The dominance and power of the west is affecting cultures. Bagdikian states that in 2004 only 7 corporations owned all the media from approximately 50 in 1983. This concentration of the media brings limited views and benefits capitalism as people will only be influenced in a certain way as news is a social construction to benefit the capitalist state. (McQuail) Cultural hegemony is the result of this. It is therefore threatening the cultural identities of many countries because this one culture is being largely promoted due to the dominance of the western media and media imperialism.
Evaluate pluralist theories of ownership and control of the media. (33 Marks) The mass media is the means by which messages and images are communicated to a mass audience, it does this through its various Mass Communication Technologies (MCTs), and for instance the Internet is a very powerful and influential MCT communicating worldwide. MCTs educate, persuade and inform as well as entertain their audience. Media is geographically dispersed and has no limits due to its global domination. It is also culturally diverse and socially mixed.
The word “media” can be described many different ways, in both a positive and negative light. The influence of the media and definition of the term depends on the time to which you are referring too. Our course notes describe the media as, “a term applied to public and private organizations that convey information mostly for profit but sometimes for the public good.” Several things in that statement make me raise an eyebrow. A key fact here is that the media is owned and is out to turn a profit. As we all know, any time money is involved, it can lead to greed and corruption.
Jerrod Coulter Ap Gov Pd.8 PAC’S are groups of people or companies who are likeminded forming political committees to fund certain political purposes. These PAC’s are perfectly legal however they are undermining our government by swaying political leaders to lean towards protecting their interest in return for more money. In this way the roles that these groups fill is no more than to slow down and distort our political process for their own agenda. I argue that PAC’s are the biggest threat to our Republic’s democratic process currently. Big oil and coal is major political influence in America and it’s very evident, very recently at a meeting of the United States house committee of science, space, and technology.
Greg Thompson COM 240 Dr. Bettler October 26, 2011 Midterm Take Home Essay Marxism is a theory that is based on removing the exploitation of the working class, or the proletariat, by the middle class, or the bourgeoisie. According to Karl Marx this societal status quo is one of the major problems with capitalism. Part of this exploitation is being able to keep the proletariat under control. This can, seemingly obviously, be done by controlling the media and what the proletariat read, see and hear about in their everyday lives. On a broad scale this is done in the modern world and even in the United States of America.
In what ways can Fight Club be read as a Marxist critique of corporate capitalism and consumer culture? Fight Club has been argued to be a Marxist critique of the exploitation received by the proletariat from the bourgeoisie in terms of corporate capitalism and consumer culture in a capitalist society. It highlights the methods of control used by those in power in order to maintain a passive working class who, instead of resenting the bourgeoisie, rebels against there own class, creating a divided working class who are alienated from each other, which preserves the status quo. During the film, those in a position of power, for example, the narrator’s boss, are symbolically representative of the media, government and business corporations. In one shot, the narrator’s boss is only shown from the neck down, signifying that all people in positions of power share the same values and highlights that a capitalist society is not personal, instead only interested in money and profit.
Karl Marx was one of the founders of sociology. He focused on the effects of capitalism. He thought that the economic system of the society determined the beliefs and values of that society. Marxists believe that the most important force in society is class conflict. In capitalist societies, workers are employed to produce goods which are sold by their employers at a profit.
This generates commitments to objects instead of people, creating a more separate and powerful sense of self, which turns social relations into competitive interactions. Consumer culture has introduced disposability into the minds of consumers, which means more than throwing away produced goods, but also being able to throw away values, lifestyles, stable relationships, and attachments to things, buildings, people and received ways of being and doing (Harvey, 1990,285). American consumer culture came into being after WW1, when successful American corporations faced the threat of overproduction. Corporations needed to make sure consumers would buy their products and found ways to turn luxury products into functional products. Through advertising, product placement, celebrity endorsement and even social movements, corporations found ways to convince consumers to want things they didn’t need.
This is because the pervasive nature of the media thus leads to an immense power to deliver information that has the potential to influence people’s lives, which includes their thinking and beliefs. For example, during the Singapore General Election held in May last year, the media have played a significant role in the dissemination of information regarding the activities of various political parties. The ease of accessibility to online forums had played a role in helping the public to discuss online and make informed decisions on the voting day itself. Similarly, the members of various political parties also
The most commonly discussed forms of bias occur when the media support or attack a particular political party, candidate, or ideology; however, other common forms of bias exist, including advertising bias, corporate bias, sensationalism. Advertising bias refers to when stories are selected to please advertisers; corporate bias refers to when stories are selected to please corporate owners of media; Sensationalism is a type of editorial bias in mass media in which events and topics in news stories and pieces are over-hyped to increase viewership or readership numbers. Sensationalism may include reporting about generally insignificant matters and events that don't