ritualized media

As James Carey stated in his article, our society believes in communication as a transmission process. We watch the news and view media in order to receive information we didn't have already. The means of this transmission, however, has become highly ritualized. Perhaps it is done this way because it is more efficient this way, easier to recognize and mass produce, but it also makes it static, boring even. Perhaps this is the reason for the huge success of programs that attempt to present the information in a new or original way, strive to be something other than boring. One such program is the Daily Show with Jon Stewart. While on a comedy network, someone watching the program would learn the news of the day while they laugh. The Onion is another such publication that uses satire and comedy to present its information. While these two sources should not be trusted implicitly as news sources, they do perform an important role in news dissemination. By poking fun at traditional news sources and exposing their weaknesses, they cause change and bring about better news coverage.