It is increasingly clear that media and culture today are of central importance to the maintenance and reproduction of contemporary societies. Cultures expose society to different personalities, provide models, which display various forms of societal life and cultivate various ways to introduce people into dominant forms of thought and action. These are the types of activities integrate people into society and create our public sphere. Media and technology surround our society; engrained into the fabric of our existence so much so, that it has become hard to find an aspect of life not influenced by its effects. For this reason, media controllers, wield extreme power and influence over the lives of everyday people. Although, they increasingly continue to feed the audience trash, despite their authority as the creator of our social/cultural interactions, and justify their actions by calling themselves industries. Reducing themselves to just businesses whose sole purpose is to create a profit. This admittance of what they feel to be their true purpose however does not hinder their control and power but instead adds to it. Creating a need for there to be some way to analyze and discuss whether they are using their position and power wisely. Filling this void, scholars have theorized ways for individuals to be critical of the media that they intake. One of these critical theories is the “Culture Industry” theory. Using Cultural Theory, as well as other complementary neo Marxist theories, it is possible to determine how Stacy Peralta, once urban youth culture advocate, became incorporated into the superstructure through media use, thus making him a tool for the continued commoditization of society, and a youth marketer for industries l...
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...that even production can be a means of enforcing hegemony, and that he integrated slowly into the dominant structure of capitalist society.
Although it was for his production of Whopper Virgins that Stacey Peralta received most of his criticism, cultural industry theory suggests that all forms of cultural media are tools for the continued reinforcement of the status quo. Culture Industry theorists did not believe in the use of the media for practices alternative to the purposes of reaffirming the status quo. Therefore in terms of cultural industry theory, it was not when Peralta consented to participate in the creation of the Whopper Virgins that he became a tool of the superstructure for the continued domination of society, but when he turned in his sub-cultural lifestyle, to become a film director. It was then that he became a producer of culture industries.
Instead, women are being discriminated and treated as inferior due to the stereotypes that are portrayed in the media. The media creates and reproduces ways of seeing that at a minimum reflect and shape our culture. We can look at the media to understand more about a culture’s values and norms, if we realize the limitations of looking at the media. For example, one may ask, does the news based in the United Sates represent what the American culture is like, or only what stands out from everyday American culture? The answer to that is no. Instead, the media represents what it thinks it will be able to sell and is supported by advertisements. This includes violent acts, the sensationally and inappropriate. Jhally reminds us that “it is this male, heterosexual, pornographic imagination based on the degradation and control of women that has colonized commercial culture in general, although it is more clearly articulated in music videos” (Jhally 2007). Therefore, “media content is a symbolic rather than a literal representation of society and that to be represented in the media is in itself a form of power—social groups that are powerless can be relatively easily ignored, allowing the media to focus on the social groups that ‘really matter’” (Gerbner,
The issue of the relationship between the mass media and the popular culture has always been a controversial issue in social sciences. The political economists insist on the role of the media industry in the creation of this phenomenon of the twentieth century. Though, advocates such as John Fiske, argue that popular culture is actually the creation of the populous itself, and is independent of the capitalist production process of the communication sector. Basing his argument on the immense interpretive power of the people, Fiske believes that the audience is able to break all the indented meanings within a media message. He also believes- by giving new meanings to that specific message they can oppose the power block that is trying to impose its ideology to the public. Consequently, this anarchistic activity of the audience creates the popular culture as a defence mechanism. Even when we accept Fiske’s ideas, we can not disregard the manipulative power of the media and its effects on cultural and social life.
Theodore Adorno and Max Horkheimer were two renowned Jewish representatives of the Frankfurt School of Critical Theory; they were particularly dominant during the early 20th century, approximately around the time of the 1920’s to 1960s. They took refuge in America after Adolf Hitler’s rise in Germany. These to philosophers developed the ‘Culture Industry Theory’ in the 1940s, in light of the disturbed society they had seen during this time. They witnessed how Nazi Fascism used mass media such as films, radio and newspapers to brainwash millions into partaking in this ideology. Similarly they saw the rise of Capitalism in America, which also used mass media such as Hollywood films and advertising to disseminate the masses into the capitalist Ideology. This essay will evaluate how the ‘culture industry’ had profound social impacts in society and examine weather it is valid in contemporary society.
Habermas, J. (2000). The public sphere. In P. Marris & S. Thornham (Eds.), Media Studies : A reader(2nd.) (pp. 92–97). New York: New York University Press.
We live in a world of mass media in these modern days. We often believe that mass media functions mostly to make our life better than before, yet, mass media have ulterior motives. Among other elements within mass media, aspect entertainment grows to illustrate the ulterior motives behind mass media industries. Entertainment used to indicate any action that supplies a recreation or offers people to have well being of their leisure time. On the other hand, as many other authors have noted, entertainment is often also simply understood as something which causes the decline of moral principles (Habermas, 93). Due to the enormous impact of information, images, and messages from mass media, entertainment produces a society in which you can get away from reality. In other words, it is a society in which you are forced to believe what you observe from mass medium is the truth. Mass media and their productions possess the power to force us obtain deceptive information, images and message about what is moral or immoral in our cultural environment and our socialization.
