Where does society find it's dominant views? Many believe we inherit our core values from family, school, church, and our friends. People don't generally think of the media as influential upon of our core values. The media plays an intricate part in our lives, just think about how much time we spend surrounded by it!
How many of us can name all these characters but not two members of the Supreme Court, your Senators or Secretary of State?
Our media has taken on the job of driving the public to conform with the political, social and economic status quo. Nothing is asked of viewers. Television is not interactive. We sit, listen, consume, never question. While the "aim" of our media system is to educate and inform citizens, actuality has shown us the real goal of our media system is to make money by selling viewers to advertisers. What role does this play in society?
Lazarfeld feels this type of media has the effect of "narcotizing dysfunction". Meaning television viewers, especially in terms of the news, mistake knowing about a problem without acting on it. People who know about a problem yet do nothing to resolve it might as well not know about it at all. Everybody in society knows about global warming but how many people have done anything at all to show their disapproval of it, besides maybe a casual conversation. Americans, especially within the younger generation, spend countless hours consuming media without reacting to anything. I'm guilty of it as well. I read the news online and while much of what I read disturbs me I have not been drawn to act upon my anger. I have not written a letter to my Congressman or Senator about what I want to see come out of the Copenhagen Climate Summit, I have not written about my support of public health care, I have not written about the failure of our school systems to include provocative information and an unbiased account of history in curriculum. But I have updated my Face Book status 5 times this week, scanned numerous blogs about irrelevant pop culture, fashion, and cute animals. The worst part about doing this is that I
know it's an udder waste of time! Yet I hit the Stumble button again and again.
Why is it that our generation sees fit to consume without reaction? Our parents burned their bras and revolutionized women's rights, hitch-hiked to Woodstock, protested Vietnam in the streets and on campus, marched in support of Malcolm and King! What have we done? Absolutely nothing! Well, that's a lie. People really seem to be into bumper stickers, shirts with peace signs on them and reusable coffee mugs or water bottles (again with bumper stickers on them). Is this an acceptable substitute for action? I think the answer is obvious. But am I going to go out after my finals and scream out that America has in fact become a major terrorist force in this world in front of the Student Union? Probably only if I was drunk. But then again, those hippies were all drugged up.. maybe that's why Nixon started throwing money at the black hole that is the war on drugs.
The cause of this dysfunction lies within the media itself. In what we are shown, what is glamorized, what is scorned. What is glamorized is conformation, Twittering, American Idol, celebrity news such as Tiger Wood's infidelity. Looking at the FoxNews website, which I'm using for obvious reasons, top stories for the day are police protestor disputes at the Copenhagen Summit; which fucntions to ignore what is actually going on there. Second was a blurb on a mentally disturbed man who reached the doors of the hospital at which Italian Prime Minister Silvio Burlusconi is recovering. They do not cover malcontent for his rule or the protests against Burlusconi.
In defense of Fox News I present Jon Steward describing the persecution Fox endures by the crazy liberals.
Here, especially in the first section about protesters a clear frame of what is and is not a legitimate issue to protest. Public option health care: a nobel cause to protest, who are we to rob the insurance and drug companies of their much deserved billions. If you can't pay $60,000 to have the tip of your finger reattached (as in Sicko) you probably didn't really need that finger tip anyways. If it was worth it, wouldn't have helped you earn that amount in order to protect itself? Lets ignore the fact that the average American makes less than $30,000 a year.
War protesters on the other hand are raving lunatics who cannot control themselves.
Programs such as FOX (although an extreme example it's certainly not the only one) provide a frame for acceptable discourse. Under these provisions, certain things are acceptable to be outraged about, while others certainly are not. This makes the regular American question their dissenting views. After the 9-11 attacks and the rally for war, there were protests all over the world disputing the need for war, claiming and eye for an eye leaves the whole world blind. These were not aired on popular American news programs, rather the people saw calls for war and revenge.
Web images such as these, if shown in mainstream media would have severely damaged the war efforts and were therefore excluded from mainstream media coverage. This allowed a singular discourse to surround war coverage.
While there are those who disagree and act on their discontent, they are absent from media portrayals, creating the idea among the average viewer that although people may be upset with society, they are not angry enough to act. So viewers do not act. If the American media had some good old fashioned coverage of protests the our system of democratic dictatorship would be in serious trouble.
Let me start this off by saying I'm not a gamer. I can barely navigate my way through a game of Mario Cart. Because of this, I am disconnect from the media and able to look at it more objectively.
