These are trophies. I’ll tell you in a minute why they are there.

As I have discussed before, news serves a cultural function. It tells people what to believe, how to believe it, and sometimes why they should believe it. Such a cultural role maintains the dominant ideology and maintains the power of those in charge.

News narratives — familiar stories that construct a way of telling about issues that otherwise would be confusing to the audience — is an example of how journalists construct culturally significant tales. See my post on mothers who kill their children, for instance.

But what can be confusing about this conversation can be understanding how news “makes sense” or how it doesn’t. It’s the news, you might say. What’s not to understand?

Well, if news is presented as “facts” and events that are outside of the expected or the ordinary, the audience will disregard the story and any of its meanings. Further, if media lose the attention of the audience, or if the audience questions the meanings and the purpose of some news coverage, the media risk losing their authority.

So what does this have to do with trophies at the top?

Well, last week, University of Iowa, Iowa State University, and an Iowa corn growers group revealed a new trophy to be awarded after the big game between the rival football teams. The old trophy on the left has a football. The new one on the right doesn’t, but it does have a stalk of corn and a family and a bunch of other stuff.

To create buzz about the football game, the rivalry, and corn, this new trophy was unveiled at the Iowa State Fair.

Long story short: People hated it.

Iowans hated it so much that they demanded the new trophy be replaced with something that represented — wait for it — football.

The corn people’s trophy just didn’t make sense. Where was the punter? The QB preparing to toss a hail mary?

At it again, social media came to the rescue. (Note, social media, not the people using social media, seem to be awarded the praise.) Thousands of Tweets, emails and other messages rallied to create change, to melt the new trophy and form a new one.

But what does any of this have to do with news and its cultural meanings?

For people beginning to explore the cultural side of news, this image of two trophies is a good example of what happens when something “doesn’t make sense.” The public outburst about the trophy ridiculed the design, but also attacked the validity — and sanity — of the two state universities and the corn growers association that now sponsors the rival match.

This is what happens (or what can happen) if media present news in unexpected ways, such as if gang violence was described from the gang’s perspective, or if the Miss America pageant was covered as being sexist and damaging to gender roles.

It will be interesting to see what new trophy emerges, to see what makes sense to the audience. And, it will be interesting to know if my explanation even made any sense. It might not, I suppose.