The dominant traditions have an important role to many economies in terms of assessing change and continuity that involves the growth of prosperity and employment in the cultural industries. The process to determine the best solution may be complicated and tiresome as controversy surrounds these traditions. Profit generating and control may be the main reasons of these approaches, but they also carry an important characteristic in how society understands “the relationships between culture, society and economy.” (Hesmondhalgh, 2007, p.6) Many compare and contrast on whether political economy or cultural studies approaches are more useful towards the study of media and popular cultural. If both approaches can get past their differences, perhaps they may have the potential to work in harmony together in achieving the same goals.
The Mass Media is a unique feature of modern society; its development has accompanied an increase in the magnitude and complexity of societal actions and engagements, rapid social change, technological innovation, rising personal income and standard of living and the decline of some traditional forms of control and authority.
Mass media has gone through quite a transformation over the past decade where there were only a couple forms of media. Today mass media has many different forms, from the TV, to the internet, to radio, to social media sites; the list goes on and on. In this paper I will discuss the evolution of mass media during the last century, as well how these developments influence American culture. Furthermore, I will discuss the term media convergence and how it affects our everyday life in ways we never even gave a second thought to. Lastly, I will discuss the absolute importance of media literacy for responsible media consumption
As media culture continues to help construct our world views and identities, we should be critical of what we consume and who the person/entity behind it
O’Shaughnessy, M., Stadler, J. (2009)Media and Society: An introduction. Dominant Ideology and Hegemony. London: Oxford.
The contemporary society is a “society of spectacle” (Debord 12). The spectacle is not a mere collection of images. It is rather a sum of interpersonal social relations mediated by images. The spectacle is both a visual deception produced by mainstream media and a materialized worldview. In a “society of spectacle” all the existing media can be virtually divided into two categories – alternative media and mainstream media (Waltz viii). The mainstream media products, through which our mediated culture is produced and consumed, are ubiquitous. Due to the growing concentration of media ownership, fewer voices can be heard within the mainstream media landscape. Under such conditions, alternative media counterbalance the mainstream
Our opening discussion will also give the reader a sense of current debates and issues within cultural and media theory, emphasizing which issues and controversies are of crucial importance in the contemporary era. Our narrative will track salient develop- ments in the study of culture and media, supplying a mapping of the prevailing fields of theories and methods which have proliferated especially since the 1960s. Indeed, to pursue our KeyWorks metaphor, each perspective provides an opening into the complex terrain of contemporary media and culture, furnishing access to understanding the world in which we live. Each “key” will open doors to new domains, such as ideology, the politics of representations, and cultural
Living in a modern time, our lives can hardly be separated from creativity and culture. Creative industries have increasingly influenced our daily lives, not just the products we use, but also the money we make. According to DCMS (2014), creative industries in Britain are worth more than £70 billion to its economy every year, not to mention creative industries in other countries. In the following, the seven economic properties as stated in Caves (2000) will be applied to the creative industry, ‘New Media’. ‘New Media’ is one of the nine creative industries proposed in the UNCTAD’s
There was a continued discussion of the public vs. masses. Following propaganda research, this debate looked at the tension between communism and capitalism and broadened the discussion from politics and the economy to include education and socialization, among others. At this point, researchers viewed mass media as having a more nuanced role as a tool. There was more of a focus on how people and society influence and use the media, as opposed to the other way around. In Riesman, Denny & Glaser (1950), the researchers traced the changes in storytelling and asked “how should society function?” How should society behave and what does social control mean? For Macdonald (1957), the new mass culture was significantly different from high culture and folk culture (pg. 344), as it had a homogenizing and trivializing effect. In Powerdermaker (1950), the researcher employs the qualitative nature of critical theory in discussing how Hollywood’s body of ideas influence their process and product. This ethnography study discussed the dangers of commodification and just how ingrained it is. In Meyerson and Katz (1957), the “fad” is argued as a power tool, with the ability to facilitate social change. Not only does the piece offer insight into this behavior, it also provides a prototype for change via the fad. These examples explored resonance of the Frankfurt School that eventually
Under the surface of colorful, exciting, and the captivating exterior of mass media content lies deep, hidden machinery that works hard to overwhelm its audiences with equally deeply concealed messages, popularized and exhibited by the media owners. These messages influence their consumers personally and socially, eventually producing a culture which is highly impacted by the media. The purpose of this paper is to probe beneath the mass media surface and see how the theories of mass communication be applied to an analysis of media and its products, and examine the deeper meanings in the messages conveyed by the contents that the media produce.