Philosophy Now Forum

We are shaped, our outlook, character, identity even, by mass culture, controlled by our elite-rulers (what do they want us to be?)

What can we do to free ourselves?


Defining Media through Ideological Influences

Media both perpetuate identities to the public and are receptors of an ideology created and sustained within society. Media do not only send ideological messages out to the public but media systems are also interwoven into the ideological framework of society. Media also have their greatest influence on individuals over time. Through repeated exposure, media can have an influence on personal values, identity and beliefs (Ball-Rokeach, Rokeach & Grube 1984). These values, identity and beliefs are undoubtedly reinforced by external inputs, such as friends, family, schools, teachers and other institutional forces in society. However, media play a ‘significant role in shaping people's values and value orientation in contemporary society. Media content may articulate a value, demonstrate its applications, and foster a cultural environment for its adoption as a preferred standard for social comparison’ (Paek & Pan 2004: 495). These social comparisons lead to ideological changes within individuals, communities and nations but at a glacially slow pace. One viewing of a hip-hop music video will not change how an individual views women, but a decade of watching this genre of music videos may have a profound impact on how a person thinks of the female sex. Cultivation theory (Gerbner 1969) argues that through long-term exposure to media, a cumulative effect begins to actually shape a person's views of social reality. Since Gerbner's (1969) groundbreaking research, there have been countless studies that have found mitigating factors against the cultivation of beliefs and attitudes through the media, but none have found that the cultivation effect does not exist. Research exploring cultivation theory has argued that such a long-term analysis of media effects can also help to explain actual behavioural changes and not just shifts in beliefs and attitudes that may occur over time (Entman 2004; Powlick & Katz 1998).

Reason and logic would be my suggestion, take all forms of information as they are, but give no weight to any medium unless it deserves it by the meticulous process of thinking and reasoning on it based on previous learning and common sense.

But meh what do I know..?

Dude though as long as I gots my bitches and bling I is aright.

Incidentally bitches and bling are not anything to do with hip hop, that's black culture, and it's permeation, boasting about how much you have is so in right now amongst gangstas. You see for at least a century the accumulation of wealth amongst black people in the US was much harder, and african Americans were degraded and subjugated, so that when a more enlightened age came around and black artists got out of the ghettos, the whole culture of showing an image to the world emerged, it's not always a bad thing I am sure even if you are Vanilla Ice...

"Television the drug of the nation, breeding ignorance and spewing radiation."

Disposable Heroes Of Hiphoprisy.

Okay, but the unconscious does not care for all that what you say and absorbs the majority of info. Once it's gone in it starts re-arranging the furniture in there. Maybe we could just make info which empowers rather than degrades.

Yes that is actually one of the five elements of hip hop, positivity.

But enough about rap, I am starting to sound like Ali G.

I think the zeitgeist idea is a very valid one, ie the spirit of the times is what directs culture but that in turn is directed back by counter culture and so on. I think the age we live in is a much less intolerant and dangerous place than 200 years ago, progress is being made, but with the pace of icebergs and some devolution.

Pluto wrote:What can we do to free ourselves?

I don't know that there's much we can do to free ourselves as a collective effort. As Madison said, "As long as the reason of man continues fallible, and he is at liberty to exercise it . . . ." It seems to me the only way to pursue a plan of collective enlightenment (assuming that's even possible) is to establish a government with absolute power to command the many to do as it wishes; but this, of course, portends the sort of nightmarish totalitarianism described and envisioned by writers such as Arendt, Orwell, and others. If your relatively more modest goal is to control the media only, I'm not convinced that eliminating silly TV shows is going to solve the problem of distraction via cheap thrills and base pleasures. To paraphrase a memorable line from a recent U.S. Supreme Court case: vice, like water, will always find an outlet. That's simply a fact when dealing with flawed beings.

Moreover, even if we managed to create a governmental framework that perfectly monitored, controlled, and corrected errant citizens, we would not necessarily be acquiescing to a state of affairs beyond the bounds of Plato's cave. Agreement, as Strauss once said, may produce peace but it cannot produce truth. Thus, there would always be the possibility that our paternalistic state had itself erred when setting down the criteria as to what constitutes acceptable media.

