By Sammi Wong Student Writer

Communication professor Christopher Holmes Smith

Communication professor Christopher Holmes Smith presented his paper titled “We Have Armageddon!: Media Ritual, Moral Panic, and Market Meltdown” at the Aug. 29 Annenberg Research Seminar. His paper and presentation focused mainly on perceived social problems that affect the media, as well as the influences of well-known figures such as Jim Cramer and Jon Stewart. “Mass media plays an ever-greater role in what counts for financial knowledge in the everyday people,” he said. Smith said the media’s interest in finance has been relatively recent. It was in the 1980s and 1990s that finance became newsworthy. Mainstream media started picking up finance and it was becoming a more popular news and entertainment commodity. With such media attention comes the fluctuation in the finance market whenever the media spins the public into panics or highs. Smith discussed events such as the opening ceremony of the Beijing Olympics, terrorist attacks, public figure scandals and crises as all factors that attribute to the market. Along with the media attention also comes the citizen investor. Financial capitalism erupted and financial jargons became normalized. Smith concluded his presentation with videos preceding the stock market crash in 2008 featuring Jim Cramer (watch), Rick Santelli (watch) and Jon Stewart (watch). One of his final points was that despite the fact that media has now brought so much attention to finance, viewers still have a hard time deciding what voices to trust. About these finance shows like Mad Money, “It’s very difficult for the average viewer to know whether or not it’s entertainment or if it concerns a real measure,” he said.