having actually occurred. There is a level of emotion attached to seeing a cartoon reenactment versus actors doing the reenactment. By seeing cartoon characters getting attacked and shot at, the audience would think that the character will be fine because it is a cartoon and not a real person. But seeing a real person get hurt, even for pretend, will cause a person to feel strong emotions such as anger and sympathy beyond the thought of “I can’t believe any person is capable of doing that to someone”.
ReplyDeleteOn the topic of sexuality, there is the assumption that all rapists are men when in reality there are also female rapists. For anyone watching rape reenactments, I would hope that they feel disgust at the rapist and realize that they must treat one another with respect. I don’t think that women would assume a weak and helpless image because audiences will want to prevent rape from occurring to themselves by being active in protecting themselves. Being active includes taking self defense classes, being aware of one’s surroundings, walking with a group of people, and carrying pepper spray.
I think this Apple news made the real news... I saw Keith Olbermann making fun of it on his MSNBC news show, "Countdown with Keith Olbermann." You should see if you can find the segment online!
ReplyDeleteI completely agree with what you're saying. It all boils down to the media trying to sell violence and sex. That is why I believe that it is unhealthy for people to constantly watch news because it rarely shows optimistic stories. The media should do a better job of providing more constructive news. It created this market of people that became insatiable for terrifying news. That does not say anything good about our society.
ReplyDeleteEven worse, the media is now making it more graphical and accessible for the audience to see, including children. It is horrific for children to be exposed to the graphical representation of violent and sexual crimes because they are very malleable and can harm their development and also create the crave for this new at a young age.
This technology can definitely be useful, if used in a more constructive way.
The animated news is of course trying to sell sex and violence, as many other programs on TV and movies do.I do not see a point in making real news animated. It seems as if they are making light of the situation if a cartoon character is acting out the rape of a teenage girl. I do not understand the entertaining aspect of this new news program. The families of these victims are most likely more than infuriated over this program, as I know I would be.
ReplyDeleteThe fact that it is animated screams for children to watch this. Although underage children are restricted from viewing the program, all children serf the channels looking for cartoons to watch. If they find one they have never seen its more than likely they will watch it. Of course, adults find amusement in watching cartoons as well but children are prone to come across it and innocently be influenced by it.