The Media and Society

In the last 50 years (give or take a few) media’s influence has grown significantly, especially with the advancement of technology. Beginning with the telegraph, then the radio, newspaper, magazines, television, and now with the Internet, the persuasiveness of media usage has developed a sturdy social and cultural impact upon society. Society has entrusted these new gatekeepers as an authority to give us news and entertainment. Media broadcasting has a considerable amount of control over the subject matter the populace watches, as well as what it takes in as truth. With the ability to reach such a wide-ranged audience, as well as their target audiences, media outlets have been fundamentally responsible for structuring people’s daily lives and routines.

We tend to live in a society that depends on information and communication in order to keep moving in the right direction, but it seems as if the messages the media often portray as imperative are simply just inappropriate. Everything from the 11 o’clock news, gossip tabloids, reality television, and product advertisements contain subliminal stimuli to heighten the level of consumer participation.

Typically, when subliminal messages are heard or seen, they are not acknowledged for what they really are. The majority of people spend their time devouring mass amounts of propaganda, heart strings, repetition, and bandwagon strategies behind billion dollar advertisements and ego driven entertainment mediums.

Marshal McLuhan utilizes the phrase “the medium is the message” and uses it as a method of clarifying how the dispersal of the message can often be more important than the subject matter itself.

In some instances, the information transmitted to the masses is comparable to that of the "telescreens" in the dystopian novel 1984. Our attention is, consequently, taken away from what truly matters and is brought to the front lines of the battle for our minds. Everything from, including but not limited to, the car we drive, the people we associate with, the food we eat, the merchandise we buy, the fact and/or fiction we believe, down to the way we live, are dictated by what it is we identify with through various forms of mass media. What companies are selling is, more often than not, a lifestyle or an image, rather than the product.

Five main companies (Time Warner, VIACOM, Vivendi Universal, Walt Disney and News Corp) produce about 95% of all the media we utilize. At one time, there was more diversity among media companies, but many of those were bought out or merged, and the bigfive have now gained the supremacy to mold our beliefs and opinions.

One example of this control would be to ask ourselves, whatever happened to that H1N1 virus? The alarm was sounded but did the mainstream media and the government put into action “doublethink” which references to holding two contradictory ideas in one’s mind simultaneously, paralyzing critical thought? Or did the Tiger Wood’s scandal knock the swine flu out of the standing for top news?

Either way, it seems the propaganda campaign behind the pandemic was a success because countless people went out and got themselves vaccinated. When you’re in the check-out line at the grocery store what magazine is quicker to catch your eye, National Geographic or Us Weekly? It will most likely be the latter, since they’re the ones coughing up the dough to get that eye-level spot on the newsstands.  

Perhaps in reflecting upon why it is we are attracted to such programming, we may find that our motivations behind being attached to them aren’t what we first imagined. When you indulge in irrational information subconsciously, you live in a world of illusion. This is why it is vital to be aware of what kinds of information we are exposing ourselves to every day and to be able to gain perceptions from more places than the ones that have become habitual to our nature. But who is to blame, the public’s ignorance of awareness or the media’s influence?

Because let’s face it, such things wouldn’t even exist if society hadn’t accepted them and fed into them as desirable and reliable sources. Most people don't reject the popular standards. Within Orange County, all you have to do is just pause for a moment and take a look around. What is it you see?