Clearly, the NFL Referees' Lockout by their (primarily) billionaire owners was a test to see how far the rights of unionized workers could be diffused. The dilemma of media outlets, as reliant on advertising that is owned or controlled by corporations, was how to report the Lockout in a way that would not affect their own media revenue streams. In essence, the NFL Referees' Lockout negotiations became a stalemate that embodied and symbolized corporate control over U.S. society.
How would various U.S. media outlets depict the Lockout? Could they/ would they deconstruct disparate points of views and ideologies without sacrificing their viability? To what degree would different media outlets incorporate a wide array of voices and constituents in the Lockout debacle?
One way to get answers to some of these questions is to turn to Storify.com. Storify is a free online research tool which allows you to search popular culture topics via social media or Google postings. It's a very efficient way to see what others are saying about a contemporary topic in the news. You can do more than surf, if you like: you can create your own Story, which represents your individual search and compilation. So, why don't you turn to the story I researched, created, and commented upon, NFL Refs' Lockout, to see what the media said from the onset to resolution of the story? And post a comment afterward, so you can share in the conversation about media, the NFL Lockout, and Storify as a mechanism to figure out what's going on in popular culture.
