The MEDIA

So this is a debate I have quite often with friends and colleagues so I want to hear what you guys think.

The media is a part of everyone's daily lives, we pass adverts on the streets, read news articles and hear reports on the radio everyday. We take all of these things in and process them, our brains sorting that information and applying it to our own ideals and opinions. But what I want to discuss is this. Do you feel that the media has control of our choices and opinions, to the point of manipulating us and the things we do? Could the media in fact have control over politics and the government's decisions? With technology becoming ever advanced, and scandals popping up left right and centre, does the media take advantage of those situations and use it to sculpt a picture that is in the design of the fat-cats sat behind the media labels? Discuss!

So, in academia this very issue is still highly contested!

Do citizens participate in media? Is media a democratic process?

Some work says that there is a two-way information flow, but there is higher control in information flow from elites, corporations, politicians, and other prominent media sources. Consumers are not consumers of information, but in contrast, consumers provide information to media sources and use that information as a means of heightening interactive control over their consumer who they can now use information to target and manipulate.

However, some social scientist are less cynical of this process and claim that media provides spaces for citizens to exert some control over cultural citizenship. Meaning, American media (tv or internet) can be used as a tool for citizens participate in what it means to "be an American". Notice how both politically and culturally minorities have not had any control over cultural citizenship prior to the advent of mass media and internet technology. The internet and technological advancement are thought to have had some impact in the creation of spaces for minorities to employ power, albeit, still less than hegemonic institutions and non-minorities.

In that respect, the two-way information pathway is asymmetric and likely has both positive and negative implications. The internet especially needs more time to be evaluated especially since its hard to distinguish the effects of internet and new media with 9/11, Iraq, and the Great Recession. The internet may have correlations to a variety of context, but not causality. Though, I will say, internet, information-storing, and consumer information collection is magnified through internet, but with that said, it is not necessarily the case that internet is bad. Rather, the political and economic context inform the way political actors and elites might utilize internet as a means to commodity information.

I've always kinda thought of the media in general in America as a big real life troll basically.

Whether or not it's some subtle manipulation scheme by those with power, I don't know.

The media is extremely important, but unless regulated and the journalists act with integrity, it can become very dangerous. Take for example media in the USA, many of their segments involve fear mongering for the sake of grabbing viewers. As many media outlets are privately operated and therefore want to make profit they will create content that will get more viewers, regardless if the coverage is fair and unbiased.

The consequence is that people are being misinformed or having opinion pushed on them as though it is fact, which is abhorrent. The beat way to avoid this is to get your news from reputable outlets (I only really trust the ABC in Australia) or be informed on the same topic from numerous outlets.

The world is a medial battlefield. With lots of different medias competing against each other, in order to gain more viewership, you have to stick out. But how do you accomplish that?

It's one of these "whoever screams the loudest, gets everything" situations. Potential viewers are used to ignore most of the noise that is advertisement, but if you confront them with something that's both different and simple enough, it's going to stick in their head and while that's not going to do much at first, whenever they find themselves in a situation where they need a certain medium, chances are, that specific medium pops up again.
Another problem is that people tend to use whatever they are used to. If something worked for them for years, even if there is something that's objectively better they won't change a thing.

This leaves them being prone for manipulation as said medium can take advantage of its "monopoly" by bending the truth in whatever way they feel like. Education is probably one major issue as well, because if people don't learn to question what they get told, they start believing everything.

Zekrom said:

I've always kinda thought of the media in general in America as a big real life troll basically.

Whether or not it's some subtle manipulation scheme by those with power, I don't know.

Click to expand...

One subtle example of American media manipulation is the difference in TIME cover stories across the world compared to the American ones, particularly those relating to the Middle East and Islam.

It goes on, really. It's only a small example of what the American public gets given, nothing compared to what happens when nationalism is a factor.