I would like to approach this blog in a bit of a more casual manner. I think that the closer we get to focusing on ideas that we actively see affecting our lives (like the role of Disney or the issue of piracy), the importance of relating to these issues from personal experience increases.
To start, I would like to pose a few overarching questions that are raised in the critique of McChesney’s article, “The Media System Goes Global.” Are we apathetic to the political process? Are we simply passive viewers of the media? Do we only view the media for entertainment? I’m not so sure, but McChesney definitely is.
McChesney firmly believes in the close interconnectedness between the media and the political system. I think that most people would agree. The media is used as a critical public sphere by which we discuss our democracy and the politicians in it. It is through the media that debates take place, and where we get a large amount of our information. McChesney furthers this argument by looking at organizations such as Disney, News Corp, and Time Warner, to show the dominance of their vertical and horizontal integration worldwide. He shows how this affects the economy, and therefore the commercialization of the media. This also affects the public sphere and politics as they push for their own interests.
There is no doubt in my mind that McChesney is right in these statements regarding commercialization, but what about his conclusions that as a result people possess increased apathy and cynicism?
There is no doubt that we can’t get away from media and advertisements – they are embedded in our society in countless ways. People are constantly talking about various media outlets for various reasons, and every time you listen to the radio, watch a tv show, watch the news, watch a movie, or walk down the street there are advertisements. There are even advertisements embedded in the programming we watch in the form of product placement. The media is also increasingly a jumble of repetitious news stories that simply show thin surface discussions of critical issues, as Cottle and Rai research in their article, Global 24/7 news providers: Emissaries of global dominance or global public sphere?”
I think the question is though, why do we watch media in the first place? Of course media is largely used for entertainment. Even politics can be viewed as a form of entertainment (a large concern for McChesney, I’m sure).
To do some research, I wanted to first cover a pressing question left opened in my mind from class: I wanted to know what a meme is. According to wordlnetweb.princeton.edu, a meme is “a cultural unit (an idea or value or pattern of behavior) that is passed from one person to another by non-genetic means (as by imitation).” At knowyourmeme.com there are countless Youtube links, posters, and other cultural images. There are clips from television shows, funny videos people uploaded individually, and commercials such as this: the never say no to panda. http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/never-say-no-to-panda. I think though, that if you sift through these images, and really take a good look at what is represented, there is more there than people thoughtlessly joking around (although the panda is fairly amusing, and yes, at this site it is actually largely a joke). I would argue that youtube videos, images, and other technologies are a tool that shows how our culture is responding to the world that we live in.
I think my overarching point is that, as we discussed in class, people are finding their own new and innovative ways to use what does exist to speak out and to actively express themselves, such as in the example of social movements worldwide. There are even examples, such as John Stewart’s The Daily Show, where I believe we are simply using entertainment as a lighter way to actually face what is really going on in our world.
I don’t think that people’s minds are shut off. I don’t think that people are apathetic and uncaring about the world and the politicians and states that govern them. I do believe though, that people are up against a tough reality that is the large corporations and their impact on the media messages that reach consumers and on politics. I think that because of the large amount of media perpetration in our society, people have to look for entertainment to ease the harshness, even if it is through knowyourmeme.com, or through a funny political satire show. People are definitely expressing their opinions.
I definitely think our culture has used media as a different way of expressing itself creatively - our generation does more than write editorials or leave angry comments on news sites. Instead of just responding to things we react and produce our own content - i.e., memes, youtube, the Daily Show.
ReplyDeleteMcChesney overlooked, I think, the idea that there are so many different ways for consumers to respond to information, and I think he mistook that for apathy. And maybe - even if to a slight extent, he is right, people are more apathetic about politics - I'd say that's a reaction to the system in itself, which sends just as strong of a message.
And the savviest news consumers are less likely to respond solely to the pressure of large corporations, so I'd say that such companies have an uphill battle if they really want to use their power to control politics and people's attitudes towards it.