Pluto wrote:Media both perpetuate identities to the public and are receptors of an ideology created and sustained within society. Media do not only send ideological messages out to the public but media systems are also interwoven into the ideological framework of society. Media also have their greatest influence on individuals over time. Through repeated exposure, media can have an influence on personal values, identity and beliefs (Ball-Rokeach, Rokeach & Grube 1984).

quack quack quack quack quack

i have developed a test for duckspeak

i get a child - i have several readily available - and ask her or him to quack like a duck in rhythm to what i read out loud

if they can maintain a rhythm, it is duckspeak

this passages passes (or fails?) the test - anyway it is duckdpeak

large chunks of marx show up as duckspeak on this test, as do most things presidents of the united states say in public

likewise much of mostmodern and 'progressive" writing

one of the children already got in trouble at school for quacking in time to one of his teachers duckspeaking

i_another wrote:

Pluto wrote:What can we do to free ourselves?

I don't know that there's much we can do to free ourselves as a collective effort. As Madison said, "As long as the reason of man continues fallible, and he is at liberty to exercise it . . . ." It seems to me the only way to pursue a plan of collective enlightenment (assuming that's even possible) is to establish a government with absolute power to command the many to do as it wishes; but this, of course, portends the sort of nightmarish totalitarianism described and envisioned by writers such as Arendt, Orwell, and others. If your relatively more modest goal is to control the media only, I'm not convinced that eliminating silly TV shows is going to solve the problem of distraction via cheap thrills and base pleasures. To paraphrase a memorable line from a recent U.S. Supreme Court case: vice, like water, will always find an outlet. That's simply a fact when dealing with flawed beings.

Moreover, even if we managed to create a governmental framework that perfectly monitored, controlled, and corrected errant citizens, we would not necessarily be acquiescing to a state of affairs beyond the bounds of Plato's cave. Agreement, as Strauss once said, may produce peace but it cannot produce truth. Thus, there would always be the possibility that our paternalistic state had itself erred when setting down the criteria as to what constitutes acceptable media.

Thanks, interesting what you've written. A broad mass of beings are happier under a system of control than not. There needs to be a framework. But what we have now is rotten, desperate and de-humanising, as if the current frame was preparing a populace for war. How to confront the programmers of constructed reality?!

Kayla wrote:

Pluto wrote:Media both perpetuate identities to the public and are receptors of an ideology created and sustained within society. Media do not only send ideological messages out to the public but media systems are also interwoven into the ideological framework of society. Media also have their greatest influence on individuals over time. Through repeated exposure, media can have an influence on personal values, identity and beliefs (Ball-Rokeach, Rokeach & Grube 1984).

quack quack quack quack quack

i have developed a test for duckspeak

i get a child - i have several readily available - and ask her or him to quack like a duck in rhythm to what i read out loud

if they can maintain a rhythm, it is duckspeak

this passages passes (or fails?) the test - anyway it is duckdpeak

large chunks of marx show up as duckspeak on this test, as do most things presidents of the united states say in public

likewise much of mostmodern and 'progressive" writing

one of the children already got in trouble at school for quacking in time to one of his teachers duckspeaking

Duckspeak, what in the heel or you talking about. You are a product of society no?

Pluto wrote: Duckspeak, what in the heel or you talking about. You are a product of society no?

'duckspeak' is a newspeak word for speaking without thinking - perfect for speaking about things you bellyfeel are true and do not need to think about. duckspeak double plus good

everyone is a product of society

which is what makes the rants about 'media' so vacuous . . everyone is influenced by stories and images around us - this is not a new discovery

Society is sick and to be a product of it is ruinous.

Pluto wrote:Society is sick and to be a product of it is ruinous.

you probably read this in a book

And if I did it means what?

your attachment doesn't work try using tags.

Pluto wrote:And if I did it means what?

that saying that we are shaped by mass media does not really say very much